I was asked to keep news about this upcoming project quiet, but considering it has been covered in the Hollywood Reporter, and the producers were the special guests at the recent mo:life event, I think it is safe to talk.
Jim Shomos and Paul Baiguerra of Global Dilemma, have created the ‘world’s first “dramedy” to be shown simultaneously on TV, mobile and the Internet’ and apparently the ‘first Australian made live-action series released for mobile phone’ and the ‘first interactive comedy-drama available to an Australian mobile audiences’. Their drama, (Oz readers: in the style of Secret Life of Us), will be available over Hutchison’s ‘3’ network, pay TV station Channel [V] and the website. The contracts, Shomos and Baiguerra said at the LAMP workshop in Melb, were the first of its kind in Aust. The series will be x3 three-minute episodes each week with the audience being able to vote on what they want to see the next week. The scene will then be shot accordingly. This type of interactive drama is akin to the early experiments in Aust (and of course internationally) by Griffith University students: Voyear Motel and Hardboiled.
Apparently, it will be launched in Australia in early October. I have a 3 phone and so will watch the relationship (if any) between the platforms. This isn’t really cross-media storytelling of the kind I’m encouraging — it is the remediation of the same content over media rather than each providing different information — but it is a good start.