Category: Interviews (Page 3 of 6)

Exploring the World of Collapsus with Director Tommy Pallotta

October 25, 2010 / Michael Andersen

In March of 2010, the Dutch broadcasting company VPRO released the documentary Energy Risk as part of its Future Affairs programming. The Dutch-language documentary explored the impending transition from fossil fuel to alternative energy sources. Recognizing that the average documentary viewer is over the age of 55, the network approached SubmarineChannel to create a more engaging experience that would appeal to younger audiences. Tommy Pallotta was brought on board to direct the experience, and the Collapsus experience was born.

Staying true to the project’s documentary roots, Collapsus presents a global narrative that plays out in the near-future. Told through the eyes of activist vlogger Vera and a cast of supporting characters, Collapsus depicts a complex world of profiteering, geo-political maneuvering, and conspiracy centering around dwindling oil reserves. Stylistically, the experience combines live action film with rotoscoped scenes that should be familiar to viewers of Pallotta’s previous projects, Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. Pallotta notes that “we settled on a hybrid of live action and animation as an aesthetic choice, but also one made for time and budget. The story takes place all over the world so we had to find a way to tell a global story that didn’t show the limitations we had.” This core narrative, combining live action and animation, forms the root of the Collapsus experience. And while this passive experience can provide a complete narrative arc, the story is peppered with a host of opportunities to take a more active role in the story.

Anthony Zuiker Takes CSI to the Next Level 26

October 12, 2010 / Michael Andersen

Images courtesy of Level 26

It’s been over a year since CSI creator and executive producer Anthony Zuiker unleashed the grim world of Steve Dark upon readers with the release of his first digi-novel, Level 26: Dark Origins, and on Thursday October 14th, Zuiker is returning to the Level 26 universe with the release of Level 26: Dark Prophecy. The date also marks a CSI-Level 26 crossover, as the “forensics-proof” Level 26 villain, Sqweegel, is scheduled to make an appearance in this week’s episode of CSI. What follows is a look back at the Level 26 franchise along with hints of what’s to come for “Special Circs” agent Steve Dark stemming from an interview with Zuiker about the series.

When Level 26: Dark Origins launched last year, it quickly secured its status as an international and New York Times bestseller, now boasting over 100,000 members at the digi-novel’s website, Level26.com. The novel was peppered with 20 five-minute videos serving as “cyberbridges” in the unfolding narrative. The story centered around Steve Dark’s near-obsessive hunt for Sqweegel, a fastidious serial killer who committed his crimes while wearing a white body condom. Zuiker notes that “the book [Level 26: Dark Origins] was very sexually deviant, very dark . . . and it was vamped that way back then beause we were definitely shooting to do things that were too-hot-for-television.”

During the novel’s concluding cyberbridge, viewers were treated to a tantalyzing glimpse of an empty, black body condom, a prelude to Sqweegel actor Daniel Browning Smith’s entrance into the CSI universe. Thursday’s episode, entitledÂ Sqweegel, will serve as an extended cyberbridge of sorts, linking the events of the first book to the sequel. Zuiker explains that “Black Sqweegel will be on CSI as a forensic-proof killer, and when that particular episode ends, the storyline will continue in Dark Prophecy.”

Interview with Mystery Guest 2010 Creator Heather Owings

September 8, 2010 / Jane Doh

Mystery Guest logo This August, the Finksburg Library in Carroll County, Maryland, finished up Mystery Guest 2010, its second alternate reality game to encourage summer reading for middle-schoolers and high-schoolers in the area.Â Linked with the summer reading program, players earned Library Bucks to use at the Auction Wrap-Up Party where there were prizes like a hockey puck signed by Washington Capitals right-winger Mike Knuble or tickets to Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, MD.

As reported previously on ARGNet in July, participants were challenged to identify (and deal with) the rather unpleasant Mystery Guest, a literary character that fell out of a book. The game played out mostly through the Mystery Guest 2010 blog, with 4 teen voluneers acting as main characters and liaisons, along with the Librarian to keep things in line. Just as the Mystery Guest was identified, however, he escaped from the library.

ARGNet had the opportunity to ask a few questions to the organizer for the library’s first alternate reality game, Find Chesia, and for Mystery Guest 2010, Library Associate II Heather Owings, about what it’s like to create ARGs for local teenagers.

ARGs 101: ARGNet Owner Featured on The Digital Cowboys Podcast

August 27, 2010 / Jane Doh

Since 2007, The Digital Cowboys, with lively hosts Alex and Tony, have aired weekly podcasts on gaming, and this week ARGNet’s own Michael Andersen was their featured guest. Covering both past games and current campaigns, The Digital Cowboys Episode 166 is a must-listen for anyone interested in ARGs.

Newcomers should find the interview a particularly useful introduction to playing alternate reality games because it features an in-depth look at how to join the ARG-playing community and also a systematic discussion ofÂ the slang we tend to take for granted. Â Old-timers might appreciate the laughs, especially as Michael gives his personal take on some of the best and the worst of the genre and as the Digital Cowboys try to wrestle with some of the crazy things ARG players and creators do . . . for fun.

We Lost Our Gold: 3 Pirates, 1 Ninja, 10,000 Dollars

July 5, 2010 / Jane Doh

A poor, adorable pirate-and-ninja crew have misplaced their pirate booty somewhere in the five boroughs of New York City, and if you can find it, you might walk away with a chest filled with 10,000 gold-colored dollar coins. We Lost Our Gold is an eight-part web series that will contain clues to the location of the loot. To prevent complete chaos in the city, the organizers have asked that people not dig randomly, and instead watch the videos for clues because the spot will be marked. The We Lost Our Gold website itself will be the “treasure map” as the hunt begins in earnest on August 1.

Who has 10,000 dollars to drop somewhere in New York? The creators of We Lost Our Gold are keeping this kind of out-of-game information very close to the chest, and very little can be found about them despite mainstream coverage of the project on the Huffington Post. The pirates themselves have issued what might very well be the best press release ever written.

We Lost Our Gold will be aÂ true, modern-day treasure hunt: according to the creators, “We’ve always wanted to experience the excitement of searching for pirate treasure, so we decided to give that feeling to everyone else.” That the pirates (and ninja) have made an appearance on a Times Square billboard suggests some serious resources, and at least one social media blogger has suggested that We Lost Our Gold might be a promotion for New York City tourism.

Although We Lost Our Gold doesn’t start until next month, two trailers have been released, with another trailer scheduled for July 18. The three pirates and ninja can be reached over email, and two of them, the Captain and first mate Mulligan, have active Twitter accounts. The Captain is sharing his piratical wisdom in a series of useful “pirate tips,” and Mulligan has learned to navigate the city by subway. We Lost Our Gold also has a Facebook fan page for updates, and there’s some speculating over at the Unfiction forums.

While waiting for the madness to begin, I decided to email the Captain a few innocent questions. The Captain wasn’t too thrilled about it, but still I got quite the response, edited below as an interview for ease of reading.
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Interview with Author Patrick Carman

May 17, 2010 / Michael Andersen

Below is an interview that Michael Andersen conducted with prolific multimedia author Patrick Carman. Over the past few years, Carman has released a number of projects that seek to redefine the novel. In addition to his Skeleton Creek series, Carman wrote The Black Circle, book five in the 39 Clues franchise. Carman released Thirteen Days to Midnight in April and TRACKERS in May.

MA: What lead you to start writing transmedia novels? (Also, is there another term you prefer for the format?)

PC: I’m just going to come right out and say it at the top: Transmedia, as a unifying term, is beyond lame. And it points to a challenge we’re facing in this space: coining a term is a tricky business. What the heck do we call what we’re doing? I tried vBooks (also lame), others have tried Diginovel, iStories, Vook, cross-platform…the list goes on, and I think they all fail to inspire at a level that will bring everyone under one tent. You guys did better with ARG – Alternate Reality Game – it stuck. How’d you do that?

To our credit (and by “our” I mean everyone trying to explode books into the 21^st century landscape) we’re talking about a brand new way of telling stories. We’re probably supposed to fumble around in the dark for awhile, but I think we’re getting closer. My two cents as of today is that we’re basically talking about something that’s been around for a long time, namely multimedia. And really, that’s a pretty good term to describe what’s happening to with these books; they’re becoming something broader, encompassing different medias. It’s interesting that movies and TV shows and web sites don’t have the same challenge. Creators of those mediums aren’t sitting around debating what they should call something when a movie has an ARG and spawns a TV show. It’s simply multimedia. The difference with a project like Skeleton Creek or TRACKERS is that I’m committed to a simple premise those other examples aren’t interested in: for me, the destination is always the book. That means the videos, the games, the web sites – they have a job to do, which is to get young readers turning pages. At PC Studio, where we make all these assets, a video is only as good as the pages it pushes a reader to turn.

Long winded already and I haven’t even exited question number one. The short answer is MULTIMEDIA. That’s what it’s called, that’s what it is.