Jurassic Park Slope: Dinosaurs, Hipsters, and Bill Murray

Caitlin Burns and Steele Filipek are on the hunt for Bill Murray. When they’re not at their day jobs at Starlight Runner Entertainment, the transmedia producers are covering Williamsburg, Brooklyn with flyers in hopes of attracting the attention of the comedian. Burns and Filipek are developing Jurassic Park Slope, an interactive transmedia experience about urban hipsters and dinosaurs, and are determined to get Murray to star in it.

An homage to the 1993 blockbuster hit, Jurassic Park, Burns and Filipek’s film involves a group of urban hipsters who, while trying to find the ultimate loft party, find that their Brooklyn neighborhood has been overtaken by dinosaurs. Players will follow the hipsters’ adventures through videos, blogs, social media and on their smart phones as they explore Williamsburg. According to one of the producers, Caitlin Burns, “Those not in Brooklyn will have opportunities to participate, though most of the gaming will be located in businesses and GPS locations in Williamsburg. There will be content that can only be unlocked online through games, contests that will be open to all comers, and of course, we’ve been posting, updating and tweeting things that relate to dinosaurs, hipsters and other related topics.”

So why Bill Murray? He has become somewhat of a legend akin to Bigfoot or Nessie in the Brooklyn neighborhood. According to urban legend, Murray shows up unannounced at loft parties and bars or walks up to strangers in public, saying, “No one will ever believe you,” and then slips away into the night, often leaving spectators in shock. Burns says, “Bill Murray is like an enigma wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in unflinchingly hilarious comedy… He seems like a person who enjoys fun, has strong opinions about things and might do something like this just because he dug it. Also, he’s utterly brilliant, even the strange groups that boycott him as the antichrist agree that he’s one of the funniest people alive.”

Murray apparently isn’t an easy man to find. As he explained himself in a recent GQ interview, if someone wants to pitch an idea to him, they have to call his 1-800 number and leave a message. He’ll respond if he’s interested. Finding this number, though, isn’t easy. Burns and Filipek have set up their own hotline, “The Murrayphone”, at (646) 423-0290, and posted flyers all over Williamsburg to lure him out of hiding.

So what happens if they can’t find Murray? Burns says they have a backup plan, “but it’s a definitely a last resort. Bill Murray being in Jurassic Park Slope is a quest of heroic proportions, like seeing a Unicorn, or finding the Fountain of Youth, and we have set ourselves on that path. But we would be remiss to everyone who is taking part in this journey if we didn’t have a fallback plan. [We have a] wonderful, legendary, alluring secret that is almost as awesome as getting Bill Murray would be… almost.”