Web Development Live

Such constant tweaking called a “perpetual beta” in the Web 2.0 world — is common for companies like Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Flickr that build applications for a consumer market that’s always in flux.

Quick, incremental updates, along with heavy user involvement, are key characteristics of an emerging software development paradigm championed by a new generation of Web 2.0 start-ups.

The new process, which some champions call “application development 2.0,” contrasts markedly with the traditional corporate waterfall process that separates projects into several distinct phases, ranging from requirements to maintenance. Nonetheless, application development 2.0 could significantly cut development costs and improve software quality if managers and developers are willing to make some hard changes.

“Sometimes enterprise organizations tend to look at these [Web 2.0-focused] places and say they are not very disciplined,” said Jeffrey Hammond, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. “That is not the case. They have built discipline into the process that allows them to be very reactive a [good] lesson for IT organizations.”

Based on interviews with analysts and executives of Web 2.0 firms, Computerworld compiled a list of five ways that corporate IT managers can benefit from Web 2.0 development processes. Here they are:

1. Break the barrier between developers and end users, and involve users in quality assurance processes.

Wesabe Inc., which runs a personal finance Web site, doesn’t have a formal internal quality assurance group. Instead, the San Francisco-based company relies on users and founder and CEO Marc Hedlund.

Wesabe’s developers work with users to come up with new features, and then Hedlund tests them before rolling them out to Wesabe.com.

Hedlund said that before launching Wesabe two years ago, he studied many of the common development techniques put into place by Web 2.0 companies. He said he concluded that applications are inherently built better when developers are not insulated from the people who use their applications. Direct user complaints or compliments are far better motivators for developers than PowerPoint slides with bar charts representing user desires.

William Gribbons, director of the graduate program in human factors at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass., said that large companies can benefit financially by using Web 2.0 techniques to develop applications for employees.

“Companies often think their [internal] applications are different because they’re used by employees [who] are compensated for the pain and suffering they are enduring,” he said. That pain and suffering, however, can lead to increases in training costs and employee turnover and cut productivity all a hit to the corporate bottom line.

Corporate development teams should focus on close interaction with internal users to gather requirements, and to create a controlled, systematic way to observe users interacting with prototypes, Gribbons suggested.

Brigham Young famously wanted streets wide enough to turn a team of horses and wagon in, and the superblocks were designed to be neatly divided into plots that would give the settlers enough land to grow crops, have an orchard and sustain themselves.

Few wagon trains are pulling U-turns in downtown Salt Lake these days, and the office buildings and parking lots don’t leave much room for fruit trees. And even the most meticulously planned community loses its luster over time and needs some modernizing especially if the alternative for new investment is not unsettled wilderness but the growing suburbs and towns strung along the Wasatch front.

So Salt Lake is embarking on a major redevelopment effort under an umbrella plan called Downtown Rising in which nearly $2 billion will be invested in new offices, residential and retail buildings, arts, culture and governmental facilities and transit projects.

There’s a Seattle component to this. Seattle-based architecture firm Callison is a participant in one of downtown Salt Lake’s biggest projects, City Creek, a 20-acre mixed-use project across the street from Temple Square.

Seattle-based retailer Nordstrom was one of the drivers behind the redevelopment effort generally and City Creek in particular.

“Frankly, the heart of downtown has for the last 20 years been slipping into a worse state of repair,” says Callison principal Stan Laegreid. “It was turning into quite a liability. Everyone agreed something needed to be done.” As a downtown tenant with a lease nearing its end, Nordstrom was “watching the value of a downtown and a commercial market just steadily slip away.” The retailer was reluctant to stay unless “there was a larger commitment to turn downtown around.”

Beyond those specifics, Salt Lake’s efforts to rejuvenate its downtown have some interesting parallels and contrasts for Seattle as it considers its own redevelopment efforts in places such as South Lake Union, south downtown and Sodo.

Salt Lake and Seattle are hardly alone among western U.S. cities considering large-scale redevelopments that involve millions of dollars in investment and years of planning and wrangling. Some cities get a blank canvas to work with in the form of abandoned rail yards that cover acres of potentially prime developable real estate. Sacramento, Calif.; Santa Fe, N.M.; and Spokane are in varying stages of rail-yard redevelopment projects. Renton is working with former Boeing property near Lake Washington. Yakima is looking at what it can do with a former sawmill.

Salt Lake differs somewhat in that it’s trying to work a somewhat coordinated plan into and around an existing downtown, although Laegreid says there’s actually considerable open property in the downtown core.

But the biggest difference between Salt Lake and Seattle is the influence and participation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Temple Square is at the physical heart of downtown, drawing visitors as both a religious center and tourist destination.

“They have deliberately spearheaded this effort,” Laegreid says. “That introduces a dynamic and a patronage in the process that very few cities have. That was a big trigger in allowing this to happen.”

Contrast that with development efforts in Seattle. One striking feature about Downtown Rising is the breadth of business sector and governmental participation in a shared plan for downtown. With Seattle’s fractious political scene, very little gets done in a coordinated fashion unless, of course, a private developer such as Paul Allen’s Vulcan in South Lake Union has the size and drive to come up with a large-scale redevelopment plan on its own and push it to reality.

Not that having such an influential partner meant immediate unanimity in Salt Lake. “There still were a lot of vested parties that collectively had to share a vision,” Laegreid says. Once the first ideas were floated, human nature took over. “Everyone’s got opinions,” he says. “There was a certain amount of compromising, everyone getting their voices heard.” Although Salt Lake isn’t as consensus-crazy as Seattle, “given the high profile of the project, it started to feel much more like a Seattle” process.

The allure of Hollywood’s biggest stars is losing out to entertainment based on microscopic circuitry and fancy software.Do you doubt it? While movie attendance has essentially been flat for six years, games for computers and video consoles have been booming.If the trend continues, many people in the entertainment industry will lose their jobs, but new types of jobs are already opening up, particularly in parts of California, which form a digital entertainment hub.”I feel a massive shift,” said Dana Settle, a venture capitalist at Greycroft Partners in Los Angeles who invests in online companies. “Movie studios are corporate behemoths. They’re going to crumble.”Movie stars Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, Mike Myers as the voice of Shrek and Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow came out with hit sequels last year, which helped raise box office receipts in North America to $9.7 billion. But that total, which excludes shrinking DVD sales and downloads, was up a mere 2.4 percent from 2004, according to data tracker Media by Numbers.Apples-to-apples comparisons aren’t possible, but the contrasts are clear. Game industry sales, including consoles and software, totaled about $18 billion in the United States last year, up 43 percent over 2006, according to market researcher NPD Group.The first-person shooting game “Halo 3,” the hard-to-find Wii game console and the role-playing “World of Warcraft” were among the hits that contributed to those sales. Last month, Warcraft publisher Blizzard Entertainment of Irvine announced the game had 10 million subscribers.The No. 1 game even outpaced the No. 1 movie last year. “Halo 3″ brought in $170 million on its first day; “Spider-Man 3″ grossed $151 million on its first weekend.Game experts recently discussed the effects of changing entertainment choices. The impact extends from the living room to the workplace.”Studios are on the down slope, and they know it,” said Jamie Somes, senior managing director of Alexander Dunham Capital investment bank in Los Angeles. “They’re not well-positioned as organizations for the new digital environment.” He cited predictions that within five years studios will be only half to one-tenth their current size.”In studios, you can smell the fear,” Settle said. “They’re missing the creative spark. At game companies, people are psyched.”Unlike movies, modern computer-based games let viewers interact with the game’s story or with other players, said Bob Drobish, president of startup True Games Interactive, who spoke to a meeting of video game engineers at the Digital Media Center incubator in Santa Ana.Modern games often do not appeal to consumers over 30 because they tend to think of computers as one-person productivity tools - which is what they used to be, Drobish said. People under 30 take to those games more readily, he said, because they view computers as social devices for exchanging e-mails, instant messages and pictures with friends.”Computers are inherently social,” especially in the age of high-speed broadband networks, he said. New types of games tap into that quality, especially multiplayer online role-playing games such as “World of Warcraft,” he said.The development of multiplayer social games is possible because of fundamental technological improvements in computers and computer networks, said Tim Walsh, the Los Angeles-based executive vice president of in-game advertising company IGA Worldwide.”Improved software, file compression, better code, Flash animation - they’re coming together to extend the digital lifestyle,” he said.With the new appeal of games come new business opportunities - and more games in the future.- Red 5 Studios. Three game makers and executives from Blizzard - “World of Warcraft” team leader Mark Kern, art director William Petras, and Taewon Yun, who launched the game in Korea - founded Red 5 Studios in 2005 and since then have been working on their first game. With development studios in Aliso Viejo and Shanghai, China, the company’s goal is “bringing together millions of gamers across the world by creating immersive worlds, intriguing stories and compelling characters.”- Carbine Studios. Ten other former “World of Warcraft” game makers, including lead animator Kevin Beardslee, lead composer Jason Hayes and senior artist Matt Mocarski, founded Carbine Studios in Aliso Viejo. The company has 17 former Blizzard employees who are developing a multiplayer online game.- True Games Interactive. Last year, Drobish and Jeff Lujan, chief publishing officer at True Games, left executive positions at K2 to pursue their startup. They hope to launch a domestic version of a Korean game this summer.- Sleepy Giant. Last year former K2 executives Matthew Hannus and David Lee started Newport Beach-based Sleepy Giant, which runs other companies’ games rather than developing its own. The gaming opportunities aren’t limited to entrepreneurs.”A lot of good Hollywood TV and movie talent is being drawn to games” because game production can be more stable than the boom-and-bust movie business, and can even offer better fringe benefits, said Mark Friedler, founder of the GameDaily Web site. People who are moving from movies to games include digital artists and special effects experts, who tell Friedler one reason for the decision is, “I like having health insurance,” he said. Because the virtual landscapes of online worlds have grown to accommodate so many players, Walsh said, “Game companies need a tremendous amount of digital artists, physicists and designers.” Friedler cited two problems new game companies face - rising costs and growing competition for consumers‘ time. “To create a next-generation console game costs $40 million to $50 million,” he said. “That’s the same cost as a lot of movies.” With “World of Warcraft,” Blizzard changed the market, raising players’ expectations for how realistic a game will be. To accomplish that, the company spent an estimated $90 million, Drobish said. At first the budget seemed excessive, but now it looks brilliant, he said. Intense competition for consumers’ time has already affected traditional forms of entertainment. “Movies and TV are seeing a shift away from them because there are only so many hours in the day,” Walsh said. He foresees a bright future for games, but some industry observers think the same competition for people’s attention could hurt games, too. “People worry about crowding out,” Friedler said. “If someone is always on Facebook and MySpace and texting, how much time is left for games?”

Review:
When PJ Harvey announced her retirement from touring in an
interview a few years ago, the rock world sighed with sadness.
She had earned the title Queen of Rock after a series of
consistently thrilling albums and spell-binding shows, and there
was no obvious successor to the throne.
She must have been having a bad day, because here she is on a
sparse Hamer Hall stage adorned with just piano and fairy lights,
dressed in a white Victorian ball gown marked with the word “grow”
on her thigh, resuming her love affair with her fans.
Harvey was chatty and friendly throughout the night, and showed
no signs of stage fright.
“I was watching you come in,” she says in her quiet English
lilt, “and I thought, ‘what a well-dressed bunch of people’.”
The crowd, some who had come from as far as Bangkok and
Adelaide, returned the compliments, cheering and laughing at every
exchange, with some going further by yelling out “We love you, PJ”,
“You’re beautiful” and “Do you want to go for coffee?”
Unlike Kiss and John Farnham, who went back on their words after
promoting “farewell tours”, you get the feeling Harvey’s brief
retirement had more to do with her fragile mental and physical
state than money.
This vulnerability is exposed on her haunting new album,
White Chalk - on which Dorset’s white-chalk cliffs seem to
act as a metaphor for her brittle mental state and raw emotions -
which made up half of the show.
Seated at a piano, she seemed to channel spirits and the ghosts
of her deceased ancestors - as well as Kate Bush - on spooky
sorrowful ballads The Devil, When Under Ether and
Silence.
If you closed your eyes during the title track, you could
imagine her serenading you while tiptoeing around Dorset’s white
cliffs on England’s south-west coast.
Much of the new material may be bleak and harrowing - abortions,
her dead grandmother and feelings of sadness, regret,
claustrophobia, loneliness and longing pervade the songs. But
Grow, Grow, Grow, which she described as the linchpin of
the new album, ended on a optimistic note when she sang: “Teach me,
mommy, how to grow/how to catch someone’s fancy/underneath the
twisted oak grove.”
Throughout the 90-minute show, Harvey was a study in contrasts:
angelic and demonic, soft and loud, down and euphoric, beautiful
and ugly.
She came across like bluesman Howlin’ Wolf, wailing like a
banshee on the bluesy, guttural To Bring You My Love, and
then like an innocent school girl on B-Side Nina.
She performed skeletal demo versions of older songs, and while
the lush Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
material suffered from the lack of a band, her namesake and regular
collaborator, Melburnian Bad Seed Mick Harvey, returned to back her
on several songs after opening the show with his own set.
Other gaps were filled with her dynamic vocal range and by
clever manipulation of sounds through vocal samples and distortion
pedals, which she deftly tap-tap-tapped with her steep black
stilettos.
It was a grand comeback. Long live the queen.

Review:
When PJ Harvey announced her retirement from touring in an
interview a few years ago, the rock world sighed with sadness.
She had earned the title Queen of Rock after a series of
consistently thrilling albums and spell-binding shows, and there
was no obvious successor to the throne.
She must have been having a bad day, because here she is on a
sparse Hamer Hall stage adorned with just piano and fairy lights,
dressed in a white Victorian ball gown marked with the word “grow”
on her thigh, resuming her love affair with her fans.
Harvey was chatty and friendly throughout the night, and showed
no signs of stage fright.
“I was watching you come in,” she says in her quiet English
lilt, “and I thought, ‘what a well-dressed bunch of people’.”
The crowd, some who had come from as far as Bangkok and
Adelaide, returned the compliments, cheering and laughing at every
exchange, with some going further by yelling out “We love you, PJ”,
“You’re beautiful” and “Do you want to go for coffee?”
Unlike Kiss and John Farnham, who went back on their words after
promoting “farewell tours”, you get the feeling Harvey’s brief
retirement had more to do with her fragile mental and physical
state than money.
This vulnerability is exposed on her haunting new album,
White Chalk - on which Dorset’s white-chalk cliffs seem to
act as a metaphor for her brittle mental state and raw emotions -
which made up half of the show.
Seated at a piano, she seemed to channel spirits and the ghosts
of her deceased ancestors - as well as Kate Bush - on spooky
sorrowful ballads The Devil, When Under Ether and
Silence.
If you closed your eyes during the title track, you could
imagine her serenading you while tiptoeing around Dorset’s white
cliffs on England’s south-west coast.
Much of the new material may be bleak and harrowing - abortions,
her dead grandmother and feelings of sadness, regret,
claustrophobia, loneliness and longing pervade the songs. But
Grow, Grow, Grow, which she described as the linchpin of
the new album, ended on a optimistic note when she sang: “Teach me,
mommy, how to grow/how to catch someone’s fancy/underneath the
twisted oak grove.”
Throughout the 90-minute show, Harvey was a study in contrasts:
angelic and demonic, soft and loud, down and euphoric, beautiful
and ugly.
She came across like bluesman Howlin’ Wolf, wailing like a
banshee on the bluesy, guttural To Bring You My Love, and
then like an innocent school girl on B-Side Nina.
She performed skeletal demo versions of older songs, and while
the lush Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
material suffered from the lack of a band, her namesake and regular
collaborator, Melburnian Bad Seed Mick Harvey, returned to back her
on several songs after opening the show with his own set.
Other gaps were filled with her dynamic vocal range and by
clever manipulation of sounds through vocal samples and distortion
pedals, which she deftly tap-tap-tapped with her steep black
stilettos.
It was a grand comeback. Long live the queen.

Review:
When PJ Harvey announced her retirement from touring in an
interview a few years ago, the rock world sighed with sadness.
She had earned the title Queen of Rock after a series of
consistently thrilling albums and spell-binding shows, and there
was no obvious successor to the throne.
She must have been having a bad day, because here she is on a
sparse Hamer Hall stage adorned with just piano and fairy lights,
dressed in a white Victorian ball gown marked with the word “grow”
on her thigh, resuming her love affair with her fans.
Harvey was chatty and friendly throughout the night, and showed
no signs of stage fright.
“I was watching you come in,” she says in her quiet English
lilt, “and I thought, ‘what a well-dressed bunch of people’.”
The crowd, some who had come from as far as Bangkok and
Adelaide, returned the compliments, cheering and laughing at every
exchange, with some going further by yelling out “We love you, PJ”,
“You’re beautiful” and “Do you want to go for coffee?”
Unlike Kiss and John Farnham, who went back on their words after
promoting “farewell tours”, you get the feeling Harvey’s brief
retirement had more to do with her fragile mental and physical
state than money.
This vulnerability is exposed on her haunting new album,
White Chalk - on which Dorset’s white-chalk cliffs seem to
act as a metaphor for her brittle mental state and raw emotions -
which made up half of the show.
Seated at a piano, she seemed to channel spirits and the ghosts
of her deceased ancestors - as well as Kate Bush - on spooky
sorrowful ballads The Devil, When Under Ether and
Silence.
If you closed your eyes during the title track, you could
imagine her serenading you while tiptoeing around Dorset’s white
cliffs on England’s south-west coast.
Much of the new material may be bleak and harrowing - abortions,
her dead grandmother and feelings of sadness, regret,
claustrophobia, loneliness and longing pervade the songs. But
Grow, Grow, Grow, which she described as the linchpin of
the new album, ended on a optimistic note when she sang: “Teach me,
mommy, how to grow/how to catch someone’s fancy/underneath the
twisted oak grove.”
Throughout the 90-minute show, Harvey was a study in contrasts:
angelic and demonic, soft and loud, down and euphoric, beautiful
and ugly.
She came across like bluesman Howlin’ Wolf, wailing like a
banshee on the bluesy, guttural To Bring You My Love, and
then like an innocent school girl on B-Side Nina.
She performed skeletal demo versions of older songs, and while
the lush Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
material suffered from the lack of a band, her namesake and regular
collaborator, Melburnian Bad Seed Mick Harvey, returned to back her
on several songs after opening the show with his own set.
Other gaps were filled with her dynamic vocal range and by
clever manipulation of sounds through vocal samples and distortion
pedals, which she deftly tap-tap-tapped with her steep black
stilettos.
It was a grand comeback. Long live the queen.

The allure of Hollywood’s biggest stars is losing out to entertainment based on microscopic circuitry and fancy software.Do you doubt it? While movie attendance has essentially been flat for six years, games for computers and video consoles have been booming.If the trend continues, many people in the entertainment industry will lose their jobs, but new types of jobs are already opening up, particularly in parts of California, which form a digital entertainment hub.”I feel a massive shift,” said Dana Settle, a venture capitalist at Greycroft Partners in Los Angeles who invests in online companies. “Movie studios are corporate behemoths. They’re going to crumble.”Movie stars Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, Mike Myers as the voice of Shrek and Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow came out with hit sequels last year, which helped raise box office receipts in North America to $9.7 billion. But that total, which excludes shrinking DVD sales and downloads, was up a mere 2.4 percent from 2004, according to data tracker Media by Numbers.Apples-to-apples comparisons aren’t possible, but the contrasts are clear. Game industry sales, including consoles and software, totaled about $18 billion in the United States last year, up 43 percent over 2006, according to market researcher NPD Group.The first-person shooting game “Halo 3,” the hard-to-find Wii game console and the role-playing “World of Warcraft” were among the hits that contributed to those sales. Last month, Warcraft publisher Blizzard Entertainment of Irvine announced the game had 10 million subscribers.The No. 1 game even outpaced the No. 1 movie last year. “Halo 3″ brought in $170 million on its first day; “Spider-Man 3″ grossed $151 million on its first weekend.Game experts recently discussed the effects of changing entertainment choices. The impact extends from the living room to the workplace.”Studios are on the down slope, and they know it,” said Jamie Somes, senior managing director of Alexander Dunham Capital investment bank in Los Angeles. “They’re not well-positioned as organizations for the new digital environment.” He cited predictions that within five years studios will be only half to one-tenth their current size.”In studios, you can smell the fear,” Settle said. “They’re missing the creative spark. At game companies, people are psyched.”Unlike movies, modern computer-based games let viewers interact with the game’s story or with other players, said Bob Drobish, president of startup True Games Interactive, who spoke to a meeting of video game engineers at the Digital Media Center incubator in Santa Ana.Modern games often do not appeal to consumers over 30 because they tend to think of computers as one-person productivity tools - which is what they used to be, Drobish said. People under 30 take to those games more readily, he said, because they view computers as social devices for exchanging e-mails, instant messages and pictures with friends.”Computers are inherently social,” especially in the age of high-speed broadband networks, he said. New types of games tap into that quality, especially multiplayer online role-playing games such as “World of Warcraft,” he said.The development of multiplayer social games is possible because of fundamental technological improvements in computers and computer networks, said Tim Walsh, the Los Angeles-based executive vice president of in-game advertising company IGA Worldwide.”Improved software, file compression, better code, Flash animation - they’re coming together to extend the digital lifestyle,” he said.With the new appeal of games come new business opportunities - and more games in the future.- Red 5 Studios. Three game makers and executives from Blizzard - “World of Warcraft” team leader Mark Kern, art director William Petras, and Taewon Yun, who launched the game in Korea - founded Red 5 Studios in 2005 and since then have been working on their first game. With development studios in Aliso Viejo and Shanghai, China, the company’s goal is “bringing together millions of gamers across the world by creating immersive worlds, intriguing stories and compelling characters.”- Carbine Studios. Ten other former “World of Warcraft” game makers, including lead animator Kevin Beardslee, lead composer Jason Hayes and senior artist Matt Mocarski, founded Carbine Studios in Aliso Viejo. The company has 17 former Blizzard employees who are developing a multiplayer online game.- True Games Interactive. Last year, Drobish and Jeff Lujan, chief publishing officer at True Games, left executive positions at K2 to pursue their startup. They hope to launch a domestic version of a Korean game this summer.- Sleepy Giant. Last year former K2 executives Matthew Hannus and David Lee started Newport Beach-based Sleepy Giant, which runs other companies’ games rather than developing its own. The gaming opportunities aren’t limited to entrepreneurs.”A lot of good Hollywood TV and movie talent is being drawn to games” because game production can be more stable than the boom-and-bust movie business, and can even offer better fringe benefits, said Mark Friedler, founder of the GameDaily Web site. People who are moving from movies to games include digital artists and special effects experts, who tell Friedler one reason for the decision is, “I like having health insurance,” he said. Because the virtual landscapes of online worlds have grown to accommodate so many players, Walsh said, “Game companies need a tremendous amount of digital artists, physicists and designers.” Friedler cited two problems new game companies face - rising costs and growing competition for consumers‘ time. “To create a next-generation console game costs $40 million to $50 million,” he said. “That’s the same cost as a lot of movies.” With “World of Warcraft,” Blizzard changed the market, raising players’ expectations for how realistic a game will be. To accomplish that, the company spent an estimated $90 million, Drobish said. At first the budget seemed excessive, but now it looks brilliant, he said. Intense competition for consumers’ time has already affected traditional forms of entertainment. “Movies and TV are seeing a shift away from them because there are only so many hours in the day,” Walsh said. He foresees a bright future for games, but some industry observers think the same competition for people’s attention could hurt games, too. “People worry about crowding out,” Friedler said. “If someone is always on Facebook and MySpace and texting, how much time is left for games?”

In the new movie “Cloverfield” a towering monster runs amok in New York City, knocking over buildings and collapsing bridges.No, it’s not a very original idea. But “Cloverfield” sells an old premise by telling the entire story through the footage shot on a video cam by a 20-something partygoer who witnesses these cataclysmic events.”The idea of a Godzilla-like creature trashing New York is pretty absurd,” observes Anthony Timpone, editor of Fangoria, a magazine devoted to horror, fantasy and science fiction.”But by telling the tale through `found footage,’ the filmmakers provide the sort of immediacy that might overcome the viewers’ objections. They’ve even cast the film with talented unknowns. … If it was Tom Cruise running around trying to evade the monster, it would take you out of the movie. But having unknown actors helps sell you on the story’s authenticity.”No matter how convincingly made, “Cloverfield” is unlikely to persuade anyone that it’s based on real events.Yet just a few years back a little movie called “The Blair Witch Project” did just that. The film so effectively employed “found footage” - purportedly left behind by members of a documentary crew who vanished in the Maryland woods - that thousands of gullible moviegoers became convinced it was the real deal.Called fake documentaries, mockumentaries or faux reality, movies that mimic documentary forms can range from the hilarious to the dead serious.Often, as in the comedies of filmmaker Christopher Guest (”Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show”), they have satiric intentions and slyly ridicule political and cultural norms and human foibles.Sometimes the format is used to make the scares scarier, as with “Cloverfield” or George Romero’s “Diary of the Dead” (scheduled to open Feb. 15), in which footage shot by students making a zombie movie reveals that they’ve captured real zombies on film.At other times, as with director Brian De Palma’s “Redacted,” the mockumentary format brings added realism to dramatic current events.In that film the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl by American soldiers is told entirely through the evidence left by a GI’s video, surveillance cameras, Web sites, news footage and a documentary film. It’s fake, but it looks real.As we’ve seen with “Blair Witch,” these movies can be quite convincing.Which raises an interesting question: Are we sophisticated enough to recognize when the images we see in theaters and on TV and the Internet have been faked? Are we smart to the scam?”I don’t think there is an easy answer to these questions,” said Craig Hight, a New Zealand educator and co-author of the book “Faking It: Mock-Documentary and the Subversion of Factuality.”"Audiences are familiar with mockumentaries after watching everything from `This Is Spinal Tap’ to `Blair Witch’ to TV’s `The Office’ to `Borat.’ So they are `sophisticated’ to the extent of their knowledge of the form.”People watch reality TV shows like “Survivor,” well aware that authentic images can be manipulated and rearranged, Hight said, and almost everyone recognizes that photographs and video footage can be digitally altered so convincingly that only analysts with sophisticated computer programs can detect the changes.”Despite all of these developments, I think we still have a common-sense belief in photographic images,” Hight said. “We go to the television set to see what really happened, to hear the emotion, to live something of the experience. We still seek those forms of media that we can assume are more `authentic’ or `raw.’ I think that’s a key part of the attraction of sites like YouTube, with so much amateur content.”In fact, the Internet is replete with sites offering bits of fuzzy footage recorded by just plain folks on their cell phone cameras. We assume that what we see really happened, whether it’s footage of skateboarders doing incredible stunts or of sidewalk fistfights.But there’s nothing to stop a tech-savvy provocateur from giving us staged or digitally manipulated footage and making it seem real by mimicking the look and feel of something recorded on a cell phone.It’s all part of a long tradition of selling fantastic fiction by making it seem real. Bram Stoker’s original vampire yarn “Dracula,” for example, was written as a series of diary entries, an approach that made the story seem plausible. Orson Welles’ infamous “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast in 1938 so perfectly mimicked a night of standard radio fare that when it was interrupted by fake news reports of a Martian invasion, mass hysteria followed.”We’re pushovers for this stuff,” said Chris Gore, movie critic and operator of the pop culture site filmthreat.com.”You could argue that there are no original stories left, but there are original ways of telling those stories. A film told in fake documentary style approaches the material in an entirely new way. And we’re eager - maybe too eager - to buy into the illusion.”An exhibition opening next month at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington examines this very issue. The show, “The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image,” explores (according to the exhibit’s program) “the ever-increasing impact of the cinematic on our perceptions and the ways in which the very boundaries between ‘real life’ and make-believe have become at least blurred, if not indecipherable.”Kristen Hileman, co-curator of the exhibit, said the show examines “how contemporary artists use a documentary aesthetic to create a convincing illusion of real life, or to present alternate views of reality.”One installation, created by a young woman who grew up in the Republic of the Congo, contrasts propaganda footage celebrating that country’s dictator with images of the artist participating in a march to honor his reign.”Only her movements are so mechanical and puppet-like that it forces you to examine how politicians and the media can create a spectacle that doesn’t at all represent what people are truly experiencing,” Hileman said.Another piece in the show uses a computer program to turn footage of the reading of the verdict of the O.J. Simpson trial into a cartoon. The change in medium, from news footage to animation, completely changes the viewer’s reading of the scene and forces us to consider how images can be manipulated.”You come away thinking that we really need to be savvy about what we’re looking at,” Hileman said.Younger audiences tend to be wiser to visual trickery than their parents, Hight suggests.”What’s somewhat shocking and disturbing for older audiences has become just a fact of life that young people deal with every day,” he said. “After all, we’ve got `The Daily Show’ giving us a constant lesson in deconstructing the news. It’s a new kind of literacy which is becoming more mainstream, and it’s created a more challenging environment for filmmakers to operate within.”Hileman said she endorses “a healthy cynical attitude” about the images we’re fed through the media.”That attitude is a manifestation of a culture becoming more self-aware about image use and the technological tools that can manipulate reality.”But at the same time, one of the big attractions of art is that people appreciate being fooled. We love the illusion, and part of the pleasure of being sucked in is knowing that the reality we’re being immersed in isn’t real.”The cinematic experience, after all, will always be about suspending our disbelief.”MEMORABLE MOCKUMENTARIES”Cannibal Holocaust” (1980): In this gruesome exploitation film, documentary footage left behind by a film crew in the South American jungle reveals a bloody encounter with an Indian tribe.”This Is Spinal Tap” (1984): A has-been Brit heavy metal band tours America in this hilarious faux documentary from Rob Reiner. Among the leads is Christopher Guest (see below).”84 Charlie Mopic” (1989): An American patrol in search of the Viet Cong is shown in the footage of an Army cameraman sent along to record their mission. Regarded by many as the most authentic Vietnam combat movie ever.The films of Christopher Guest: After starring in “Spinal Tap,” Guest adopted the mockumentary as his signature directing style. The result: largely improvised comedies like 1996’s “Waiting for Guffman” (about a small-town historic pageant), 2000’s “Best in Show” (the national dog show), 2003’s “A Mighty Wind” (folk singers) and 2006’s “For Your Consideration” (Oscar mania).”The Blair Witch Project” (1999): Made on the cheap, this atmospheric horror film felt so “authentic” many moviegoers assumed it was the real thing. One of the most lucrative movies ever released.”The Office” (2005- ): This popular workplace TV comedy employs documentary-style talking-head interviews in which characters speak directly to the camera.

In the new movie “Cloverfield” a towering monster runs amok in New York City, knocking over buildings and collapsing bridges.No, it’s not a very original idea. But “Cloverfield” sells an old premise by telling the entire story through the footage shot on a video cam by a 20-something partygoer who witnesses these cataclysmic events.”The idea of a Godzilla-like creature trashing New York is pretty absurd,” observes Anthony Timpone, editor of Fangoria, a magazine devoted to horror, fantasy and science fiction.”But by telling the tale through `found footage,’ the filmmakers provide the sort of immediacy that might overcome the viewers’ objections. They’ve even cast the film with talented unknowns. … If it was Tom Cruise running around trying to evade the monster, it would take you out of the movie. But having unknown actors helps sell you on the story’s authenticity.”No matter how convincingly made, “Cloverfield” is unlikely to persuade anyone that it’s based on real events.Yet just a few years back a little movie called “The Blair Witch Project” did just that. The film so effectively employed “found footage” - purportedly left behind by members of a documentary crew who vanished in the Maryland woods - that thousands of gullible moviegoers became convinced it was the real deal.Called fake documentaries, mockumentaries or faux reality, movies that mimic documentary forms can range from the hilarious to the dead serious.Often, as in the comedies of filmmaker Christopher Guest (”Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show”), they have satiric intentions and slyly ridicule political and cultural norms and human foibles.Sometimes the format is used to make the scares scarier, as with “Cloverfield” or George Romero’s “Diary of the Dead” (scheduled to open Feb. 15), in which footage shot by students making a zombie movie reveals that they’ve captured real zombies on film.At other times, as with director Brian De Palma’s “Redacted,” the mockumentary format brings added realism to dramatic current events.In that film the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl by American soldiers is told entirely through the evidence left by a GI’s video, surveillance cameras, Web sites, news footage and a documentary film. It’s fake, but it looks real.As we’ve seen with “Blair Witch,” these movies can be quite convincing.Which raises an interesting question: Are we sophisticated enough to recognize when the images we see in theaters and on TV and the Internet have been faked? Are we smart to the scam?”I don’t think there is an easy answer to these questions,” said Craig Hight, a New Zealand educator and co-author of the book “Faking It: Mock-Documentary and the Subversion of Factuality.”"Audiences are familiar with mockumentaries after watching everything from `This Is Spinal Tap’ to `Blair Witch’ to TV’s `The Office’ to `Borat.’ So they are `sophisticated’ to the extent of their knowledge of the form.”People watch reality TV shows like “Survivor,” well aware that authentic images can be manipulated and rearranged, Hight said, and almost everyone recognizes that photographs and video footage can be digitally altered so convincingly that only analysts with sophisticated computer programs can detect the changes.”Despite all of these developments, I think we still have a common-sense belief in photographic images,” Hight said. “We go to the television set to see what really happened, to hear the emotion, to live something of the experience. We still seek those forms of media that we can assume are more `authentic’ or `raw.’ I think that’s a key part of the attraction of sites like YouTube, with so much amateur content.”In fact, the Internet is replete with sites offering bits of fuzzy footage recorded by just plain folks on their cell phone cameras. We assume that what we see really happened, whether it’s footage of skateboarders doing incredible stunts or of sidewalk fistfights.But there’s nothing to stop a tech-savvy provocateur from giving us staged or digitally manipulated footage and making it seem real by mimicking the look and feel of something recorded on a cell phone.It’s all part of a long tradition of selling fantastic fiction by making it seem real. Bram Stoker’s original vampire yarn “Dracula,” for example, was written as a series of diary entries, an approach that made the story seem plausible. Orson Welles’ infamous “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast in 1938 so perfectly mimicked a night of standard radio fare that when it was interrupted by fake news reports of a Martian invasion, mass hysteria followed.”We’re pushovers for this stuff,” said Chris Gore, movie critic and operator of the pop culture site filmthreat.com.”You could argue that there are no original stories left, but there are original ways of telling those stories. A film told in fake documentary style approaches the material in an entirely new way. And we’re eager - maybe too eager - to buy into the illusion.”An exhibition opening next month at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington examines this very issue. The show, “The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image,” explores (according to the exhibit’s program) “the ever-increasing impact of the cinematic on our perceptions and the ways in which the very boundaries between ‘real life’ and make-believe have become at least blurred, if not indecipherable.”Kristen Hileman, co-curator of the exhibit, said the show examines “how contemporary artists use a documentary aesthetic to create a convincing illusion of real life, or to present alternate views of reality.”One installation, created by a young woman who grew up in the Republic of the Congo, contrasts propaganda footage celebrating that country’s dictator with images of the artist participating in a march to honor his reign.”Only her movements are so mechanical and puppet-like that it forces you to examine how politicians and the media can create a spectacle that doesn’t at all represent what people are truly experiencing,” Hileman said.Another piece in the show uses a computer program to turn footage of the reading of the verdict of the O.J. Simpson trial into a cartoon. The change in medium, from news footage to animation, completely changes the viewer’s reading of the scene and forces us to consider how images can be manipulated.”You come away thinking that we really need to be savvy about what we’re looking at,” Hileman said.Younger audiences tend to be wiser to visual trickery than their parents, Hight suggests.”What’s somewhat shocking and disturbing for older audiences has become just a fact of life that young people deal with every day,” he said. “After all, we’ve got `The Daily Show’ giving us a constant lesson in deconstructing the news. It’s a new kind of literacy which is becoming more mainstream, and it’s created a more challenging environment for filmmakers to operate within.”Hileman said she endorses “a healthy cynical attitude” about the images we’re fed through the media.”That attitude is a manifestation of a culture becoming more self-aware about image use and the technological tools that can manipulate reality.”But at the same time, one of the big attractions of art is that people appreciate being fooled. We love the illusion, and part of the pleasure of being sucked in is knowing that the reality we’re being immersed in isn’t real.”The cinematic experience, after all, will always be about suspending our disbelief.”MEMORABLE MOCKUMENTARIES”Cannibal Holocaust” (1980): In this gruesome exploitation film, documentary footage left behind by a film crew in the South American jungle reveals a bloody encounter with an Indian tribe.”This Is Spinal Tap” (1984): A has-been Brit heavy metal band tours America in this hilarious faux documentary from Rob Reiner. Among the leads is Christopher Guest (see below).”84 Charlie Mopic” (1989): An American patrol in search of the Viet Cong is shown in the footage of an Army cameraman sent along to record their mission. Regarded by many as the most authentic Vietnam combat movie ever.The films of Christopher Guest: After starring in “Spinal Tap,” Guest adopted the mockumentary as his signature directing style. The result: largely improvised comedies like 1996’s “Waiting for Guffman” (about a small-town historic pageant), 2000’s “Best in Show” (the national dog show), 2003’s “A Mighty Wind” (folk singers) and 2006’s “For Your Consideration” (Oscar mania).”The Blair Witch Project” (1999): Made on the cheap, this atmospheric horror film felt so “authentic” many moviegoers assumed it was the real thing. One of the most lucrative movies ever released.”The Office” (2005- ): This popular workplace TV comedy employs documentary-style talking-head interviews in which characters speak directly to the camera.

Words like “visionary” and “renaissance” are being used to describe the shift that is turning Garden City’s neglected corners into a model of urban renewal. Crime is down, rents are up, the cultural sector is igniting, and people in and around the area are excited about the future.The buzz started in 2005 when the city scrapped its comprehensive plan and invited the entire community to the rewrite. The resulting 49-page document won a Grow Smart Award from Idaho Smart Growth last year, not only for its inclusive process, but also for its innovative use of existing space and resources.An industrial stretch on Adams Street is slated to become a vibrant corridor like Boise’s Hyde Park. New zoning allows a Live-Work-Create district in the city’s Old Town that will have artists both living and working in affordable lofts. Design standards have been set that encourage attractive, integrated spaces in the commercial sector. The mixed-use Waterfront District development is going up between 37th and 35th streets. Bright buildings and bulldozers dominate the view from the south side of the Greenbelt, which will soon connect all the way to Eagle. The dream is grand, and some of it already has been realized, but how possible is the extreme transformation of a city with such a dark past? Can a place once known for gambling houses and shanty towns become, as it is sometimes called, “the heart of the Treasure Valley”? Will State Street grow into a tree-lined mall? Can the fairgrounds turn into a downtown core with its own skyline? Will boutiques, restaurants and neighborhood groceries pop up between used car lots, warehouses and bars?Garden City’s comprehensive plan boasts a “new vision for the future,” but most of the thousands of people who drive through the city every day are kicking back, waiting to see what happens.Meanwhile, a handful of individuals are carving out that vision. From business owners to artists to elected officials, these people are making the difference between a nice dream and a satisfying reality. All have hopes for the future, but in the 4.2 square miles on either side of Chinden, they are beautifying the present.We’d like you to meet some of these people. THE OTHER GARDEN CITYGarden City was named for the Chinese gardens that once thrived in the floodplains of the Boise River, but most of the gardens were gone before Donna Conn moved to 36th Street.The spirited 79-year-old’s mobile home and metal detector business, Conn’s Wampum Hut, look as though they’ve grown roots, a fitting metaphor for her connection to the place she’s called home for more than 50 years. Conn is a polio survivor, a mother, a journalist, an entrepreneur, a former dance band leader and Garden City’s unofficial historian. Over the years, she has involved herself in countless public hearings and community happenings, shaping the city just by speaking up, or as she jokes, “creating problems.” She was on the steering committee that helped draft Garden City’s new comprehensive plan and hopes it will combat a generation of stereotypes that would have outsiders believe everyone in the city has a bag of drugs in one hand and a gun in the other.”We came here in the mid-’50s, right before gambling was outlawed. We didn’t experience it, but we experienced the aftermath,” Conn said. “Everybody we talked to said, ‘Oh, you don’t want to move there.’ They had theories that there were red lights behind every bush, slot machines to lead you to iniquity. But once you got off the main strip, it was different.”The bad influences have changed, but the reputation lingers. Garden City has the highest density of registered sex offenders in Ada County (currently 54 of about 12,500 residents), and though the crime rate dropped almost 10 percent from 2005 to 2006 and more than 20 percent the year before, it is still relatively high for such a small city, as are poverty statistics. A 1999 census showed that 12.7 percent of the population was below the poverty line. The city is gearing up for another census in 2008, but City Clerk Pam Thomason said poverty numbers will probably be similar.”It’s going to change,” she added, “because the revitalization is starting to happen.” Conn is part of that revitalization, bolstered by memories of better times. Ron “Pinky” Lester had a skating rink just down the street, there were prize fights and movies in Centennial Park, and the now-defunct Garden City Gazette kept the community connected. With that community in mind, Conn plans to build a meditation garden in the old park and publish her own Garden City Bulletin, to celebrate “the good things.” “As the world updates and changes, Garden City is changing for the better along with it,” she said.CHANGE FROM THE BOTTOM UPIn a letter posted on Garden City’s official Web site, Mayor John Evans wrote: “Our city is, in many ways, undergoing a renaissance. We are rapidly moving from being just a small town surrounded by Boise and Eagle to being an attractive, vibrant and enviable city in the heart of the Treasure Valley.” Evans has witnessed that movement from many angles over many years. He was introduced to Garden City in the ’80s as a developer with Evans Brothers Construction. The three brothers took over an existing project on the west end of town and created the high-end subdivision, Riverside Village. Evans and his family moved to the area in 1988. Four years later, then-mayor Jay Davis asked him to serve on the planning and zoning commission. He joined the City Council in 1995, where he stayed until running for mayor in 2005. He took office in January 2006, amid a huge transition. “You kind of get vested in the community, living and working here. If you can effect some change, it kind of gets in your system,” Evans said. “What’s fun here is this change is being driven from the bottom up. These are not edicts coming down from the City Council. The steering committee is made up of people who live and work here.”IF YOU BUILD ITFour years ago, metal sculptor Irene Deely did something crazy. On a block of Chinden Boulevard occupied by High Desert Harley-Davidson and the old Ranch Club, she transformed a Chinese restaurant into a contemporary art gallery. She called it Woman of Steel, and as the name suggests, she stood on her own.”I’m learning that a lot of successful entrepreneurs don’t listen to the logic of something. They go with their hearts,” Deely said. “It became an installation piece for me to bring beauty into this place.”She called Garden City “the Left Bank of Boise” and compared its self-governing ways and myriad contrasts to the old West. She has brought some color to the commercial landscape of Chinden, from original works in her whimsical gallery to the striking aesthetic of its exterior to community events like the Chinese Dragon Parade, which Deely organized in September to celebrate the city’s past.”The encouragement it brought to people was amazing,” Deely said. “Some were crying because the police had finally come into this neighborhood not for a drug bust, but to throw candy to children and be part of something positive.”One thing she celebrated that day was the new Live-Work-Create district, which she helped design. Deely plans to build affordable lofts for artists behind her gallery, no matter what happens to the property value.”It’s definitely a huge risk, and I recognize that,” she said, “but it’s one that’s worth fighting for because of the human impact.”A LITTLE HELP FROM THE UNIVERSESam Stimpert and Anneliessa Balk Stimpert took a similar risk this year when they decided to pull Visual Arts Collective out of Boise’s Linen District straight into limbo. They opened the alternative gallery two years ago to promote all forms of art, from classic theater to independent film to body manipulation. But they couldn’t grow enough while renting in Boise, so they decided to buy in Garden City. The plan was to team up with Steve Fulton and Pat Storey of Audio Lab recording studios to create a progressive, multiuse arts facility in a community on the rise.”We loved the idea of coming to an area where the city was actively participating in urban renewal,” Balk Stimpert said. “Being first is so much more exciting because you have a chance to shape a place and make things happen.”Fulton helped the Stimperts find an old warehouse behind Woman of Steel, but the price tag left them stranded. On an impulse, Balk Stimpert wandered into the gallery and ended up telling Deely about her dream. Even though they barely knew each other, something clicked.Deely and her husband, Bob, ended up buying the warehouse behind their gallery with the understanding that the Stimperts would eventually pay it off. They got the keys in September, but serendipitous paths aren’t always the smoothest.Fulton was able to get a small-business loan of $50,000, but the total cost of remodeling the 9,200-square-foot space will be closer to $200,000. The new facility, which features a gallery, performance stage, recording studio, green room, conference room and lounge was supposed to open in October, but it has yet to crack its doors to the public. One financial surprise after another keeps getting in the way, but solutions continue to present themselves.”I have no doubt in my mind,” Fulton said. “I don’t even have a thread of doubt in my body that it will happen.”"Absolutely it will happen,” Balk Stimpert echoed. “We’ve had such incredible support, emotionally, mentally. It’s something the community really wants, and the support has fed us. I believe that the universe is on our side.” MIRACLE ON 35TH STREETWhile most of America weeps over the current healthcare crisis, people with no insurance, no jobs and no hope are getting free care at the Garden City Community Clinic.It grew from the vision of a local doctor named Karl Watts who wanted to provide medical care to needy people in foreign countries. When he realized how great the need was at home, he turned his attention to the federally designated “medically underserved” community of Garden City.Called Genesis World Mission, Watts’ nonprofit organization finds ways to give people from Kenya to Nampa vital care they often can’t afford. Steven Reames is executive director of the 5-year-old Garden City clinic, which used to be a doublewide trailer operating one day a week in a parking lot. Now it’s a polished primary care facility on 35th Street with the means to treat everything from diabetes to tooth decay. Low-income patients come from as far away as Mountain Home and Canyon County and are served by volunteer doctors, nurses, physician’s assistants, nurse practitioners and dentists who donated $100,000 last year in hours for medical services alone. That doesn’t include supplies, pharmaceuticals and administrative support, even if it’s as simple as finding a stamp for someone who needs it.Reames insisted there is no typical patient, that affluent people down on their luck share the waiting room with single moms, ex-cons and immigrants.”We’re a place to help people get back on their feet and put some dreams into the ground,” he said. “When they walk in here and see that this is a nice place, all of a sudden their human dignity rises up and they say, ‘Hey, I’m a person.’”And the community pitches in. Handwritten blessings line the studs in what will soon be a dental wing, and goody bags form the recently re-formed Garden City Chamber of Commerce are ready for patients who could use, as Reames says, “a little extra love.”"Even increasing people’s hope for the future - that’s a big thing,” he said. “Everybody is responsible for their corner of the world. There are a lot of corners in Garden City, and we want to make sure our corner is beautiful.”Erin Ryan: 672-6734