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Mr. Weiler Goes to Rotterdam: Transmedia at the International Film Festival

January 15, 2009 / Michael Andersen

Artwork by Reinier Clabbers. Click picture for downloadable hi-res version.

In a few days, Lance Weiler is going to Rotterdam to attend CineMart, the annual co-production market of the International Film Festival. Weiler’s upcoming cross-media project HIM was selected as one of 36 films to participate in this year’s presentation to an expected 850 international producers, sales agents, distributors, and funds. HIM, in addition to being the only work selected from the United States this year, is the first transmedia work to be selected at CineMart in its 26 year history. Previous films selected to participate in CineMart include the Academy Award-winning film Boys Don’t Cry, the grotesquely captivating Ichi the Killer (æ®ºã—å±‹ï¼‘), and The Eye (è¦‹é¬¼), recently remade for the United States starring Jessica Alba.

When reached for comment, Weiler explained that HIM would be an interactive experience fusing storytelling and gaming, set on a global stage. The thought-provoking horror story will be a film at its core, but will fuse together elements of gaming, live events, serialized shorts, and graphic novel content taking place around the world and in your own living room. While the rules of the universe are established, Weiler has left considerable room in the story for what he describes as “controlled spontaneity”: the rules of the universe are set up, but the ripples from audience participation can have significant effects on the final product. As co-founder and principal of Seize the Media, Weiler developed the Hope is Missing ARG for the DVD release of his immersive film project Head Trauma, and worked with Hammer Films to produce the Beyond the Rave experience on MySpace.

The project is also an attempt to move away from traditional financing models for films relying on private equity and pre-sale financing deals by utilizing branding and licensing agreements. The ideal is to cement transmedia as a new media format. And one of the advantages of transmedia storytelling is the ability to set up considerable story elements on a limited budget, leading to a gradual rollout drawing on an international audience. Indeed, a number of times Weiler hinted that some elements may be floating out there relatively soon.

Presenting HIM to potential investors at CineMart is an opportunity to showcase both the potential and opportunities inherent in transmedia storytelling and alternate reality gaming as a self-sufficient format. And as one of BusinessWeek’s 18 People Who Changed Hollywood, Weiler just might be the man for the job.

The Creepy Luny Inn

January 13, 2009 / Robbie Smith

Taking no break following Transition Village, Funnel Productions released the first episode of “The Myth of the Seeker” today on www.creepylunyinn.com. Funnel’s latest project, the CLN website is home to an online radio drama that promises to give listeners a chance to take part in each episode by voting via Twitter for what they think should be in the upcoming broadcast.

Transition Village players will also get a nice Easter Egg if they follow the Sponsors link at CLN where they will find a certain recently revived character running a successful business.

Who Watches the Watchmen?

January 12, 2009 / Robbie Smith

If Warner Bros. can reconcile with Fox in time, you will be able to see The Watchmen in theaters come March 6th. In the meantime, fans can tide themselves over with The New Frontiersman, the online home of Rorschach’s favorite newspaper by the same name.

Whether the site will be home to a full alternate reality game or just a handful of sneak peeks is unknown at this time, but New Frontiersman is due to go live early this week when the evidence seal seen on the homepage is broken and should provide fans with a nice treat either way. Join Rorschach and delve into the conspiracy as it happens.

Eldritch Errors Live PM Chat Tuesday Night

January 12, 2009 / Marie Lamb

Announced today on the game’s meta blog, many of the folks behind Eldritch Errors will be on IRC tomorrow night starting at 9:00 pm EST to answer questions about the game and hopefully give us some ideas of what’s to come next.

With the recent completion of Book Three, this promises to be an entertaining and lively chat. You can join the fun either via your web browser with the ARGN java chat, or if you have an IRC client, the server is irc.chat-solutions.org, and the room is #stfeline.

This is Not a Game: The Novel

January 11, 2009 / Michael Andersen

The phrase “This Is Not a Game” has resonated over the years as an often misunderstood mantra for alternate reality gaming. Thus, I say the following with a bit of hesitation: This is Not a Game is, surprisingly enough, not actually a game. At least, it isn’t if you’re talking about Walter Jon Williams’ newest novel of the same name, due out March 24th.

This Is Not a Game (not to be confused with Dave Szulborski’s book of the same title) is a novel about Dagmar, an alternate reality game designer trapped in Jakarta during a revolution. When one of her co-workers is gunned down in the parking lot, she draws on her game’s player base to help her without their knowledge, diverting player talents and energies to solve her problems within the context of the ARG.

Walter Jon Williams is no stranger to alternate reality games, and worked with 42 Entertainment as a writer for Last Call Poker, working with prose, radio plays, comic books, sound files, puzzles, and teleplays. You can read more about his time working on Last Call Poker at his blog, Angel Station. His experience with Last Call Poker inspired him, in his words, “to take this bright, hot, blazingly hip new medium and turn it into ink on dead paper.” Williams’ goal with This Is Not a Game is to capture both the frantic pace and sense of danger ARGs can convey due to the immediacy of feedback and dynamic nature of the game due to player involvement.

While the plot of the novel centers around alternate reality gaming, there are no plans to develop cross-media…yet. However, Orbit Books has already picked up two more books in Williams’ new universe, starting with a direct sequel, Deep State.

Click here to pre-order This Is Not a Game at Amazon

Welcome to the new recruits!

January 10, 2009 / Jonathan Waite

Just before the holidays, we asked our readers to come forward and join our staff of volunteers, and wouldn’t you know it, some of you did just that. Now that the craziness of the holiday season is over and we are firmly planted in 2009, we’d like to make things official by welcoming our new staffers!

John Fogg joined the ranks of the ARGonauts in 2002 when he followed along with Push, Nevada, the short-lived television series with an extended reality and a one million dollar prize. According to his staff bio, he spends a lot of free time researching cross-platform narratives and stories that play out in a non-traditional ways, and so far he has written about Natalie Ross and Breathe, the new project by Expanding Universe.

Tim Hill is a filmmaker and storyteller from the sunny shores of Australia, earning him the distinction of being our sole international staffer in a while. Tim is the creator of Jack Kain an interactive film that takes place on the Internet. He is the only person on staff that I know of who “debat(es) the merits of fluoridated water.” Tim has written a lovely article on This is My Milwaukee, an experience that has created a great deal of buzz within the ARG community and beyond.

Robbie Smith describes himself as, “a flash-developer by day and comic nerd by night.” He got involved with the Dark Knight ARG and hasn’t looked back since. Robbie wrote a recent article on Transition Village and a brilliant feature called The Family That Games Together in which he details how he managed to get his mother involved with Project Abraham. We imagine Robbie might not be celebrating the recent NCAA football title win by the Florida Gators, seeing as how he is a rabid fan of the state rival Seminoles of Florida State.

Once again, we welcome our new writers to the fold, and know that their contributions will mean even more news about ARGs, cross-media experiences, extended realities and anything else we might dig up, tune into or have sent to us in the mail.