The Arrglington Jump - The Go BZRK Case Study: Interview with Rich Silverman (Part 2)

15. Ok, so let’s go back to strategy and game design for a bit. How did you structure the experience in terms of having to decide when to release new material and in what platform, etc?

Ok, so here’s Rich’s crash course on how you write an Alternative Reality Game:

The first thing I do is come up with a treatment for the entire story that runs 10-15 pages. Then I break that down into a bullet point timeline that includes the main background story in chronological order all the way to the present.

Then I look at it in terms of the three main acts of the story for the ARG and how to divide these into the actual timeline of the experience. I knew I had 3 months to tell the story, so I scheduled the 1st month as preliminary to set up background story and buzz for the ARG. Then the next 2 weeks were devoted to Act 1, the subsequent 4 weeks were devoted to Act 2, and the last 2 weeks for Act 3.

Then, I looked into the time span of those weeks and settled on a release schedule. I find that the best days to release material are Tuesdays and Thursdays cause it doesn’t conflict with the work week too much or the weekend – on Mondays people are more focused on getting back to school or work and on Fridays minds turn toward the weekend. This is pretty standard. Then you have to decide how the narrative is layered into the release schedule and what beats need to be followed up in real time, especially for the live interactive challenges.

For Go BZRK I focused roughly on three interactive game challenges per week. The first challenge was a crossword puzzle devised by a character before his rather suspicious death. That mechanic started at the end of Act 1, with a couple clues released each week that led to grid solutions. Solving two of the crossword questions revealed a bitly address that dropped a zip file on the user’s computer filled with more content. Running parallel to that was the Nexus Humanus website, which is set up as an organization in which you have to move up the different levels by doing some weekly tasks in order to unlock more information and clues about the story. In addition to that, we also had an additional weekly interactive element that tied into all the new story content released for any given week.

16. I have to say that my favorite part of the experience was the Nexus Humanus website you built because it was utilized as a way to further the plot of the experience by creating character profiles within that network that interacted with the players. I think it was cleaver because it also provided for a way to contain the audience interaction in this particular platform and obtain some sort of metrics. Was this successful or did you find the audience going to a separate forum or wiki by themselves?

The Arrglington Jump - The Go BZRK Case Study: Interview with Rich Silverman (Part 1)

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Excerpt from an Interview by April Arrglington:

"1. How did the idea of the ARG came to be? When Michael approached you did he have a clear concept of what he wanted to do, and just needed someone who knew how to execute it? Or did you have to conceptualize all the material for the experience from scratch, making it completely separate from the book?

Michael and Alex LeMay, the CEO of the Shadow Gang, the company that produced this experience, had wanted to do a Transmedia experience for the book for over a year. Michael is a successful novelist in the YA world and Alex is an accomplished documentarian and filmmaker, but neither had created or produced a transmedia project before. Fate brought us together at the Transmedia Hollywood event at UCLA earlier this year. We hit it off immediately and they brought me on to develop, write, and co-produce this experience from the ground up.

They pretty much gave me carte blanche for that, which was great and quite possibly unprecedented. I’m used to layers of approvals and bureaucracy, but we were able to cut through all that and focus on the creative, which is more like how a book writer works as compared to someone in film or a creative working on an ARG for a marketing campaign.

Basically, Michael handed me the rules of the universe and a bunch of backstories and characters that he created that are not necessarily included in the novel. At least not in the first book. I went through this material and cherry-picked certain elements and characters that I thought would be compelling in an ARG… then went on to adjust timelines, character details, and create new characters and situations that sort of hung on some of his pre-existing mythology.

Michael was very open to my ideas and re-working. When I pitched my three-month narrative for the ARG Michael loved it and let me run with it on my own.

2. How many characters or plot points from the novel are integrated in the ARG? Since the novel hasn’t been released, there is no way for the audience to know how the storyline for the ARG is connected to the novel. Or how many questions raised by the ARG are going to be answer in the novel, etc...."

The 5 Smartest Financing Tips From the Film Independent Forum - indieWIRE

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Excerpt:

"...Crowdsourcing works. Let the Crowd In: Crowdfunding Case Studies, showcased films that raised half of their budget by using the platform Kickstarter. Motivated by an agreement with an equity investor who promised to provide matching funds, Jennifer Dubin, Cora Olson, and Jocelyn Towne raised $111,9565 for their feature “I Am I” over 30 days. By working full time on the campaign, doing publicity and utilizing Twitter, the filmmakers were surprised to find they knew only 20% of their funders.

Additionally, making the Kickstarter video and handling all the promotion for the campaign helped launch director Jocelyn Towne’s voice and built a fan base for her and the film. Said her producer, “It was clear that she could do this movie and it would be awesome.“

Werner Herzog Says Independent Film Is a Myth (and 7 More Good Ideas From the FIND Forum Keynote) - indieWIRE

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Excerpt:

Independent film is a myth, but self reliance is real. “I’m not an advocate [of independent film],” Herzog said. “I don’t believe there is such a thing as independent cinema. It exists only for your last Christmas video or your beach party in Cancun. That’s independent cinema. All the rest is dependent on money, on distribution systems.”

However, he acknowledges that “There are degrees of dependent film. In the studio system, you can’t change a screenplay unless there’s a boardroom decision that the line can be modified. It’s more self reliance. Look for self reliance. For my first eight films, I used a camera I’d actually stolen. If you have your own production company, your own distribution company, you have a certain amount of self reliance. The tools are inexpensive. You can do a feature for $10,000.”

While Herzog no longer relies on stolen goods, he’s increasingly interested in controlling more of the filmmaking process. “I’ve started getting into producing films again,” he said. “I’m raising money outside the United States and I hold all rights except for North America. A year ago, I went to MIPCOM and you have 10,000, 11,000 sales people from TV stations all over the world. A director hardly ever shows up. And everybody knew there was a new film by Herzog and everybody knew to look out for the booth of the salespeople. I would like to take control of distribution. it’s not easy, but maybe I’m going to found a distribution company.”

Make mistakes. “I accept all my errors and my films are full of them. Just accept it: The child has a squint. This child has a stutter; this one has a limp. I love them even more for it; I accept them as they are.”

CULTURE HACKER: WHAT IF 5TH GRADERS RULED YOUR STORYWORLD? | The Filmmaker Magazine Blog

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Excerpt from Lance Weiler's essay:

"... In some ways I’ve felt that my own work has been constructed for audiences that don’t yet exist. Often they are designed in fragments pulled together using a variety of technological and physical elements in order to build narrative experiences. It struck me recently that the rapid prototyping I have been merging with my storytelling is like making little bets. This revelation came while I was reading Peter Sims’s book titled, in fact, Little Bets. At the time I was preparing for a class I’m now teaching at Columbia University about storytelling in the 21st century. Sims explains how small discoveries can lead to big breakthroughs. By throwing caution to the wind, you can break the confines of perfection, risk aversion and excessive planning. In other words you can open yourself to discovery through experimentation.

This fall I’m jumping into deep water with an ambitious project that is under funded, short on time but big in heart. I’ve decided to experiment with a trilogy of participatory storytelling projects. The three works are experiential educational efforts that combine film, gaming, collaborative problem solving and creative writing. At the core of the trilogy is the desire to teach media literacy across generations while at the same time discovering what it takes to build a collective narrative.

Prototyping an experience that can work across languages, generations and devices is the goal of the first installment of the trilogy. Robot Heart Stories (robotheartstories.com) begins when a robot crash-lands in Montreal and must make her way to L.A. in order to find her spacecraft and return home. Two 5th-grade classrooms in underprivileged neighborhoods, one in Montreal (French speaking) and the other in L.A. (English speaking), use math, science, geography, creative writing and collaborative problem solving to help a robot make her way across North America...."

DataAppeal: Create your own location-based infographics - The Next Web

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Excerpt:

"It’s often said that we’re in the midst of the information age, which may help explain why there’s been a surge in infographics in recent years – they make data just that little bit more…palatable. But if you’re more of a spreadsheets kind of person than an artist, this application could be what you’re looking for.

DataAppeal is a Web-based, data-design visualization application that allows users to transform their location-based data into infographics through the creation of 3D and animated maps.

DataAppeal transforms data into what it calls “artful information”, letting users share these visuals with anyone they wish. So you can help people visualize diabetes rates, traffic volume, tree coverage, car crashes…whatever you hold data for, and all by location. Check this London crime map above..."