At least one company is lending a bit of movie-making magic to multimedia storytelling. Ptch is an app recently launched on iOs, brought to life by a crew partially spun off from DreamWorks Animation. Ever feel like certain days of your life deserve big screen treatment? Ptch tries to make it happen for you.
Making A Ptch
Ptch is a multimedia publishing platform that allows users to create “living media” stories up to a minute in length. Bring your photos, videos, music, and text together, combined with some Ptch provided effects, and the app blends materials into a short, interactive video.
Content can come from iOs photo and video libraries as well as social feeds including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and Viddy. Pull in comments along with content as well. Movies need soundtracks of course, and Ptch has a growing library of 100 licensed songs to accompany your digital creation.
Pre-constructed styles or templates allow users to determine the feel their finished compilations will evoke–be it classic film, vintage home movie, live party, or graphic novel, to name a few. Raw elements users can add, remove, rearrange, and transition between with text or music. Ptch stitches all the content into a single, seamless stream.
Living Media
A completed Ptch can be shared within the network, or via Facebook, Twitter, or email. What happens next springs a Ptch from social media into the realm of living media. Users can receive a Ptch as originally created and simply enjoy. Or, recipients can access all the raw materials themselves and make modifications, rearrangements or add personal flourishes. Tell a different story, make a new movie. The platform intends to facilitate a highly collaborative experience.
CEO Ed Leonard describes Ptch as a “category-defining mobile app” that empowers users to ride “…one of modern history’s most far-reaching and exciting waves of self-expression.” Have the days of sharing raw video passed us by? Has social media conditioned us so that we’re no longer content to sit back and absorb media idly? Ptch hopes the company is positioned to enhance our means of self-expression, helping us to create better content–content that has the greater appeal of professional production, and that satisfies our intensifying collaborative urges.
The Mobile App Dream Team
Leonard was the CTO for DreamWorks Animation SKG. He helped the studio adopt Linux as its core operating system, and played a role in the production of “Shrek 2” and “Shark Tale.” Before life in the film biz, Leonard worked in the aerospace industry, specializing in visual simulation systems research. He’ll be trying to direct his startup away from some of the pitfalls that have trapped other corporation or studio-backed ventures.
Ptch operates independent of DreamWorks with its own campus. The team consists of one-third former DreamWorks employees. For the other two-thirds, outside help was brought in to keep ideas and chemistry from stagnating. (No one probably minded circumventing the problem of raising early funding rounds by being incubated at DreamWorks.)
Ptch is currently available for iPhone 4 and higher, iPad, and iPod Touch. The download is free. A custom iPad app and desktop web experience are in the works along with plans to expand to Android and other mobile platforms. The company isn’t focused on monetization yet, but a future “Ptch marketplace” may sell custom styles or content created by users.
And…action!
