Multimedia impresario is creating interactive rock ‘n’ roll TV

Industry pioneer Marc Canter, founder of MacroMind, was first to give context to a new definition of the term “multimedia.” He almost single-handedly created the interactive digital media market, by virtue of both his relentless evangelism and the MacroMind Director authoring software that he believed would make the market a reality. Director, Canter believed, was the technology that would enable desktop publishers to become desktop video producers. And today Director is by far the most popular software for creating interactive media applications.

In a classic small-company struggle with venture capitalists and management brought in from the outside, Canter left MacroMind (now called Macromedia) in January of 1991. Today the 36-year-old entrepreneur-opera singer-computer graphic artist-software developer is once again doing what he does best: evangelizing a future that he is in the process of creating. This time the lure is interactive television.

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ENTERTAINMENT

Canter started Canter Technology a little more than a year ago to bridge the gap between technology and entertainment. Based in San Francisco, the company’s charter is to create new forms of interactive entertainment software and to develop content for emerging interactive TV systems.

Although the infrastructure to deliver interactive content into the home or to create the system necessary to run Canter Technology software isn’t in place — and probably won’t be for another five years — Canter has decided not to let this barrier stop him from pursuing his vision.

“101 percent.” Canter and his creative collaborators are “101 percent focused on interactive video platforms and television,” says Canter. “Our goal is to produce the software now and be ready when the infrastructure is in place.”

Those collaborators include Stuart Sharpe, the musician and artist credited with educating many multimedia neophytes about the potential of this form of communication with his original MacroMind Director demos, and John Sanborn, the well-known video artist and director whose project credits include the PBS series “Live from Off Center,” the high-definition TV demo “Infinite Escher” and numerous rock music videos.

In an exclusive interview with Digital Media, Canter discussed his company’s three-tiered plan for interactive cross-media product development using off-the-shelf multimedia products with Kaleida Labs’ ScriptX description language and cross-platform delivery technology, as well as custom extensions, scripts and templates, to create an original art form that combines music, technology and visuals.

MEDIABAND: USING TECHNOLOGY THAT’S HERE TODAY

The first phase of Canter Technology’s five-year business plan focuses on developing core system technology that can be used to build interactive entertainment products to appeal to the mass consumer market today. Canter refers to that technology as MediaBand.

The core system. MediaBand at its most basic is a “real-time networked performance environment,” says Canter. It is a technology prototype and was developed in part as a vehicle for audience participation during a live music performance. A live performance based on the system, for instance, would include several interactive music videos; instead of being played from start to finish, with images and music entirely prerecorded and synchronized, MediaBand’s music videos would be mixed live — driven by the performers and the audience’s direct interaction — and combined with live camera action, computer graphics and video effects.

“Live and prerecorded materials converge in a totally unpredictable mix,” says Canter. “The result is a show that’s different every time.”

The MediaBand technology is a patchwork of professional audio and video equipment, the NewTek Video Toaster, Macintosh-based hardware and software, some of which is proprietary, combined with a full MIDI recording studio, a camcorder, and interactive hand controllers. Canter describes MediaBand as “an integrated system for a single person’s workstation.” He calls it “a platform for the future.”

Join in the Band. To test the technology prototype of MediaBand, Canter realized he needed live entertainment — a real MediaBand. So he, Sanborn and screenwriter Michael Kaplan created a story or “mythology” about four young artists who create an interactive, cross-media performing group at the fictitious John Cage Academy of Multimedia. (It is now a finished screenplay.)

Canter Technology then auditioned and hand-picked four San Francisco Bay Area musicians to become the human MediaBand. Along with musician and video artist Todd Rundgren, who is the band’s music producer, and Sharpe, they are writing songs that will be shaped into a full-length live performance and traditional album. (Rundgren is creating his own “interactive album” for the CD-I player; see Vol. 2, No. 5, p. 3.)

Canter says the MediaBand will make a 15-minute debut sometime this April performing two or three of the band’s original songs (complete with audience participation) to a select group of potential investors, interactive TV and music producers, and consumer electronics and computer companies.

DENTSU MAKES AN INVESTMENT IN THE FUTURE

Phase One primarily involves the delivery of a MediaBand album, a full-length, live performance and potentially a motion picture, says Canter. The film would be based on the script mentioned earlier and take advantage of the footage shot during the band’s live performance concerts.

These events are contingent on cash flow, however, and Canter is seeking financial investors and strategic partners. “It took me about a day and a half to get the money I needed to start MacroMind,” he says. “This time it has been much slower.”

To date, Canter Technology’s biggest investor is Dentsu, the largest advertising agency in the world. The Japanese-based company has shown a strong interest in the MediaBand concept from the beginning, according to Canter, and, he says, Dentsu hopes to bring the technology prototype to Japan before it premiers in the United States. He says he is in negotiations with Dentsu to develop a MediaBand TV pilot for Japanese audiences.

Kaleida’s in big. As for U.S. companies, Kaleida Labs (the joint multimedia venture between Apple Computer and IBM) has made a public financial commitment to the company. According to Canter, Miles Gilburne, a longtime friend of Canter’s and now a business and legal advisor to Kaleida, and Nat Goldhaber, CEO and president of Kaleida, have agreed that Kaleida will help sponsor MediaBand. (Kaleida is using Elliot Mazer, a well-known rock music producer who is an expert in audio compression and in digital radio broadcasting, to represent its interests in MediaBand. He will share the executive producer title for the MediaBand project with Canter.)

In addition to Kaleida, Canter says he is courting Apple, Viacom and a number of large entertainment distributors. But no additional sponsors for Canter Technology’s research and development have publicly come forth.

A CROSS BETWEEN ‘THE MONKEES’ AND ‘SPINAL TAP’

During Phase One, Canter Technology also plans to create a Macintosh CD-ROM version of MediaBand, based on Kaleida’s ScriptX technology. Canter says the interactive CD-ROM will be like watching a combination of the old TV show The Monkees and the classic film, Spinal Tap. The MediaBand Pilot, as the disc is called, will be the first iteration of the band’s so-called “mythology,” disclosing some of the MediaBand story as well as the MediaBand’s technology, cast of characters and philosophy.

The MediaBand CD-ROM will include a complete audio track that will play on all audio-only CD players. Canter says he also plans to release the standard CD track to radio stations for possible airplay. The production of this mixed-mode CD-ROM will coincide with the private mini-performance this spring.

All the video footage, musical material, art designs and computer graphics created for the MediaBand live performances will be digitized, modified and reused in related MediaBand projects — the film, the music album, the touring live show — according to Canter. By having reusable and extensible digital material available, he says, localized versions of MediaBand can easily be created, with local actors inserted in place of Canter’s selected band members.

THE NEW MULTIMEDIA PLAYER: NINTENDO MEETS MTV

By 1995 or 1996, Canter expects that the first successful full-frame, digital video-based interactive platforms will have made an appearance. This event will launch Phase Two, when Canter Technology plans to create the first home versions of its interactive, cross-media products.

“Today multimedia is boring,” he says. “It all comes down to click, wait and watch. As Trip Hawkins [founder of 3DO] says, ‘Multimedia players must combine the functionality of a game machine, the compatibility and flexibility of a home PC and an expanding new industry for digital video players.’ If we can’t provide the same interactive experience level of Nintendo, with the production values of MTV, then we can just forget about the whole thing.”

Tech specs. According to Canter, the “tech spec” for these machines of the future includes the following: high-quality stereo audio, including MIDI synthesizers and samplers, mixing and DSP-based external controller boxes capable of creating effects. The systems will feature “hardware blitters,” to move pictures around quickly on screen, and large amounts of RAM — 8 MB minimum (probably as much as 32 MB or 64 MB). These platforms will be able to process and manipulate digital video in real-time, allowing for multiple channels of interleaved video to be streamed off the CD-ROM.

This port to a digital video player will be Canter Technology’s first “true” interactive version of MediaBand. Canter Technology will only be able to implement its interactive content designs by taking advantage of hardware-based digital video, internal MIDI synthesizers, faster processors and large amounts of RAM. “In other words, we can’t let technology dictate to us what our content should be. Content should be used to define the technology,” he says. “We will wait until the right technology to deliver our content is here.”

Cross-media performances. Phase Two also includes developing several new cross-media projects — and any new technology that is needed for those projects as well — and culminates with performances by MediaBand and other new venues such as children’s programming, soap operas and talk shows on what Canter calls a “fledgling interactive TV system.”

This system will allow the company to start testing MIDI transmission and synchronization code, in addition to new types of single-user interactivity code. (Canter is not commenting on what such a “fledgling interactive TV system” might be, or what company might be manufacturing it.)

The “Kinko’s” of digital production. During this time period, Canter Technology also plans to offer its services as a digital production studio (DPS). Not only will the DPS bring in a new revenue stream, ensuring that Canter Technology’s R&D money continues to flow, it will also help to hone the skills of those working on interactive content for the company. What better way to stay ahead of the competition? (As has been often discussed in these pages, and in this issue on p. 14, Colossal Goes Interactive, these digital production studios are cropping up in Hollywood and around the entertainment community with the same speed as desktop publishing shops developed during the mid-1980s.)

Unlike Sand Box Productions of Los Angeles, San Francisco’s Colossal Pictures and Hollywood’s Magic Box Productions, however, the Canter Technology DPS will, at least initially, be for key partners only and will not accept work for outside companies. “All of our expertise and experience will be used by this resource center to provide support and hands-on training for affiliated artists and coproduction partners who are associated with our label,” says Canter.

In the long term, Canter says Canter Technology plans to establish DPS franchises under the Canter label around the United States.

THE HOME STRETCH: INTERACTIVE, OF COURSE

Phase Three of Canter Technology’s strategy is to develop new types of interactive TV programming, system software and tools that can be used by other creatives. Indeed, in the long term, Canter hopes the technology behind MediaBand will become the core digital production system used by TV producers to create interactive content.

Fundamentally, this will entail refining Canter Technology’s concepts on interactive rock videos and its other interactive media projects. “Obviously we will take all that we have learned and developed until this point, and profitably apply that expertise,” says Canter. “We also anticipate spending a lot of time working on the platform itself, making sure that all of the functionality, bandwidth and performance criteria that we need are there.”

His home box. Canter says the platform he envisions is a home cable box or chips built directly into a TV set that will provide the digital audio and video functionality for interactive TV. Massive amounts of data will then be sent down a fiber-optic wire or over satellite dishes, and the chips at the end of the wire inside the home will decode, interpret and display that data very quickly (at speeds of more than 100 million instructions per second).

“Our MediaBand project could evolve into an American Bandstand- or Club MTV-type-format show, where different bands or performers who come on the show each week will be able to show off not just their music, but also their video, graphics and interactivity,” says Canter. “Our future cross-media projects will reuse the MediaBand technology in new and different ways, each time expanding the base of technology that Canter Technology can offer to its own label and resource center.”

‘THE LOTUS 1-2-3′ OF INTERACTIVE TV

Marc Canter is offering us his view of the future, and once again it is an intriguing prospect. But can he pull it off this time? To date, few people outside of Canter Technology have seen the human MediaBand perform. According to Canter, the group is in the studio rehearsing and laying tracks for their upcoming album. Digital Media has only been privy to a sample of the band’s capabilities on a slick videotape that was full of Director-style hard cuts and glitz. It was impossible to judge the group’s real entertainment value.

Canter believes that interactive rock videos are “the Lotus 1-2-3″ of the interactive television market. He believes it is the first form of interactive that will capture the minds, hearts and wallets of the consumer. Certainly if he can make the right strategic relationships, and if he can acquire the necessary financial backing to take MediaBand past a 15-minute performance this spring — both pretty big “ifs” — then his vision may grab the attention of the MTV crowd.

Is anybody watching? The good news for Canter, and for the companies working on interactive home shopping and video-on-demand systems, is that every major communications corporation, cable company, phone company and media corporation — from Viacom, to Time Warner, to GTE, to TeleCommunications to members of the First Cities alliance (see Vol. 2, No. 7, p. 3) — is establishing community-wide interactive TV sites around the U.S. They are hungry for content ideas and enabling technology, and Canter is selling both.

Marc Canter is laying the groundwork — or, shall we say, the tracks — to launch an industry. He’s done it before, and he seems as intent upon it this time as he was when he founded MacroMind in 1984. Although the interactive TV industry doesn’t yet exist in any kind of recognizable form, Canter has a clear vision of the kinds of people who will be required to make it happen. Now the question is: Is anybody out there watching?

Janice Maloney