Television
as we
know it is
going to be
eroded
down to
these real
time
experiences
“
”
Does the broadcasting model need
to fundamentally change?
I went to film school, but I chose
going digital rather than TV. As I’ve
gotten older though, I’ve become a
lot more interested in TV.
Again, that idea of broadcast as a
delivery system of content is being
eroded by the view on-demand
world. That’s the area that we’re
really interested in at The Rumpus
Room, the real-time experience that
we did with
X Factor
and the stuff
we’re doing with sports. Television
as we know it is going to be eroded
down to these real time experiences
- which can be made really exciting
by enhancing them with digital
experiences. I still think there’s
something really amazing that we
can make millions of people feel
something at the same time, which
only broadcast can do.
What place does storytelling have
in a media world where we’re
always talking about experiences
and things happening in real time?
Did you see the Stefan Sagmeister
critique of storytelling? Basically,
every concert you go to, everybody’s
talking about storytelling.
Sagmeister met someone who
designed a rollercoaster, and the
designer said he was a storyteller.
And he replied, “If you’re a
storyteller, it’s a pretty stupid story
that you’re telling.”
We definitely design experiences.
We do lots of experiences that we
hope are engaging and fun. I
wouldn’t class them as stories, but
a lot of them manifest themselves in
stories. A lot of our work is a kind of
game that manifests itself in stories.
We’re not totally obsessed with
this story thing. There’s a nice piece
we did for
X Factor
where a cat is
playing the guitar. Is a cat playing a
guitar a story? I don’t know. I don’t
dwell too much on it, but it’s quite
funny.
Does viewing everything through a
storytelling lens limit the kinds of
experiences you can create?
I’ve always stood by the fact that a
game is something that you believe
is happening. And a story is
something you believe has
happened. Lots of TV formats are
games, effectively.
X-Factor
is a
game, because we all believe it’s
happening and we all have some
influence. We don’t believe it’s pre-
determined. Whenwe see it afterwards
we do experience it as a story, but
we understand that it’s a game.
What does the future look like for
The Rumpus Room?
We’re working quite a lot with
celebrities at the moment. We’re
doing really interesting work with
passionate fans. We’re starting to
look at charities and campaign
work quite a lot, because going to
people who have a big support base
that we can activate to create things
collectively is really exciting. We’re
doing a lot of stuff with Google.
We’re chatting to Twitter.
We’re very excited by phones -
devices where people both
consume and produce content.
We’ve done lots of stuff with
people on their laptops, and got
really bored of looking into
people’s living rooms.
It’s about making more and
more of the experience of creating
stuff. And also making more of the
content that those experiences
generate. And I think that’s
applicable across all sorts of content
platforms.
It’s not just a technical challenge
that we like; there’s a kind of spirit
that comes from making work with
amateurs.
Like the opening ceremony of
the Olympics, that we got hugely
excited about. There is a feeling we
get from the work that we do.
Everybody’s turning up passionate,
and not just professional.
Tom Roope, thanks.
www.trr.tv
THE CHANNEL
|
ISSUE 1 2015
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35
