Top Prize, Finance and Launch for Power To The Pixel’s Projects

The filmmakers who participated in Power to the Pixel’s Project Forum launch in October 2008 have all made significant progress on their projects in the past four months. These pioneering projects are now well on their way to being realised and have already experienced the success of winning an award, receiving funding and launching online.  Here’s an update on some of them.

Lance Weiler

At the Rotterdam International Film Festival’s CineMart, Lance Weiler won the Arte France Cinema Award for HIM, a transmedia horror project that he first presented at PTTP’s Project Forum. This year, Arte France invited 36 projects to participate and compete for its prestigious Cinemart Award. HIM was the only project accepted from the United States and the first transmedia project ever to be included.

Arte France presented Lance with the €10,000 prize so that he could further develop HIM – the story of a sleepwalking disease that affects anyone over the age of 21. Lance describes his project as “a new type of social entertainment experience that fuses storytelling and gaming in a way that enables audience members to become collaborators within the world of the story.” Arte France’s support for this innovative project is an illustration of broadcasters’ growing interest in transmedia storytelling.

Jamie King

Dark Fibre, a project Jamie King presented at the Project Forum, is currently filming in Bangalore. The film is a “fictional documentary” that captures the real lives of cable TV providers in the unregulated networks of India. Jamie constructs his story in this society in order to explore how Western information is traded and how it becomes a commodity. Like his recent films, Steal This Film I and II, Jamie’s new project will rely on the Internet, particularly P2P networks, to help distribute the film. In addition, Jamie plans to use existing cable networks to release the film directly into homes, ensuring that millions of people will have access to the film. After Dark Fibre‘s debut at the Project Forum, Jamie received funding from FACT.

Yomi Ayeni presenting "Breathe"

Yomi Ayeni and his partner at Expanding Universe, Carmel Landy, have officially launched Breathe, a Web 2.0 murder mystery. The project, which CNET reviewed after Yomi pitched it at the Project Forum, centres around the London underground dance scene and mixes film, YouTube, Twitter, and blogs with real party experiences. Breathe is an interactive drama about a nightclub built in a vacuum that requires dancefloor movement in order to fill it with air. Audiences will be able to experience Breathe by attending clubbing parties with the characters in the story. Although the story begins in London, it will play out on a global scale. Anyone interested in transmedia storytelling can get involved by joining a new social network called The Thursday Social.

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