View topic - yearzero / 42entertainment conference panel transcript

unforum
a.r.g.b.b

Welcome!

New users, PLEASE read these forum guidelines. New posters, SEARCH before posting and read these rules before posting your killer new campaign. New players may also wish to peruse the ARG Player Tutorial.

All users must abide by the Terms of Service.

Website Restoration Project

This archiving project is a collaboration between Unfiction and Sean Stacey (SpaceBass), Brian Enigma (BrianEnigma), and Laura E. Hall (lehall) with
the Center for Immersive Arts.

Announcements

This is a static snapshot of the
Unfiction forums, as of
July 23, 2017.

This site is intended as an archive to chronicle the history of Alternate Reality Games.

Our Esteemed Contributors

The time now is Wed Nov 13, 2024 4:46 am
All times are UTC - 4 (DST in action)

View posts in this forum since last visit
View unanswered posts in this forum

Calendar

Forum index » Archive » Archive: Ephemeral » ARG: Year Zero

yearzero / 42entertainment conference panel transcript
Moderators: BrianEnigma, chippy, konamouse, ndemeter

Page 1 of 1 [1 Post]

Author

Message

chippy
Entrenched

Joined: 19 Feb 2005
Posts: 789
Location: Leeds, UK

yearzero / 42entertainment conference panel transcript
vidfest conference

from:

http://2008.vidfest.com/2008/05/23/vidfest-liveblogging-let-the-people-play-the-future-of-interactive-entertainment/

http://culturite.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/nowpublic-vidfest/

Quote:

05:09pm - Q: First of all, incredible work. I'm curious as to any insights you can provide about how to plan something like this � how did you plan for something as significant as this?

A: We're an entertainment company and we have the ability to produce content across all of these different platforms - and you have to be able to produce all of these different kinds of content.

There was a core group of about 40 people working on Year Zero. The design team was about 12 people. We kept an 80/20 rule in terms of what we created and designed because we wanted to respond to the audience's experience.

Lieu: I think it ultimately comes down to respecting and understanding your audience. The experience has to be entertaining and rewarding on its own.

05:04pm - Q: As a frequent visitor of Digg and Reddit, I can see that there's a massive hunger for artists to engage their audiences in the way that Trent Reznor has. Why aren't more artists doing projects like these?

A: It's a great challenge to break down the barrier between audience and artist. It's a lot of responsibility to take on as a group. The reason why Year Zero happened was because Reznor made it happen. It was his commitment to the vision of the project about how he wanted to engage his audience.

We really see innovators and early adopters as being at the forefront of embracing technology rather than being scared of it. Reznor is fortunate enough to have an established fan base in order to be able to do this, but this doesn't necessarily work for everybody.

05:02pm - Q: When engaging so many users around real-world acts, how do you navigate issues of liability?

A: When we do live events like this, a lot of effort goes into ensuring that they're fun but also safe. We bring in our own security forces, we make sure that everything has been scouted in advance and can be controlled.

05:01pm - Q&A, time for only 2 questions.

04:56pm - If you invite the audience in, then validating their participation becomes a very big part of this.

In Year Zero, the final clue was a spectrograph of the community's own avatars � each associated with a number, which all ended up being part of a fictional government case file (that included all of the elements of the ARG).

04:51pm - [On screen: playing video of what happened when led onto the bus.] Sent audience to a private room where 'the real resistance movement meeting' was taking place. After they're led to an actual NIN concert which, part way through the set, is shut down by riot police.

We're always looking for new and unique ways to engage our audiences as long as your constantly respecting them and designing an experience that is meaningful and powerful to them � and incorporating them into the experience.

04:40pm - Our experiences are designed to proliferate across the web. The community took many of the ideas we created and ran with them: producing their own videos, comic books, etc. Took the opportunity to involve the audience even further by creating the "Open Source Resistance" � a new channel opened up to the community to create their own content. Took this one step further and published a handful of the best art pieces in the major weekly newspapers across the U.S. 42's goal has been to empower the audience to do what they love.

Then we took the same group of street artists and made a 60+ foot mural in Los Angeles - and made it a meeting place for those interested in the Open Source Resistance. Those that arrived at scheduled event received a resistance kit, some included cellphones. Then rang the cellphones and asked if users were available on a set day.

Sent users to a park in L.A. and gave set of instructions to the group of people � led them to a parking lot with a dilapidated bus, stripped them of their cellphones and technology, and had everyone board the bus.

04:37pm - We take every opportunity to embed ARG-related content in traditional media � such as DVD, music videos, etc. It all helps to build out the world of the alternate reality game. [On screen: playing video of multiple surveillance video feeds that, when composited, morphed into NIN music video.]

When CD came out, 42 Ent. embedded ARG content into the packaging: fake FBI warning sticker with telephone number, heat sensitive CD that changed colour and revealed binary code messages. [Amazing!]

04:34pm - Created a world of grassroots resistance movement: stickers, art, posters, graphics, t-shirts, etc. But people went out and covered entire cities. Community began to develop and spread the message. One of 42's ideas was to get street artists, in London for example, to paint a mural that references events that took place during Year Zero.

04:30pm - In one version of the spectrograph, a number appeared with an embedded audio clip � a disturbing snippet of the world's narrative. This was just one of the many ways that helped to build out the world. 42 Ent. really takes a holistic approach to distributing content.

04:29pm - In first track on USB leaked album, embedded in the first track there was a bit of static that, when run through a spectrograph, showed the silhouette of a hand � the encroachment of "the presence" which was part of the Year Zero world.

04:27pm - Reznor then wanted to leak the album himself. Talked about different ways of getting it out there. Somehow ended up on the idea of dropping USB flash drives in men's bathrooms (on top of urinals!) in key concert venues of NIN tour.

04:24pm - The question then became, how to establish the rabbit holes: points of entry into this world. Reznor was about to head out on the road to tour and we embedded the first clue on the NIN tour t-shirt: a message that said "IAmTryingToBelieve". Once they found this first website, the audience tumbled down the rabbit hole � and found out about all kinds of other sites that were part of this world.

04:22pm - Through the ARG, 42 Ent. built out the setting: a "world built out of fragments". We thought of the concept of taking a chunk, 'slice', or snapshot of the internet at a specific moment: phone calls, blogs, message boards, email, spam, videos, VOIP video calls, etc.

04:19pm - Reznor wanted to completely re-define the concept of a concept album. Discussed Pink Floyd's The Wall as a reference point. The idea of an album cover has been lost; the band's actual imagery of the music has been lost. 42 Ent's question was how to leverage the internet and current technology to do a concept album for today.

04:18pm - Bonds: Let's get into the Year Zero case study � which was an experiment with Trent Reznor of NIN. Initial idea for the album was looking 15-20 years in the future and to imagine what might happen; it was a decidely dystopian vision � "the world was in crisis and something had happened".

04:17pm - Lieu: It's really important to respect our audiences and we strive not to interfere with their experience of the narrative and the entertainment experience.

04:15pm - Generally, our experiences are very narrative and story-driven. We distribute those story pieces out over different platforms and allow the audience to go out, collect these pieces, and reassemble the narrative. This gives them a lot of ownership over the content itself. It facilitates an investment in the content and a desire to share it with others.

04:13pm - Key Ingredients of an ARG:

� unique rabbit holes (look / whisper / discovery)

� unique storytelling (distributive narrative)

� unusual platforms (cross-media / the world)

� evokes collective intelligence / hive mind / social networking

� inspires participation, collaboration, and user-generated content (by respecting the audience)

04:12pm - Alex Lieu: what is it that really reaches off the screen and starts to connect with you in your everyday life. Physical objects, conversations between people � various intersection points. Our challenge is to deliver something compelling and entertaining.

04:09pm - 42 Ent. has blended storytelling and game play to innovate a powerful new entertainment form that has evolved into Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) � which are experiences native to the wired audience.

ARGs offer "an interactive experience that immerses the audience in story via the content platforms that intersect their daily lives".

04:07pm - Bonds: Audiences no longer distinguish between platforms for consuming content; they are willing and empowered to create and interact; and they are willing to come together in collaborative groups and communities � especially to solve problems together using a giant collaborative "hive mind". It's both a great opportunity and a great challenge, when you're designing content for this kind of audience engagement.

04:05pm - The World Has Shifted: audience expectations have changed dramatically in recent years. Audience wants more of a participatory role. They consider content very differently. Audiences are now primed to ignore traditional forms of advertising.

04:03pm - ARGs and the future of interactive entertainment. First time they've ever discussed Year Zero case study in public.

04:02pm - Introduction of Alex Lieu and Susan Bonds of 42 Entertainment, by Catherine Warren of FanTrust.[/sub]

_________________
Do cats control our online behaviour?

Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 2:19 pm

Display posts from previous: Sort by:

Page 1 of 1 [1 Post]

Forum index » Archive » Archive: Ephemeral » ARG: Year Zero

Jump to:

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
You cannot post calendar events in this forum