by Jenni Powell on November 27th, 2009
In it’s continued support of Electric Farm’s mysterious university romp Valemont, MTV will be airing an hour long “Extended Edition” of the ½ hour special they featured on the network several weeks ago this Saturday night as part of their Thanksgiving marathon programming. The new cut will catch viewers up to around episode 20 in the storyline and is designed to expose the show to a wider audience in a push to convince viewers to watch the final 15 episodes (plus two alternative endings), which are only available online.
by Stuart Davis on November 3rd, 2009
The Sect has been here for over a month now, creeping its way into our ARG begotten lives, but the first episode of Riese the series premiered late Sunday night on Koldcast TV. That’s right, when the rest of us were busy attending parties dressed as favorite childhood storybook characters turned bloated Hollywood movie franchise and OD-ing on fun size versions of our favorite candy treats, Koldcast’s CEO David Samuels was “[closing] on distribution for RIESE”, according to an email from who was definitely excited for the team-up, closing out the email with a simple yet telling exclamation, “What a series!”
While “the [distribution] deal is non-exclusive” according to series co-creator and executive producer Ryan Copple. He says isn’t ruling out other distribution for his Steampunk opus, “We’re very happy to have teamed up with Koldcast, and hope that it’ll end up being a mutually beneficial joining.”
In the opening episode, Hunt, a wounded Riese (Christine Chatelain) is running for her life from a group of ne’er-do-wells through the forests of the troubled land Eleysia (also known as Vancouver, BC). In between scattered, grainy flashbacks of her past she fights the baddies off with the help of her sole-companion and bodyguard, a wolf named Fenrir.
Neither of the creators had worked with animals on any of their prior productions but co-producer Bonnie Judd’s “preparation and work with Tundra made him very easy to shoot with. Plus, despite his size he’s incredibly friendly and sociable,” said Copple.
by Marc Hustvedt on October 8th, 2009
I don’t speak Portugese, but I still found myself sucked into watching a whole chunk of the newly released Castigo Final (Final Punishment) episodes. The horror web series and alternate reality game (ARG) launched last week in Brazil following 8 women thrown into an experimental maximum security prison for violent crimes they didn’t commit. The ARG elements include a race-against-time style hunt for clues through the characters social media accounts and web sites to find the password to save each prisoner before they are killed off.
There’s also a mobile phone angle with an IVR system that lets viewers call the fictional prison and tale to the warden and even have him call you back. To cap off the series and the game, they will be airing a 4-part faux-documentary created with footage from surveillance cameras inside the prison block on Brazilian TV channel OI TV in late November.
beActive, the Portuguese outfit behind the series, might be the most successful non-US based web creators going right now. Last summer they successfully spun off their Portugal-based Flatmates into an English-speaking UK version. Their last series, Sophia’s Diary was an international licensing gold mine, spinning off British, Irish and Brazilian versions before penetrating China with its first major web series. The Chinese version, dubbed Sufei’s Diary, took the model of young college age girls finding their way in the world with a local Mandarin-speaking cast and some westernized product integration from Estée Lauder’s Clinique brand along for the ride. As of a March feature in the Wall Street Journal, the series had notched over 20 million views on Chinese web sites Sina, Youku and Cernet.com.
by Jenni Powell on September 28th, 2009
This is what awaits you if you visit the companion website for the upcoming MTV Networks’ web series, Valemont, which will premieres tomorrow for a 12-episode run on MTV before heading to an online-only release of the remaining 23 episodes. I had a chance to speak with co-creator Brent Friedman of Electric Farm about this unique transmedia experience that blends product placement, ARG elements, and web content into an exciting murder mystery plotline that may or may not have a supernatural twist.
The multiplatform series stars a number of notable young actors like Nikki Blonsky, Kristen Hager, Georgina Reilly and Six Feet Under’s Eric Balfour. For the specifics of how this project came together, we asked Friedman to fill us in.
“Valemont originated about a year ago when Electric Farm Entertainment began discussions with MTV about producing a branded entertainment series,” said Friedman. “I created the show with Christian Taylor, an award-winning TV writer/producer with credits like Lost and Six Feet Under, Working with a former EFE employee, Andrew Black, Christian and I broke out the whole season, including a plan for the interactive layers. Then Christian wrote all 35 episodes and oversaw production on the series in Toronto this summer. Meanwhile, Nina Bargiel designed the ARG and wrote the bonus content for the show. All of which has allowed me to sit back and oversee the big picture, making sure that the series and the online site are in sync and fulfilling the vision we all had from the beginning of delivering a true transmedia experience.”
by Stuart Davis on September 23rd, 2009
The ARG (alternate reality game) for Riese the Series has begun, you still have time to join the winning side. But first some info on what you have to look forward to when the series kicks off in late October/early November.
Riese is a steampunk-inspired (think steam-engines and goggles) series from co-creators Ryan Copple and Kaleena Kiff, who also co-executive produce and direct the series respectively, that seems closer to something airing on the Syfy network, as-opposed-to the web, based off of the production value and sci-fi standout cast—Christine Chatelain (SyFy’s Sanctuary), Ben Cotton (Harper’s Island), Sharon Taylor (Stargate: Atlantis) and Patrick Gilmore (Battlestar Galactica). Chad Krowchuk is handling the production design and taking full advantage of the picture quality of the Red One camera system with lush, yet post-apocalyptic settings and the costumes look impressively intricate.
by Jenni Powell on September 15th, 2009
A few years ago, an undergrad student starts a campus radio station that airs between the hours of midnight to 4 AM. Viola (not her actual name because, as she states, “it seemed being DJ this or MC That would sound even more pretentious than admitting that I’m a sucker for Twelfth Night”) begins bringing guests onto her show and one in particular who goes by the name of Sol begins garnering her a larger audience with his…interesting…government conspiracy theories. Once Viola decides to focus on grad school, she gives the station to Sol, who decides to take Radio Free Krakow on the road…in a bus no less.
But this isn’t where Radio: Free Krakow starts for everyone. As the introductory audio on the show’s site explains, Radio Free Krakow is a multi-platform interactive series that builds a world in which a digital resistance is fighting a villain seeking control of government, media, and industry. Participants choose how deeply they would like to immerse themselves into the story. The more you choose to participate, the more you can be rewarded with private messages, e-mail, videos, and rank within the show’s sites.
Written by Kate Tremills, the series is executive produced by Timo Puolitaipale and Ryan FitzGerald, the team behind RFK has years of traditional film, new media, and ARG development experience to back them up. FitzGerald was a writer on the popular Nine Inch Nails ARG Year Zero and there are some similar themes in both games: government surveillance, resistance to authority, the promise that you CAN make a difference. And interactive designer Dwayne Rudy has built quite the online experience.
by Jenni Powell on August 28th, 2009
On October 6, 2009 at 2 PM Pacific Standard Time, everyone on the planet blacked out at exactly the same time (called the Global Blackout or GBO). During the 2 minutes and 17 seconds that passed, every person experienced a vision of where and what they were doing on April 29, over 6 months later. These visions are deemed by a government task force created to investigate the GBO as FlashForwards.
And thus begins the ABC series named after these visions: FlashForward. Co-created by Blade and The Dark Knight writer David S. Goyer and Star Trek writer/producer Brannon Braga, the series is slated to premiere on September 24th. But like a few other television and film projects, the series is integrating an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) to promote and build a community around the series. Using Internet videos, live events, original websites, and social networking sites, the FlashForward ARG strives to give players a truly immersive experience.
The game is currently two-pronged, having begun on July 23 with the launching of TruthHack.com, a video blog series reporting on the Global Blackout and run by Oscar Obregon, who according to his bio is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and author of the international bestsellers Parties/Over and Fire Sale.
by Tamara Krinsky on August 13th, 2009
Keith Quinn, Paramount Digital Entertainment Senior VP of Creative Development and Production, is a big fan of LOST and lightweight ARGs. So it’s not a big surprise that the new web series coming out of PDE is a supernatural thriller that incorporates interactive gaming elements…along with a heck of a lot of Mountain Dew. The brand has signed on as a sponsor for the series, and will be tightly integrated into both the storytelling and gaming experience. Circle of 8 will debut in October exclusively on MySpace and a mobile partner, followed by distribution via a variety of outlets and formats.
As web television continues to develop, one of the key questions for show creators is cracking the mystery of how the business actually works. Where do deals originate, how does one get a sponsor on board and how does web video generate revenue? Though Circle of 8 is a show with a lot of suspense, I was able to get Quinn and Mountain Dew Director of Marketing Marisol Tamaro to spill some of the secrets about the anatomy of this deal.
