“Ian Hollister’s Haunted Hospital,” the premiere episode of the new “Stranger Adventures” anthology series, arrived this week on the Web. This weeklong episode and the series is an interactive game; players are asked to participate in an adventure in which they follow clues toward cracking a 10-digit pass code to win reward money.
The series–which is advertiser sponsored–is a hybrid of high-end scripted drama, alternative reality gaming, mock reality TV and personal TV. It relies on first-person storytelling that uses character and location-driven narratives.
“Stranger Adventures” is the brainchild of Internet entrepreneur Chris Tyler; his partner in the venture, Red Car CEO Larry Bridges, serves as creative director and executive producer. Propaganda Films and Palomar alum Anne-Marie Mackay serves as co-executive producer with Bridges. The Santa Monica office of multi-city Red Car is handling production and post on the series.
In the game that launched this week, the first player to crack the code will win a grand prize of $25,000; the runner-ups divide the second prize of $10,000.
Supporting this episode is Prudential California Realty, which is incorporated into the storyline. This premiere episode revolves around an effort to lift a curse from a haunted hospital so that it can be sold. Within “Ian Hollister’s Haunted Hospital,” players not only see Prudential’s signage and products, they are directed to spend time on Prudential’s Web site to retrieve clues to the code.
Each of the season’s 10 episodes will arrive every other week and revolve around its own central character (the “Stranger”) and an adventure marked by clues and hints about the 10-digit code. Also, to help players along, the “Stranger” emails them graphic-enhanced text daily.
“It’s product involvement, not product placement,” Bridges said of this unique branded content model, noting that future episodes will each have one to two corporate sponsors. “The writing is with the clients’ brands and objectives in mind.”
Bridges also explained that the venture is tapping talented writers, including Writers Guild of America (WGA) members, to create the scripts. The first episode was written by Eric Heisserer, whose The Dionaea House is now in preproduction as a feature at Warner Bros. Bridges directed this episode, and he expects to direct additional ones. He also plans to tap commercial directors and directors of photography to work on the series.
“Stranger Adventures” is lensed with handheld DV camcorders and posted at Red Car.
Before launching, the team initiated five online trails and a pilot episode that ran in February. They were happy with the results. Bridges reported that trial players spent 41 minutes a day online, for six days, participating in the adventure, and 72 percent of the players finished the competition. “If a game is extraordinary fun to play, it will get around on the Internet quickly,” added Tyler.
Vendari Media is promoting the series, and invitations to play were sent to Prudential’s customer base. A trailer was also created for DVD via Hollywood Previews.
The series site is www.strangeradventures.com.
A Nomination Tradition: DGA Award, Best Director Oscar Discrepancy Continues
The awards season norm has seen the nearly annual occurrence of at least one difference between the lineups of Best Director Oscar and the DGA Award nominees. In only five of the 77 years of the DGA Awards have the Guild nominations exactly mirrored their Academy Award counterparts. This time around Edward Berger and Coralie Fargeat are in line with the predominant history. Fargeat earned a Best Director Oscar nomination this week for The Substance (MUBI). Berger, who didn’t make the directorial Oscar cut, earned a DGA Award nomination for Conclave (Focus Features). Four of the five directors vying for the DGA Award and the Outstanding Achievement in Directing Oscar are in sync this year: Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez (Netflix) Sean Baker for Anora (Neon), Brady Corbet for The Brutalist (A24), and James Mangold for A Complete Unknown (Searchlight). On the flip side of tradition, if Fargeat were to win the directing Oscar, that development wouldn’t be aligned with but rather bucking history. Only eight times has the DGA Award winner not gone on to win the Oscar. That happened most recently in 2020 when Sam Mendes won the DGA Award for 1917 while Bong Joon-ho scored the Oscar for Parasite. Fargeat has already made a bit of history, scoring just the 10th Best Director Oscar nomination ever for a woman. The Substance is up for five Oscars--the other nominations being for Best Picture, Leading Actress (Demi Moore), Original Screenplay (Fargeat), and Makeup & Hairstyling (Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stephanie Guillon, Marilyne Scarselli). Even without a Best Director nomination, Conclave tallied eight Oscar nods--for Best Picture, Leading Actor (Ralph... Read More