Final Thoughts
From Hazel Grian's final report, March 2007
The game has been an enormous success both with the critics and the players. We could not have hoped for a better reaction and it has lead to valuable commercial offers from other games companies. Alternate Reality Games are usually commercially driven viral marketing campaigns for big brands such as Microsoft and Playstation, either that or they are tiny ‘grassroots' productions. Our ARG, which became know as MeiGeist , I believe was the first ever publicly funded ARG, which raises the question – did it make a difference being arts funded rather than commercially commissioned? Not having made a commercially driven one yet I can't say for sure but I can say that I felt I had complete freedom to make the project what I wanted it to be and it is very pleasing to see that it was so popular and successful.
I think it is very pertinent to give creative practitioners the chance to make headway with industrial developers and likewise for smart industry people to see the benefit of having a creative person around. Of course it is up to the individual to make of it what they will but for most practitioners I would say that working with new technology and new means of distribution is essential. I feel I gained an awful lot from this experience. Being given the opportunity to practise one's craft and reach an audience is invaluable.
The Fun Bits
Posted by Hazel Grian, December 1st, 2006
November is here and this is where months of planning take effect as we shoot and edit all the video footage. Having talked about the characters for so long, this is where the actors finally bring them to life. I’ve deliberately chosen actors who I know are great improvisers and who will bring a sense of humour and realism to everything they do. I’ve explained to them the background of their characters and what’s needed in terms of the story. Then I’ve directed them through every individual scene whilst making the most of the improvised set up. For some scenes Jon has also sat in to give his thoughts on what is needed in terms of effects as he will largely be creating them. It’s also good to have another opinion and pairs of eyes and hands, otherwise on such a small budget and in such small locations, I am producer, writer, director, lighting/camera/sound operator, costume and props, driver and runner.
The actors have really come up trumps (is that really the correct phrase? suddenly sounds weird!) I’ve got some excellent performances on tape which will prove to be really cool as clips in their own right. I can’t say much about it right now but Jon reckons a couple of the characters could be more popular then the game itself! Other clips we’ll be releasing are more freaky than funny. I’ll be interested to see if any of these clips gain any poluarity on You Tube. Pubilicty is going to be a very important element to the success of this project. Planting seeds early is one element of this. If word of mouth popularity filters through to professional journalists this will be great. What we want to do to back that up is to give them a story they can carry before during and after the game runs. However, there’s still a lot of making and testing to do before we launch in the New Year. I’m so interested to see if what we’re doing appeals to anyone at all.
Programming and Producing
Posted by Hazel Grian, November 15th, 2006
So it’s Halloween all ready, where does the year go? This month Jonathon has been majorly putting a lot of hours into building and programming the more complex elements of the websites. As an example of some of the things we are doing: one site includes an animated character who will be able to answer questions put to it. I designed the character in photoshop, Jon has built an AI which allows questions to be types into a box and anwers to appear. Two media students at UWE Helen and George have volunteered to Flash animate the character. It should add an element of fun and added value to the game. It’s also great to be expanding the team of people helping to make it happen. Meanwhile I am trying to raise the money needed not only to pay for the production costs but also to actually run the game from January to March. We’ll also need April to assess it. All in all this comes to around £10,000 and I need it by Christmas. I’ve begun by applying for a portion of that from a funding council ( which I won’t name sepcifically) The process has been extremely time consuming and irritating. So much red tape for so little money, so many obtacles put in the way. Relying on other people who are themselves preoccupied with other things has added to the extreme stress of this process and we’re still no more certain of getting the money. At least the creative side of things is looking good and Jon particularly has produced some really cool interactive graphics. I just keep reminding myself through the sleepless hours in the night that this will be worth it, it’s just an experiment after all. I only hope it feels as unique and exciting to the players as it’s meant to.
Wandering around thinking
Posted by Hazel Grian, September 25th, 2006
We’re now into August/September 06 and the second and third months of the project. I’ve taken on a full-time assistant, whose wages I am raising as I go along. Money is one of my biggest worries as producer of this project. I have my own desk, my own phone and as a Mac user in the land where the pc in king, I’m doing quite well and haven’t yet been called nasty names by gangs of men called Mike with their shirts tucked in their jeans. Actually they get quite excited when they see a woman here. Like monkeys in the zoo, they think you can’t see them staring and gesticulating as you go by, they’re so used to being in the enclosure they think they’re invisible.
So i’m getting to know the place and settling in. However, ‘placement’ no longer seems to be the right term for what I’m doing. I’ve set myself such a mammoth task with this project that the required two days at HP and one at home is no longer enough. I took on a graduate student from UWE right from the beginning in July with his wages for the first three months being paid by the UWE Graduate Placement Scheme. We meet up to work when I’m not here. He also gets on with things at home while I’m here. His name is Jonathon Williams and this project couldn’t happen without him.
So these first two months have been spent researching and writing. We’ve both done a lot of reading around the themes I want for the story. Let me just recap what exactly it is we’re doing: it’s Alternate Reality Game. It’s a narrative which is followed on line and in order to get through to the next bit of the story you have to crack very difficult puzzles and find embedded clues. The characters have their own websites and blogs, including video and web cam. The companies involved have their own websites. There’s email, hidden files and lots of other stuff which I can’t mention because it’ll spoil it for the players. The players congregate online in their thousands at ARGN.com where they discuss their ideas and discoveries about how to follow the game narrative. So if you want to know how it’s going, go there. Of course you won’t know when it’s going to start or if it’s started coz that’s a secret too.
So I’ve been doing a lot of background reading around the subject of the story (can’t tell you that either I’m afraid - I know, this is going to get very annoying) and gradually a narrative has come into shape. Jon and I put all our ideas together using an online hub. This is exclusive to us and we can read each other’s notes and make comments. We can also upload files and include links to all the weird and wonderful things we’ve discovered while trawling through Wikipedia - what a brilliant invention. Part of the creative process, not just in producing some kind of art or entertainment but in life generally, is to do plenty of wandering around thinking. We generally rush around being busy non-stop, I’m guilty of this as anyone who knows me well will attest, I even run through my own flat because I can’t wait to get to the kitchen from the living room - scares the hell out of my flat-mate. But the best ideas seem to come when you’re infact idling. You know, pootling, doing something you don’t have to think about. Whether it’s washing up or Wikipedia-ing, it’s essential to give your brain a rest so it can select some really good ideas to pop up.
Bristol’s silicon valley
Posted by Hazel Grian, July 9th, 2006
Apparently I was ‘very nervous’ at my interview. I’d gone to the HP Invent headquarters in Bristol feeling quite confident and yes, a little nervous. However, when I got into the interview room and faced the panel of five, the first thing I was asked was ‘Have you got a dongle for your laptop?’ An innocent enough question meant kindly but it was at that point that a small shrill voice in my head said ‘You don’t know what a dongle is…run!’ But I managed to stay and talked like an idiot instead, you know to make up for not being able to remember anything at all…about anything.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, through a minor miracle I managed to pull it off and two months later, on July 1st, I started my first day at HP. It’s a very impressive building, very light and airy. It’s a little like a shopping mall, only without shops or musak - which might sound bleak but as a working environment it’s very calming and pleasant. This type of design is very much along the lines of California’s Silicon Valley and reflects the ethos of HP as a whole. I am based in the Mobile and Media Systems Lab or MMSL (it took me a while to remember this, the first of many acronyms I’ve learnt in the past few months). My first day in MMSL was like the first day at big school, only this time I had a very nice ‘prefect’ to show me round. I was immediately made to feel at home and was shown the ropes in every detail. This includes the most important thing, actually the two most important things - how to get in the building using your secuity pass - and how to get the most for your money in the canteen. So most ‘newby’ ebarrassments were avoided due to everything being explained so kindly. And as a rule this is how the whole department is run. Everyone treats each other with great respect, which ofcourse also means fairly persistantly taking the michael. That’s when you know you’ve been accepted. I’m glad also for the polite habit that the department has of making sure everyone goes to lunch together. I think, being so used to working alone, I would have gone off and had lunch by myself if it wasn’t for this tradition of keeping lunch time as a kind of ‘family’ meal. And it’s not contrived, it’s a good tradition, long may it continue.
In the beginning
Posted by Hazel Grian, June 13th, 2006
In the beginning there wasn’t blog. In the beginning there wasn’t www. anything. When I did my Degree in Graphic Design back in 1908 there was a computer in the department but we Illustrators weren’t allowed to touch it with our dirty pre-Photoshop hands. Only the clean, Lettraset-using Typographers could operate the computer which sat there like a dull, grey faced cousin of R2D2.
Then there was video. I made my first short film in 1910 (or somewhere around that time). It was shot on VHS and edited on Avid at night by a friend who was tape-opping for a post-production company. My next film was my first stop-frame animation and it went onto U-matic tapes the size of the OED, the frames being measured by an EOS machine with great dials and buttons like something from Blake’s 7.
So let us rush forward in our time machine as the digital revolution flashes passed us we see the development of Mini DV cameras, Final Cut Pro, film festivals finally accepting video and not just 16mm prints, then film festivals asking for films on disc, film festivals existing on-line, films getting shorter and shorter,the Depict! competition, we speed up further now and see video podcasts, You Tube, Mobile TV, Viral Advertising and we finally stop in January 2006.
I sit down in the pub with a friend who’s doing a Phd in something called Interractive Narrative. Having set up my digital production company Licorice Film six months earlier, I’ve just heard about the Arts Council/Watershed/HP Artist In Residence placement called Difraction. The simple remit is to spend six months at HP Mobile Media Systems Lab. developing mobile video. I say to him that I want to go in for this HP thing, I want to do something which I’ve never done before, it’s a drama and it’s a game and it uses the internet and mobile technology. He says, ‘What you want to do is an ARG’. I say ‘A what?’ he says ‘Alternate Reality Game’.