In the current issue of Filmmaker Magazine I go behind the scenes of Collapsus an interesting storytelling project from Holland.
Culture Hacker: Rebooting the Doc Experience
The year is 2012 and the world is on the brink of collapse.Rolling blackouts, depleted resources, civil unrest, assassinations and political dissension have thrown the world into a state of chaos. We follow the adventures of a group of young people as they lead us into a world of conspiracy, treason and failing energy supplies. While it sounds like it could be the description of a Hollywood blockbuster, it isn’t. Collapsus: The Energy Risk Conspiracy is in fact a transmedia companion to a television documentary by Dutch broadcaster VPRO entitled Energy Risk. Collapsus takes theories and predictions from the Energy Risk documentary and transports them into a fictional story set within the not-so-distant future. Collapsus becomes a hybrid narrative that combines live action, animation, gaming mechanics and social entertainment in order to present a different perspective on the issues surrounding our struggle to transition from fossil fuels to alternative forms of energy. Tommy Pallotta, no stranger to innovative forms of storytelling (he helped to revolutionize independent animation techniques with his work on Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly), was tapped to direct Collapsus by award-winning Dutch transmedia shop Submarine.
Collapsus Walkthrough from SubmarineChannel on Vimeo.