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How Theatricsв Beckinfield is creating the future of social TV acting Interview

2012-02-01 13:07
Television is a mass medium that reaches millions of people. Right now, TV is mostly passive when it comes to the run-of-show and plot built into the stories that are told by producers, directors and writers. Social TV apps like GetGlue and Miso aim to let you socialize around TV content and Youtoo hopes to create an easy way to upload snippets of video content that can then appear on broadcast. But there 8217;s another approach by a company called Theatrics, which has named it Mass Participation TV or MPTV. Its first web show, Beckinfield, is the only social TV experience where anyone can create a character and play a part in professional plot driven show. MPTV is the company 8217;s patent-pending process, which they hope will change the way anyone can create a character for the plot, which they are then encouraged to upload to be included in a weekly trailer of clips that make up an episode. The winner of their competition was just announced and awarded $10,000 and a trip to Hollywood. We spoke with Bob Gebert, cofounder and vp of creative for Theatrics about their hope to impact social TV. LR: How did you come up with the idea for the show Bob Gebert: The spark forВ Beckinfield, a mass participation web series where anyone can create and play a character, began when I was teaching classes to working actors in Los Angeles. In addition to my acting career, I had written dozens of plays, sold a screenplay to a major studio and written and directed an indie feature film that had won awards on the festival circuit. A number of my acting students approached me about writing some monologues for them that they could upload to various sources to help in the marketing of their careers. Instead, I thought it might be better to teach them how to do it on their own. I took a number of screenwriting principles and developed a workshop that became Character Creation in the Digital Age (and the character creation tutorials that are on the site.) I then though that it would be interesting to have all these fascinating characters that were being created as residents in same small town. That was the beginnings of what becameВ Beckinfield. It was such an interesting experiment, that I showed it to my close friend Tracy Evans, who had an interactive media company in Houston. I had known Tracy since we were teenagers and we had collaborated on many projects in the past. I knew he could bring a level of polish and sophistication to this project. Tracy had an even bigger vision for it than I did. In addition to designing the site and user experience, Tracy brought most of the social elements to it. Many were inherent in the concept, but werenв t really the focus. We then teamed with Tracyв s longtime collaborator, Biff Van Cleve who brought the business expertise. And together we created Theatrics andВ Beckinfield. LR: What are the social aspects BG: The whole Mass Participation TV concept and theВ BeckinfieldВ site are really built around social entertainment. It...
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