art Archives - Frederick Gooltz

The Reinvention of Film and the Death of Quibi

Much of the technology I invented was in the civic, politech and community organizing space. It was built to upend existing power dynamics. This is one astounding thing that web 2.0 did for the world in the early 2000s. It … Read more

March 24, 2024June 4, 2025 by Fred Gooltz

History’s Scariest Story

Last night I scared my wife telling her about the horror movie I’m outlining. She couldn’t sleep; I felt bad. But that’s not the scariest story I know. The scariest story I know starts like this:

Well-wrought this wall: … Read more

April 28, 2015June 4, 2025 by Fred Gooltz

Europe’s The Spiral is Great TV 2.0

With American TV borrowing so much from Scandinavia, England, and Israel for our best TV shows, how about we borrow from Europe’s best transmedia television phenomenon: The Spiral.

What a sensational experience.
American TV has a long history of … Read more

January 14, 2013September 27, 2013 by Fred Gooltz

Syfy’s Defiance and Transmedia TV Gold

My interest in transmedia storytelling exists at the intersection of my obsessions with participatory culture, new media, and entertainment. I believe storytellers can create deeper experiences for their audiences when they unfold a story and its world via multiple venues, … Read more

January 10, 2013October 4, 2013 by Fred Gooltz

Transmedia, TV Time and the Brain

So what is Transmedia? It is not watching a TV show on an iPad. That’s “watching TV.”

It is not telling many movies in the same universe on one screen. That’s “franchising,” like the Marvel Universe movies.

Ideally, transmedia is … Read more

November 30, 2012March 12, 2025 by Fred Gooltz

Preventing Cut and Paste TV

Clay Shirky wrote a great article that contained another example of how we must adapt or die:

Fifteen years ago, a research group called The Fraunhofer Institute announced a new digital format for compressing movie files. This wasn’t a … Read more

November 26, 2012March 12, 2025 by Fred Gooltz

Parks & Rec Transmedia Wins

Parks & Recreation is great. And it’s also doing a lot of transmedia storytelling right.
I watch TV with a device on my lap, and when Amy Poehler’s character ran for City Council, I went looking for her campaign website … Read more

November 25, 2012September 27, 2013 by Fred Gooltz

5 Pitfalls of John Cusack’s Rush Project

As in Rush Limbaugh.

Script not done – well see what it’s looks like – could be good hollywoodreporter.com/news/john-cusa…

— John Cusack (@johncusack) November 4, 2012

I can only hope this focus on Private Parts in leaks to press is … Read more

November 5, 2012 by Fred Gooltz

Film & TV 2.0

Around 2003, after Democrats were walloped in the midterms and the big left-leaning organizations in D.C. proved unable to register any victories against President Bush, the professional left was desperate. So desperate that many Dems and lots of orgs actually … Read more

October 18, 2012March 12, 2025 by Fred Gooltz

Stephen Colbert Wins

He won a Peabody. His winning “Super PAC” segments embody some of my favorite rules – both from writing and improv:
He says his responsibility is to the story.
Whenever possible, discover the story along with the audience.
Find the … Read more

October 1, 2012 by Fred Gooltz

What The World Needs Now Is…

More of this, please.

If you don’t know what this Goya riff is working from, behold: the future.

From Eater:

The owner of a café in the center of Madrid, Spain has become a hero of sorts and

September 28, 2012 by Fred Gooltz

What’s New in Hollywood

Rarely is very much new.

Of the 45 films Warner Brothers released in 1940, 15 of them were remakes including Bette Davis’ The Letter and Errol Flynn’s The Sea Hawk. Remakes, reboots and sequels have always been a big … Read more

September 23, 2012 by Fred Gooltz

That Jeff Buckley Movie Thing

This one hurts. It’s not that they’re making a Jeff Buckley movie, nor that they’re making two – but it’s that one of them is the movie I always imagined.

In 2002, David Browne’s dual biography of Tim Buckley and … Read more

September 18, 2012 by Fred Gooltz

We’re On To Something

A few years ago I wrote a 10 minute play with Chris from my old improv group that The Dare Project in NYC was kind enough to produce. Our play was about a video game character who is sick of … Read more

July 2, 2012 by Fred Gooltz

“Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair…

A nice image in that line. Which, since reading A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes, has made me think of Treppenwitz. Literally, ‘the wisdom of the stairs’. The striking reply that … Read more

January 12, 2012 by Fred Gooltz