[thequality-update] August 2001

[Michela Ledwidge]

thequality.update 8/2001 

 

Update on thequality.com's current projects and insights into

converging media issues.

http://www.thequality.com

 

NEWS

 

thequality.com has been re-branded to focus on interactive media

production. The new logo and identity was supplied by

Myriad Creative.

 

'Horses for Courses', Europe's (and perhaps the world's) first

multi-lingual streaming 3d short movie was launched online by

thequality.com on June 25. This was an in-house production to

establish whether web3d technology was ready to support

film-making. Now showing at

http://thequality.com/horsesforcourses/en/index.html

 

The movie has been selected for the "web3droundup" at the

graphics and interactive technology conference SIGGRAPH 01, Los

Angeles, on August 15. Audience participation will in part

determine the winners so come along and make some noise!

 

thequality.com provided technical design and functional

prototypes for a multi-media project of the UK Government General
Practitioner, working alongside Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. The project
was successfully launched on schedule in June. The

resulting multimedia touch screen kiosk has since been deployed

to over 80 Post Offices, opening up access to government services and
information in remote areas of the country.

thequality.com has been awarded a contract to consult on Content
Management and Technical Architecture services to the UK Department of
Trade and Industry.

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

 

Notes from a web3d production diary:

 

Viral marketing works. Starting with a targeted mail-out to around four
hundred people in London, Paris and Barcelona, positive audience
feedback is coming in from as far away as Pakistan. Statistics? T-shirt
sales (from the  purchase path embedded in the movie) are low. Most
people haven't seen the second ending (only shown if you clicked
something in the movie). The Spanish soundtrack remains the most
popular, ahead of English and French.

 

thequality.com was set up in 1993 to focus on "films and beyond". 8
years later and we're still researching what that actually means. More
options? More ways to choose? More popcorn? Who wants interactivity -
the studio or the audience? Can today's technology meet expectations?

 

Web3d technology is emerging as a new entertainment paradigm where the
much discussed merge of game and film is finally achievable, and more
importantly, cost-effective. The process of introducing physics engine
technology (simulating real-world dynamics like gravity and collision
detection) into web browsers has begun. This opens the flood-gates to
previously cost-prohibitive visual effects. Early examples, such as the
web3d music video released last month, Fat Lip by Sum41 (Island
Records), in which samples of Spaces Invaders, Asteroids and Defender
could actually be played, have set the stage for more ambitious
entertainment content.

 

'Horses for Courses' Episode Two will attempt to deliver on that
potential and introduce a new level of audience participation. Stay
tuned.

 

ABOUT 

 

thequality.com is an interactive production company specialising in
bridging the creative / technical divide in cross-cultural new media.
The company was founded in Sydney in 1993 and moved to London in 1998.

 

 

 

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