June 20th, 2011
I hope you’re not getting tired of hearing about PadWorx Digital Media because — as I’ve been going on about for the past year — the move into digital and transmedia is only continuing to heat up and those screenwriters who neglect to pay attention to this space are going to be like the movie moguls of the 1920′s who thought talkies were a fad.
It’s not just because digital media represents a new avenue to peddle our wares (though it is and it does), it’s because understanding the interconnectivity between transmedia and what you’re writing RIGHT NOW is becoming an increasingly important component of every smart writer’s business plan.
Case in point: PadWorx has just announced that we’re working on the interactive, immersive book/app version of Quirk Publishing’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which is an important book for several reasons. Besides being the catalyst for a whole mess of ‘mash-up’ titles (Android Karenina, Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter) Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has been optioned by Lions Gate Films and is in pre-production. For the record, Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter is currently being shot on location and produced by Fox. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and similar titles are big business and Hollywood is taking notice.
Of course, PadWorx is only involved with this title as a service provider. We didn’t inspire, create, or write the original Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Seth Grahame-Smith is the author), however we are putting our creative stamp on the underlying property in a very real way that people will see, pay attention to, and hopefully be impressed by.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies followed a traditional trajectory — from book to movie –however it’s now pushed to interactive book/app as well. If you’ve seen either Dracula: The Official Stoker Family Edition or A Christmas Carol for iPad, you know how cinematic these book/apps can be. As companies like PadWorx attract more attention they will have the impetus and credibility to create original titles that people will take seriously, not just perform service work on existing titles. The book to movie trajectory will inevitably broaden to include book/app to movie. This isn’t far-fetched; it wasn’t that long ago that plays became movies and not the other way around. All you need to do is check out the latest roster of shows on Broadway to witness how the paradigm has shifted. The potential for adapting a movie for Broadway is part of every reasonable filmco’s pre-purchase marketing meeting as is ‘transmedia,’ Hollywood’s buzzword of the year. If you are involved in the book/app space, you are involved in a growing industry that Hollywood is taking very seriously.
Bottom line…if you don’t already own an iPad get one and download some book/apps in order to understand how to apply your craft to this new breed of storytelling. If you don’t think that this convergence will reap benefits for those of you who fancy yourselves writers, then you haven’t been paying attention to the world these past 12 months.
– Jeffrey Alan Schechter
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Business of Writing | 
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Posted by totallywrite
June 16th, 2011
My company, PadWorx Digital Media, Inc., had the honor of desiging and building the enhanced storybook app for the upcoming Electronic Arts game Alice: Madness Returns™, the sequel to the critically acclaimed game American McGee’s Alice™. Versions of the app for iOS and Android were released in May, 2011.
Designed to bridge the ten year gap between American McGee’s Alice™ and Alice: Madness Returns™, the storybook app introduces readers to the world of Alice as imagined by acclaimed game designer American McGee, recapping the events, characters, and environments from the first game while setting the stage for the visionary world of Alice: Madness Returns™.
Seriously, since starting PadWorx a year ago we’ve been fortunate to work on some very cool projects. Frankly, it doesn’t get much cooler than working with EA and American McGee’s company Spicy Horse on this.
In the storybook app, visions of madness come to life through interactive elements and animations. The app features hauntingly beautiful art from the visionary team behind Alice: Madness Returns™. Much like PadWorx’s other titles there are hidden ‘Easter Eggs’ built into the app which unlock treasures from Wonderland.
EA made the storybook available as a free download to use it as a marketing tool. From what I’ve been told, it’s been a huge success for them, raising their pre-order numbers substantially over their projections.
If you get the chance, check it out here. There’s a whole world of storytelling out there, and movies and TV are becoming an increasingly smaller part. Just saying…
– Jeffrey Alan Schechter
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Posted by totallywrite
June 16th, 2011
Overall Impression – Perfunctory storytelling meets lack of charisma.
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
Who’s your main character? – Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto).
What’s he trying to accomplish? – Professional: Kill Sebastian Shaw. Personal: Work with Charles Xavier to find and recruit fellow mutants. Private: Create the family he was deprived of as a child.
Who’s trying to stop him? – Sebastian Shaw, the U.S. Military, and ultimately Charles Xavier.
What happens if he fails? – His mother’s death goes unavenged and he and his fellow mutants are reviled and killed.
THE FOUR ARCHETYPES
Orphan – Erik is a true orphan, losing both of his parents in the Holocaust and particularly his mother whom he witnesses being shot by Shaw.
Wanderer – After the war is over, Erik roams the world, looking for the man who killed his mother. In the course of his travels from Geneva to Argentina and finally Miami, Erik finds Shaw and is ready to kill him, but fails. He is rescued by Charles Xavier who has been recruited by the CIA to also help defeat Shaw.
Warrior – Erik teams up with Xavier to find and recruit additional mutants and take the battle back to Shaw.
Martyr – Driven by revenge, Erik is willing to go after Shaw on his own. Successfully killing Shaw, Erik is now confronted by the full fury of US military. Confirming his feeling that mutants will never be accepted, he is about to destroy the ships that are firing on him and his “family” with their own missiles, but gives that up only after Xavier is accidentally wounded by Erik’s own actions.
AND, IN THE END…
Trying to hit that all important superhero, sci-fi, bromance demographic, X-Men: First Class does everything mostly right on paper but is ultimately undone by both the lack of depth of the individual characters and lack of emotional connection between the characters. Putting characters together into the same scene is not the same as characters coming together in a scene, and therein lies the problem with this film. All the pieces are in the right places, but with the exception of Erik their inner lives are as bland as porridge.
Structurally, things are sound if somewhat unexciting. The mutant teens are sound and unexciting. The villain is sound but unexciting. The settings are…well…you get the idea. Working with a lot less, director Matthew Vaughn really kicked our a**es with Kick A**. Moral compass unease aside, that movie had characters with no super powers, no political background to play against (X-Men: First Class shows us what was “really” going on during the Cuban missile crisis), and a smaller canvas to paint upon, yet the hurt and depth and the complexity of the characters was much, much more than this motley group of mutants can put forth.
To quote Andrew O’Hehir from salon.com, “there’s something a little depressing about all the hype and excitement surrounding X-Men: First Class.”
– Jeffrey Alan Schechter
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Posted by totallywrite
I hope you’re not getting tired of hearing about PadWorx Digital Media because — as I’ve been going on about for the past year — the move into digital and transmedia is only continuing to heat up and those screenwriters who neglect to pay attention to this space are going to be like the movie moguls of the 1920′s who thought talkies were a fad.
