Below are the notes from the various sessions I went to during teh first weekend of South By SouthWest 2012. Fair warning: They are stream of consciousness, so comprehend at your own risk!

DAY #1

Friday broke with thunder and a ton of rain but it did very little to dampen the spirits of SXSW! There wasn’t much happening in the morning besides picking up badges and press tags. It ended up being a good thing we went early because by lunch time the line for registration literately stretched the length of the ACC.

Here is a rundown of all the sessions I went to on Friday along with notes.

2:00pm session – The Future of Lifestyle Media (Notes)

3:30pm session – Speed Tweaks: How Fast Can Audiences Drive Edits (Notes)

5:00pm session – Bust! I started out going to the The Opening Act: Making of the SXSW Film Bumpers session. I wasn’t really feeling it so after ten minutes, I decided to jump over to “Future of Entertainment: Viewer Becomes User“. Yeah, big mistake. Granted the panel at Future of Entertainment had more name recognition and an almost packed crowd; but all they talked about was GroupMe and GetGlue mostly because the top brass from each of those companies was on the panel. I hope other people got something out of it but for the most part it came across as a status update/bragging session for the panel and their projects. About 20 minutes in, I noticed more than a few people beginning to head for the doors so I took my cue and went to find my P.I.C. Kinda wished I had stayed in Opening Act but C’est la vie.

DAY #2

Saturday wasn’t much better than Friday but I got to the Film/Interactive Convergence room a session early to have a good seat for Joss Whedon’s discussion. The session before his was based on the BBC’s “The Code” transmedia project. It was extremely interesting to hear how they blended the various mediums to create a real life experience for the audience. All the notes are below:

9:30am session – Creating The Code: A BBC Transmedia Documentary (Notes)

11:00am session – A Conversation with Joss Whedon (Notes)

2:00pm session – “Warp”ed Film-making (Notes)

3:30pm session – (Notes)

5:00pm session –

DAY #3

Sunday Started off cloudy but ended up clear and sunny by the afternoon. It started to look like a typical SXSW and people flocked for the streets. The highlight today by far was the Jeffery Tambor Workshop. Notes are below:

DAY #4

Last day of SXSW for me and by far the prettiest. I took alot of time to go hit up different exhibits and collect trade show swag but here are some of the notes: