Reflection on content origination

I've decided to switch up how I do my reflective blogging, since I'm sure we can agree that "On Monday I did this, and on Tuesday I did this (except you already know, you were there)" got old fast. So now, I'll reflect when I actually have something to reflect upon, such as after a shoot, or, as now, when a class particularly gives me pause for thought.

Adam's classes on content origination are great, and we all leave enthusiastically thinking about how the next thing we write will surely be genius. Lately we've been talking about mobile content, and it's a field which appeals to me especially since I've been on the consuming end for a long time.

As is usually the case, Doctor Who was my first real experience of web content. When it was rebooted it came with a shiny new website and all manner of tie-ins and what-nots. A quick raid on my bookmarks throws up the dalek game, the bad wolf website and UNIT's own website. More recently they have a make-your-own-trailer application and a make-your-own-comic section. Very cool. Makes me wish I was thirteen again. (Except really not, no amount of cool internet stuff is worth that.)

Battlestar Galactica did the webisode thing very well but then it would, wouldn't it?

The big new thing being talked about now is Project Canvas and it's very exciting. I'll be waking up on Friday praying that the Tories haven't won simply so that we'll still get it, although I think a far better name would be "Project Sandpit" because I believe that is what it gives television the potential to be.

Thinking of a show as a sandpit of ideas is hardly new, it's just not usually done in any official capacity. What it does is opens up all those avenues of storylines you can't pursue in a standard drama; the interesting secondary characters, the non-essential but enjoyable backstories, that bit of character interaction you cut from the script because it went over 60 minutes.

This is absolutely the least structured bit of reflection I've done, but it's more a sort of percolation of ideas about the class and what I think can be done with mobile content.