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[Katw0man]

Audience Participation Cloverfield?

[BranJ]

good idea, just 1 major problem in your post...2 hour drive from your boyfriends place??? come now...his name batman???

[Katw0man]

He's The Gorram Batman in my eyes.

[kosmopol]

About Cloverfield screenplay:

it's really weird, the screen play isn't available online (at least I haven't found it).

BUT more weird is following: I just visited Japan and I bough there Cloverfield script. By Goddard. In Japanese. I'm gonna scan some pages from it and will post it here this week. But I really don't know, why the script to Cloverfield is only available in Japanese.

[Euchre]

I don't think Cloverfield lends itself to the same kind of audience participation as in RHPS. If you've ever watched RHPS alone, with no interaction and no props, it's actually a much less interesting film. Cloverfield has enough going on to keep you from being able to really stick things into it in the same way. I think if you wanted to have a cult type experience, it would be more about the atmosphere the film was shown in and how the audience came into seeing the film. If there's a theater near you that specializes in cult films (major metropolitan areas often have at least one) you might approach them with the idea to do a specially crafted showing. Most of that sort of theater are prepared for unusual stagings of a film, because of the considerations of interaction (as in RHPS especially) or cosplay (which is evident in many other cult film experiences).

I can think of two ways I'd stage a special showing of Cloverfield:

1. A debriefing setting. Before entering you'd be carefully 'vetted' (special tickets that were serialized, had to be validated, compared to your ID, or some such thing), and possibly 'searched' and otherwise metal detected, X-rayed, or 'bug swept'. A few staged ejections of attempted infiltrations could add some spice to it. Someone introduces the film, briefly, with some information along the lines of the viral campaign we all participated in. Play the film as normal. At the end (I don't think you're allowed to skip the credits when a film is shown in any legal fashion), you'd present some more information and conclude the debriefing - the DVD's and Blu-Ray edition's extra content would be cool to somehow use here. The audience is carefully escorted out, with some degree of checking for unauthorized 'leaking' of information.

2. Living the film. Without becoming too animated, the audience is encouraged to act as if the theater is in some way a part of the film. Tickets read "My Fair Lady" instead of "Cloverfield" (if you don't get it, you haven't followed this well enough!). The audience is encouraged to dress as if going to a casual party. All drinks offered are in red 'party cups' and during party scenes where there's a lot of music, a given amount of the audience dances in front of the screen/stage area (space and location based on the theater's design, of course). Small changes in the audience's dress should occur as the film progresses, much as the characters experience in the film. A few parasite attacks at the appropriate times would be good. I'd love to be someone carrying a TV up the aisle as the looting is going on in the electronics store. I think you get the overall idea, and I think one really cool one might create a sticky issue - I think it'd be cool if the audience was encouraged to film each other on phones and cameras - but of course they wouldn't be allowed to film the screen (federal law precludes that, unless perhaps the controlling interests of the film made some sort of exception). At the end of it all, 'soldiers' arrive to evacuate you from the 'scene'.

I think my first idea would be easier to execute and make more sense, but the second would be more exciting for the audience. If anyone anywhere near me could find a theater willing to do either, I'm game to help plan it.