Nick DeMartino, director of new media ventures and associate director of strategic planning at the American Film Institute (AFI), is the founder of the AFI's Enhanced TV Workshop, which each year brings together TV producers and design and technology experts with the goal of building working enhanced TV prototypes. (Note: the AFI just issued a call for entries for its 2003 Workshop--see article in this issue.) He recently spoke to [itvt]'s Tracy Swedlow about the history and goals of the ETV Workshop, about the requirements for participation, about the Workshop's plans to reach out to the international ITV community, and more.

[itvt]: How did you first become interested in interactive television?

DeMartino: Well, I think it came out of what became for me a general fascination with interactivity, and I distinctly remember the moment when that began: back in 1979, I was a judge for something called the New York Festival, and they had an interactive version of a television show, called "Life Story," that was produced by the BBC. The show had been made into an interactive Macintosh-controlled, level-3 laserdisc at the Apple Media Lab in San Francisco, which is a late-lamented and pioneering organization. It told the story of the discovery of DNA--it was basically a biopic of the 2 scientists who discovered it--and you could go deeper into the content by clicking. It blew me away. It provided text, graphics, additional pieces of video, and it was user-controlled.

[itvt]: Why do you think it made such an impression on you?

DeMartino: I think it was in part because it converged a lot of different things that had previously been separate into something that was greater than the sum of its parts. I was also completely fascinated when I got my first hands-on experience with interactivity: when I bought my first Mac, I got HyperCard. I brought it home and I was going through the tutorial, sitting with my coffee in my pajamas and robe--basically creating buttons and making things clickable all over the place--and the next thing I knew, it was 5 in the afternoon and I was still staring at this little screen, and still making stuff.

[itvt]: How did you come to found the ETV Workshop?

DeMartino: Well, the workshop is based on an AFI core principle: that you learn by doing and that you do that best by studying with people who have done that before. We have lots of examples of this approach, the most important of which is the AFI Conservatory, where we train future filmmakers and television artists. Specifically, the ETV Workshop came about as the result of a series of collaborations we proposed to Intel Corporation in 1996. Intel had expressed an interest in bringing Hollywood and Silicon Valley together: they wanted to work with the AFI, and we had instituted a 3-year agreement with them. During the first year of that agreement, they supported a variety of our existing programs. They were a major sponsor of the AFI International Film Festival and a number of other things. However, I approached them with the Workshop idea because interactive television was an area that Intel thought they were interested in at the time, and also because the Workshop corresponded to one of our goals, which was to create an effective model for bringing together artists, technologists, business people and others. The first year we really did anything was 1998. It was only 2 years after the unsuccessful launch of the Full Service Network in Orlando, and ITV was not something that a lot of people were enthusiastic about. In a way, it was kind of nuts for AFI to say, "Well, maybe we can make Hollywood pay attention to this." But I had been given confidence by the fact that we had done a lot of great things with other companies. We had opened the AFI Apple Computer Center in 1991, and had succeeded in bringing more than 5000 people through a program that allowed them to become comfortable with technology that they never thought about using before to make movies and TV. And so we felt that we had a really great skill, which was to make a comfortable environment for the creative community to explore new technology. The challenge with the ETV Workshop was that the ITV medium was very nascent. If the goal is to have people learn from the masters of a medium, then with ITV, back in '97, '98, that was going to be hard, because the medium was barely in existence.

[itvt]: How did the first ETV Workshop event go. Did it meet your expectations? What did you learn from it?

DeMartino: Well, first of all, we had no full-time staff. Basically, I worked with colleagues at the AFI who had done other, similar workshops. We hired consultants who organized the launch event, and then tried to get a reasonable production environment set up--of course, it was an instant production environment, so it was definitely a challenge. And the results, I think, were predictably very uneven in terms of product. Among the things we learned were that we needed a full-time, year-round staff, and that we needed a full-time space, where experimentation could take place. We proposed to Intel that they fund us to build a lab and hire a full-time staff, and they agreed. That's when we brought in Anna-Marie Piersimoni from KCET, who ran the program for 2 years. Another result of our experience with the first event was that, when we did our call for entries for the following year's event, we stipulated that participants would have to have a television show that was going to be on the air someplace in the world in the coming season, and that they would have to have either a pilot or an actual episode that they could use as the prototype. The advantage of this approach was that we actually had material to work with--because, in the first year of the event, there were people who had good ideas, but who not only had to figure out the interactivity for their show, but had to figure out the show itself--and, naturally, as a result, some of the prototypes weren't very successful. Because of this stipulation, in subsequent years we've had actual shows to work with--however, at the same time, we've been somewhat hamstrung by the fact that we're always adding interactivity to existing shows, rather than creating something that was conceived for interactivity from the ground up.

[itvt]: How many prototypes have been developed through the ETV Workshop? Which projects have made a particularly strong impression on you over the years?

DeMartino: Well, we've done 40 prototypes, which is a large amount of work for anybody. Of course, we don't do it all on our own: we assign mentor groups to each project. This is something that Anna-Marie contributed to the model, and it has been very important: we basically build teams that are composed according to the needs of each individual show. As for which projects have made a strong impression on me, if I go through them in alphabetic order, one that comes to mind is "Accordion Dreams," which was a show for which we built an ITV prototype that would run on a game console. Actually, I think our approach to Accordion Dreams illustrates something important about the Workshop. We simply offered the producer an opportunity to explore what it might mean to make his show interactive, and he and his team decided to develop a prototype for the PlayStation. What we offer is a research and development environment for content creation in the interactive space. That interactivity has taken and will continue to take many forms. For example, it could be realized through broadband or through game consoles that are connected to the Internet. Participants in the Workshop don't necessarily have to think in terms of the more classical definitions of ITV, such as a single-screen application running on a set-top box. Of course, if ITV were a medium that already reached a hundred million households, we wouldn't be having a debate over how to realize it. It's still a nascent form, and I'm not sure anybody in any of the companies that are part of what we do is prepared quite yet to make a bet on how it will all turn out.

[itvt]: It seems that most of the prototypes the Workshop has produced have been intended to accompany programming. Are you also interested in developing prototypes for ITV advertising?

DeMartino: We have always thought that interactive advertising was potentially a huge component of the ITV medium, but we feel that it only makes sense in the context of interactive programming. We did a couple of interactive ads as part of a prototype for a show called "Day One," which was a pilot produced by Granada TV in the UK, in conjunction with Jerry Bruckheimer TV. The show never sold, but what they were trying to do was to be able, when an advertiser bought time on it, to add interactivity that was not just product-specific but that would relate to the content of the program itself. I think this kind of approach is a result of the deep and abiding fear that the marketing community has that their entire business model will be threatened by PVR technology that allows users to skip through the ads. The president or CEO of Coca-Cola recently made a very influential speech to a conference in Los Angeles. In essence, he said that the coming revolution would require marketers to take a very hard look at the relationship between advertising, promotion and marketing, and content. So, as we move forward, it is probably not the AFI's role to spend its time trying to prove what advertising agencies, I think, are perfectly capable of proving themselves: that it is possible to do interactive versions of 60-second spots. The real sweet spot is to engage marketers in our process, so that they can explore how their messaging can be integrated seamlessly and inoffensively into the content that is driving viewership in the first place. Of course, all sorts of complex, controversial issues arise when you take this approach for drama, comedy and certainly for news programming.

[itvt]: How important are independent producers to the Workshop?

DeMartino: Very important. If you look at the 40 projects that we have taken into the Workshop over the years, I don't have an exact count but I have a feeling that close to half were probably independents. Many of the PBS projects have been from independent producers, simply because many shows that are on the Public Broadcasting System are independently produced. As long as public broadcasting is part of the vision of the Workshop, independent producers are very likely to be part of it. Even our projects from the commercial sector sometimes are independently produced: this year, for example, we had a top-rated show from the Food Network that was supplied to them by an independent production company called Home Run Productions.

[itvt]: What are the requirements for participating?

DeMartino: The process is pretty straightforward: we do our call for entries and we try to promote the opportunity to submit an application as widely as we can. Applicants who are interested can go to our Web site (www.afi.com/etv) and download the application form which contains information on the qualifications we're looking for. What we are trying to do in the application process is get a picture of 3 things: how hard will they work? How good is the show they have already got? How innovative is their idea for interactivity? At the same time, you also have to take a look at the overall mix and ensure, for example, that you don't have 8 more or less identical shows from 8 identical genres. You want to have as many different kinds of players as possible. Another criterion in the selection process is the diversity of communities that the producers come from. The selection process is conducted by a jury comprised of AFI sponsors and mentors, and after having brought a truckload of applications home to study, we sit there and argue with each other and pare it down till we get to a reasonable group.

[itvt]: Obviously, there are now multiple platforms upon which ITV can be implemented. Are you looking this year for projects that are targeted at specific kinds of platforms?

DeMartino: We're very interested this year in projects designed for advanced, next-generation interactive game consoles. We are also going to have a renewed focus on broadband, as well as a continuing focus on wireless. In fact, half of our prototypes last year had wireless components. So I guess the short answer is, we would like to see projects that explore broadband, wireless, broadband wireless networks, classic interactive set-top box environments, and advanced gaming platforms. Now, how the mix of these works out this year remains to be seen.

[itvt]: The Workshop seems to attract a lot of broadcasters. How do you think broadcasters benefit from it?

DeMartino: We have done the best with networks that are considering their ITV strategy and want to get proof-of-concept. A good example is CNN Headline News, which was in the Workshop 2 years ago. They really weren't coming to us with a lot of need for design: the screen they have is pretty filled. What they were looking for was help conceiving how the workflow would change. In general, the prototypes are really not designed to be instantly deployable. What they're designed to do is to stimulate the people who can say "yes" to deployment: the cable MSO's, the satellite network operators, the Turners, the CNN's, the MTV's the Viacom's, the PBS's, the ABC's and so on, as well as the advertisers who place their products on the shows on the networks. You know, it's a little like looking at a rough cut of a movie: you have to have a rough cut to see how the movie is working. And that's what these prototypes are for.

[itvt]: Why do you think the broadcasters and network operators who participate in the Workshop are interested in ITV?

DeMartino: It is our belief that if your concern is to keep an audience engaged with your property, or if your concern is to reduce churn, or if your concern is to differentiate your network from the others, then you need to look at interactivity. There is money being left on the table because people are not deploying interactivity. The truth of the matter is that there are an awful lot of consumers who are turned off by TV, and this is the way to turn them on to TV. Not every show, not every network, not every system, I suspect, will find that to be the case. But in many instances--for example, with Charter, Insight, Cablevision and other cable operators--interactivity has helped customer retention. And for the networks and program producers, it differentiates their shows and it builds loyal audiences.

[itvt]: The American ITV market is growing slowly for a variety of reasons. But the European market--especially in the UK--is growing much faster. Do you see the AFI ETV Workshop becoming an international workshop?

DeMartino: Well, I certainly agree that the activity level for interactive TV in the UK is breathtaking. We have, in fact, always featured presentations on the European marketplace at the beginning of the Workshop each year. Ashley Highfield of the BBC, for example, presented at our event last July. In most years, we have accepted at least one European production into the workshop, including a history of Irish rock and roll from producers based in Amsterdam and Ireland, and also "Perfect Crime," which was from Denmark. At any rate, our deadline for applications for the 2003 Workshop is May 23rd, so it's quite possible that we will have one or more Workshop participants from other countries.

[itvt]: And I understand that you are organizing an event in the UK this fall, correct?

DeMartino: Yes, we have scheduled the first-ever "transatlantic producers' forum," which we're calling "INTERACTION 2003," in London on September 18th, in cooperation with the BBC and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. We were planning to produce this event in April, but delayed because of international concerns. An event in London for US and European producers focusing on interactive design and production issues will be very effective, we think, the week following the IBC in Amsterdam. We'll be announcing details on our organizations' respective Web sites in due course.

[itvt]: What has the AFI done in the past and what can it do in the future to inspire American broadcasters and cable operators to start deploying some of the experimental ITV projects that the Workshop has developed?

DeMartino: 2 years ago, for example, many of our prototypes were optimized for the DCT-2000-class set-top box, because there was a general presumption among most people in our business that the declarations that had been made by AT&T and other cable operators were going to become a reality, and that there was going to be a very rapid growth in set-top box deployment in the US. Unfortunately, because of a variety of factors, such as the general state of the economy, the dot-com crash, the over-capitalization of cable, and various specific problems faced by certain cable companies, this didn't happen and the roll-out of advanced TV services has been pushed back. We continue to reach out to the cable operators, though: among other things, AFI ETV director, Marcia Zellers, just recently presented a panel at CTAM Digital in New Orleans, in collaboration with the Cable Center's Susan Greene. In the past, we've had a number of cable operators come to the presentation of the prototypes during the first day of our orientation event, and they're often stunned to find out how much ITV activity there is. In general, I think that the perception is not the same as the reality: the reality is that there is a lot of interactivity going on all over the US. What we don't have yet, however, is anyone who's made a huge amount of money on it. And because we're in an economic situation where people don't have surplus advertising revenue to experiment with investments that would allow growth in new market areas, the pace at which the ITV market is growing is quite slow. And because we don't have a lot of investment, the necessary infrastructure for ITV--particularly in terms of the production community and the capacity to actually churn this stuff out 24/7--is in danger of being lost. Of course, it's not as if this is going to be an opportunity that will stay lost forever, but it is in our interest to do projects that are right on target, and to try to impress on the cable operators that they need to do some trials--that they need to have some programs that get before the consumer and allow them to assess what the consumer says. Not a one-off or one-shot, but a significant program offering supported by the kind of marketing that they would employ for a roll-out of VOD or any other consumer offering. I think that when that finally happens, we're going to start to get some results.

[itvt]: Why should companies and institutions fund the ETV Workshop today?

DeMartino: First, because the AFI ETV Workshop is the only institution in the US that brings together well-known television brands, the producers and production companies behind them, the technology companies that have the hardware and software that are necessary to make ITV systems work, and the creative design and production innovators that really can inspire new ways of thinking about interactivity. We really have brought together just about everybody important who's playing in this market. That's one reason companies and institutions should fund us. A 2nd reason is that, if this marketplace is going to take off, you've got to recognize that it's a 3-legged stool: the technology, obviously, is a prerequisite--you can't make it work without that. You've also got to have a business model that somehow manages to deliver a return on your investment. But if both of those conditions were in place, and you still had no creative community to develop the actual ideas, you still wouldn't have an ITV market. Audiences do not respond to technology: it's not about the gizmo, it's about what the gizmo delivers in their home. And we know deep down in our bones, as an institution celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, that it is the artists and the creative professionals who are going to create that virtuous circle, and that if their work is compelling and the audience responds to it, there will be a demand for the technology and the business models to support it. A 3rd reason companies and institutions should fund the Workshop is because the events and productions are so well run. Under the direction of Marcia Zellers, our staff really knows their stuff, and does an extraordinary job of bringing people together for a common goal, a creative goal: to push the medium forward.

[itvt]: There has been some criticism in the past that the prototypes that have been developed under the auspices of the ETV Workshop aren't getting deployed. What is your response to such criticism?

DeMartino: I would say that whether or not the prototypes are deployed and whether or not they have an impact are 2 different things. When we started the Workshop 6 years ago, there were no working systems in the US for any of the prototypes to appear on. So, early on, the purpose of the prototypes was not to be deployed, or even to be immediately deployable, but was rather to serve as a proof-of-concept for interactivity on a TV set. However, beginning 2 years ago, we moved our needle more towards deployability, in part because we had a different sponsor mix. In the early days, our sole sponsor was Intel, but in the last 2 years, it has been a mix of CPB, Microsoft, Liberate, and Open TV. We have had more platforms companies involved, and they want to see the results of our work show up on real live systems. So what we have done more recently is produce a product that is deployable. In other words, the prototypes that we deliver every December are proof-of-concept demonstrations that actually work on a set-top box or other real-world platform. They're not PowerPoint presentations, but applications that really work. However, our prototypes are not necessarily meant to be completed properties. For example, the Turner Classic Movies prototype that we supported this last year doesn't support the 300 movies that that network shows in a given month. That would require the Turner organization to spend the money to add staff, input all of that data, make all the different screens that would be offered to the consumer, and so on. That's an investment that is not our responsibility. We don't run a program network. What we try to do is use the prototypes to make the case for ITV to the people who have to make those investment decisions. We feel fairly proud of the fact that many of the ITV success stories--at PBS, Discovery and so on--have involved people who participated in building one of the Workshop's prototypes. We're an educational organization in the broadest sense of the word, and what we're doing is not just educating the people in the workshop: we're educating the people they work for and the industry they work in. We see our participants, either at the producer level or the network level, gaining key learning conclusions, roadmaps, gameplans, concepts, and platform knowledge that influence the evolution of the ITV medium in the US. We are very proud of this, even if what we produce is a little less tangible than if a prototype was developed at the Workshop and the result was 2 days later it went on air. Obviously, deployment is a goal, though, and in fact I suspect the character of the Workshop will change when there are robust networks--as there are, for example, in the UK--that are ready to broadcast shows the minute the prototyping process is concluded. For now, though, the prototypes are used, for example, to help the participants advance funding decisions, to convince higher-ups to spend the rest of the money to build out a full application. Of course, this won't take place just for one show: it will have to take place across the whole network. So we still see a chicken-and-egg situation, but feel that we are helping move ITV a little further up the food chain.

[itvt]: Nevertheless, my understanding is that some of the prototypes developed by the Workshop are having a quite tangible impact, correct?

DeMartino: Well the Mogul game that was developed in last year's Workshop for Turner Classic Movies was a significant success. It really integrated completely with the goals of the network which were to increase viewership and create customer loyalty, and also to broaden the demographics of its core audience. It was elegantly done, the prototype works, the internal dynamics of the game are completely consistent--it is just a first-rate job all round. But even more exciting is that the Turner Classic Movie leadership is committed to trying to make it happen, and we look forward to that day when it launches. Also, I am very proud of the TV Land Application Suite. It hasn't launched yet, but the team that was responsible for it has gone on to create an interactive companion application for the first ever TV Land Awards. So these are some good examples of positive tangible results of the Workshop, that go beyond the actual prototypes that were developed.

[itvt]: Lastly, do you use any ITV platforms yourself on a daily basis?

DeMartino: Absolutely. I'm wired to the gills. I am a Charter subscriber, I have Wink and the Charter VOD platform. I have the iN DEMAND pay-per-view system, which I use periodically. I also have DVD, which I consider to be an ITV system. Also, I just installed TiVo, and successfully recorded "Six Feet Under" 3 times, because I haven't figured out the settings!

***



Copyright 1998 - 2004 [itvt] | Swedlow. All rights reserved