In this project, we wanted to help encapsulate the offbeat comic sensibility of the characters in the movie and reach out to the 18-25 year old demographic in way few animated films can. Because this movie took a satirical swipe at B-movies and science fiction classics, we needed an ongoing tale that was just a tongue-in-cheek and funny. So we invented a paranoid blogger named “Jeffrey Freedman.” A kook who lives in his mom’s basement and rants about the government using science fiction movies and books to disguise the truth from the American public.  One of the videos even had him accusing real scifi enthusiasts at the World Science Fiction convention of being part of the conspiracy.

Freedman eventually became so enraged by the government cover-up that he “crashed the movie premiere” and confronted stars like Reese Witherspoon, Will Arnett, and Hugh Laurie about their role in the conspiracy:

The rest of the tale involving 80s workout tapes, flying dogs, and the New World Order can be found at Jeffrey Freedman’s blog: TopSecretConspiracy.com. The Top Secret Conspiracy project got rave reviews from scifi sites, movie fans, and forums as well as racked up hundreds of thousands of viewers. But the best part of this whole project? When it finally concluded I received a very gracious email praising our fine work from none other than the CEO of Weekly World News journalistic home of Bat boy and the alien who met with Ross Perot. Now that’s an endorsement.

Fun Trivia: If you watch the opening scene of “Monsters vs. Aliens,” you might spot an homage to Top Secret Conspiracy in the film’s sequence with the Artic Defense station.

It is my pleasure to inform you that Terminator: Dark Discovery has been selected as an Official Honoree for the Online Guerilla & Innovation category in The 13^th Annual Webby Awards.

As a result of the exceptional quality of submissions this year, the Academy has recognized outstanding entries as Official Honorees alongside our Nominees and Winners. The Official Honoree distinction is awarded to the top 15% of all work entered that exhibits remarkable achievement. With nearly 10,000 entries received from all 50 states and over 60 countries, this is an outstanding accomplishment for you and your team.

Congratulations!

YOUR OFFICIAL HONOREE LISTING:

Your listing on the Webby site is located at http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current_honorees.php?season=13

This is my new unofficial social media work promoting The Dark Knight for this year’s Academy Awards. Why? Because it’s an amazing film and it faces an extremely tough road ahead. It’s a masterpiece and yet it has to challenge 81 years of Academy history that has never once awarded the prize to a film like it.
Created a video to make my case. I’m leveraging my past experience supporting Children of Men but in some ways this campaign will be the complete opposite. There the studio was ignoring the film and audiences had never heard of it and we started the campaign late. Here, the studio thinks they have a shot, audiences know the film, and I’m starting the campaign early. Hopefully some of the online audience will push this thing hard enough to make the long odds of an oscar for the Dark Knight more possible.

Update: Though TDK didn’t earn a Best Picture nod, thankfully Heath won Best Supporting Actor posthumously, which is great.  The really cool part of this project was getting a really sincere thank you letter from the film’s screenwriter, Jonah Nolan.

Here’s the announcement from the official Playstation blog:

Far Cry 2 comes Home today

Posted by Bertrand Helias // Senior Producer, Far Cry 2

Hi All, the Far Cry 2 Space is launching in PlayStation Home’s closed beta as we speak!

The space will invite players to dig deeper into the game’s vast African landscape. Users will have the opportunity to investigate in-game environments, including a bombed-out train station that has been converted into the ad hoc office of Reuben Oluwagembi, a journalist caught in the middle of the propaganda conflict between the warring UFLL and APR factions.

In Reuben’s office, you’ll be able to analyze an interactive map of the game world to strengthen your knowledge of the Far Cry 2 environment to develop your strategy for future missions. Locate guard posts, safe houses to save the progress of your game, weapon shops to buy new weapons, and bus stations to expedite your travel across the expansive land.

Players will have access to Reuben’s files containing various pictures, articles, and dossiers that will delve deeper into the background of The Jackal, as well as that of the other warlords and opposing factions. And finally, multiplayer game of Mancala that uses bullets as game pieces will be fully playable.

Hope you enjoy it and be sure to look out for new features as we’ll be updating the space regularly.

In addition to that, here’s a video clip of me on a panel at ARGfest in which I explain a bit more about the concepts and execution of the WWE and Terminator alternate reality experiences here’s a clip from our panel at ARGfest after the jump…

For the record, I call them “Alternate Reality Experiences” rather than “games” because I don’t believe the puzzles elements are a core element to these projects, but rather the interactive experience, entertainment, and engagement.

DIY DAYS SF – The Art and Science of Crowdsourcing

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I’ll be part of a panel “The Art & Science of Crowdsourcing” at DIY Days this Sunday.

Lance Weiler, the film director behind The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma, has organized an interesting discussion series across the US that is called “DIY Days” (Do-it-Yourself Days). The series of live conferences / discussions known as DIY DAYS is happening in LA, SF, Boston, NYC and London. According to Lance, their goal is to explore filmmakers and storytellers in this day of shifting film distribution systems.
Presented by From Here to Awesome and Current TV – DIY DAYS aims to answer these questions with a day of panels, roundtable discussions and workshops: A look at how to fund, create, and distribute and sustain.

Here’s the panel I’ll be appearing on at 111 Minna in SF this Sunday:

2:15 to 3:15pm
PANEL: The art and science of crowdsourcing
There is power in the crowd. When they rise up they can fund, create, distribute and promote. But how do you turn an audience into an active community where members become collaborators? Panelists: Slava Rubin (indieGoGo), Skot Leach (Lost Zombie), Jason Harris (Mekanism), Bryan Kennedy (Mobmov.org), Blair Erickson (Millions of Us) Discussion Leader: Lance Weiler

More about DIY Days here:
http://diydays.com/

Today we’re announcing the expansion of our closed beta test for PlayStation Home to begin at the end of the month. Later today, the PLAYSTATION Store will be updated with a PlayStation Home theme. By downloading the theme, users are submitting an application to join the PlayStation Home Beta test community. We will be using a variety of criteria including activity on the PLAYSTATION Network to determine eligibility for the Beta community. Existing beta testers have automatically qualified to be part of the expanded beta.

We’re really excited about this milestone and want our most loyal fans to be a part of the evolution of PlayStation Home.

In Europe, SCEE is also beginning their expanded closed beta, directly targeting consumers who have been most active on PLAYSTATION Network and PLAYSTATION Store. SCEE will be in email contact with their PSN audience very shortly.

We’re definitely excited too.

Several current MoU employees and alumni including myself, Lauren Lamonica, and Adrian Herbez studied “Building Virtual Worlds” and did research work and independent studies for Stage 3 under Randy Pausch at Carnegie-Mellon University. Though he’s now famous for his celebrated speech and autobiographical bestseller “The Last Lecture” about his battle with cancer, he should also be remembered and cheered for his pioneering work in virtual reality and 3-D social experience research.

I believe it’s no coincidence that so many of my colleagues in that class went on to become leaders in our industries of creating bold new virtual experiences and innovations in entertainment. It is my strong belief that they will carry on Randy’s legacy.