Remix Fiction is always striving to learn and adapt to meet the expectations of their small (but growing) fan base.  We recently took a hard look at our video programing and recognized that we weren’t achieving the reach that we’d originally hoped.  Based on feedback from fans who watch the show regularly we knew that we wanted to stick with interviewing amazing people in the transmedia storytelling industry, but we needed to ditch the hour-long format.  We’re hoping that our relatively low viewership (based on video views on our Vimeo channel) is tied more to the length of the show versus the content.  In general, we think that most people are not willing to sacrifice an hour of their time on an untested show.  So, in order to boost our viewership numbers we’re going to make a few changes.

For those of you who are willing to sit through an hour-long show we’re still going to broadcast the recording of the episodes live.  Those of you who make the effort to tune in while we’re recording will get a behind the scenes look at the making of the episodes along with some “bonus content” and bloopers that won’t make it to the videos.  We’re still going to spend about an hour with each guest, but we’re going to break the videos down into more digestible ten to fifteen minute chunks and release them as a series.  We’ve also got some ideas for producing some short, non-interview, segments related to the behind the scenes work we’re doing on our own Alternate Reality Game.  We would LOVE to hear your suggestions for these new segments so please let us know your ideas in the comments.

We appreciate Brian Clark’s patience with our first attempt at producing shorter interview shows.  Brian is the CEO of GMD Studios; an experimental media lab focused on the emergence of networked communities, audiences and marketplaces.  Brian put up with us for almost two hours while we recorded several episodes of Remix Fiction Television that spanned a wide range of topics relating to his company’s vision and practices.  Our first short-format episode with Brian is available now on our Vimeo channel.

Nina Bargiel is a media writer who has crossed over into the world of Alternate Reality Games with MTV’s first season of Valemont which aired on the network as well as online.  Nina wrote and implemented every facet of the series’ online experience, which was no small task considering the online content spanned three blogs (Professor Nicholas Blunt, the Eric Gracen investigation, and student Poppy Barker), nine Twitter accounts, Facebook and Verizon SMS messaging.

We’re excited that Nina has agreed to be a guest on Remix Fiction Television to talk about the creation and behind the scenes aspects of the Valemont ARG.  The episode will be recorded live tomorrow night (Dec 22nd from 5-6pm Pacific time) with the video being made available soon afterward.  We encourage you to join our live audience and ask questions about Valemont or any of Nina’s other projects.

Valemont, which was created by Brent Friedman and Christian Taylor, was a true transmedia experience, extending across multiple platforms.

When we started thinking about our strategy to reach out to an international audience in our upcoming Alternate Reality Game we immediately sought the advice of Patrick Möller.  Patrick is recognized as a leader in Germany’s ARG community and has contributed to multiple international viral marketing campaigns working with VM-People.  It was a no-brainer to ask him to join us as a guest on Remix Fiction Television to share his experience in building international communities in support of Alternate Reality Games.

Patrick will be joining us for a live interview tomorrow at 9pm Berlin time (Sunday 12pm Seattle time) to discuss the challenges of building a multi-country, multi-language, community around an alternate reality project.

Storyteller Jay Bushman will stop by the Remix Fiction Television studios tonight at 7pm 5pm Pacific time to recap his latest project CT-Halloween!  Jay has recently formed Alchemy Storytelling as a full-service story consulting and production company, specializing in net-native storytelling. Formed in partnership with one of our previous guests (Andria Phillips), Alchemy Storytelling aims to be a confederation of story hackers, fiction designers and liars-for-hire devoted to fulfilling all of your narratological needs.

Remix Fiction Television returns this Sunday with a fantastic guest – Adrian Hon, CEO and co-founder of Six to Start!  Adrian is one of the many exciting guests we’ve got lined up to appear in the coming months.  We’ve abandoned our plan of broadcasting the show in the exact same time slot each week in favor of scheduling interviews at times which are convenient for our guests.  We will still try and broadcast in the morning (Pacific time) so that our viewers in the UK and Europe have the chance to watch us live and participate.  The show featuring Adrian Hon will be recorded live on Sunday November 1st at 10am Pacific time and will be archived on this site and on Ustream for those of you who can’t join us for the live event.

As always, you can participate in every broadcast by sending in your questions for our guests in advance or during the show.  We would love to hear your opinions and get your questions about Six to Start’s latest project.  Smokescreen is a flash-based internet simulation that incorporates video and alternate reality gaming aspects to tell a story.  You experience the narrative through thirteen missions that invite you into the exclusive online social network of White Smoke which was created and is managed by teenagers.  Sponsored by UK’s Channel Four, this project aims to educate teens on the hazards and potential consequences associated with online behavior.

We are excited to announce that our special guest for tomorrow’s episode (Sunday 11 October at 11:11AM Pacific time) of Remix Fiction Television is Yomi Ayeni, the Creative Director from Expanding Universe.  Yomi has worked in some form of creative media his entire career which spans broadcast radio, television, and now embraces interactive social storytelling.  Expanding Universe specializes in the creation of immersive social entertainment experiences that live in multiple virtual and physical worlds.

They claim their latest project is a “pioneering concept offering a unique cinematic experience that breaks down the wall between actors and audience”.  Breathe will provide several layers of depth to serve a variety audience interactivity preferences.  Casual or passive audiences will be able to experience the narrative through three short films released weekly, and more active participants will have the opportunity to solve a murder mystery by interacting with characters from the story and could be featured in the films.

We’re looking forward to the launch of the first installment of Breathe which will coincide with the Power to the Pixel conference being held in London next week.  You can still reserve your seats for one of the free screenings being held on October 14th in the Debating Chamber at London’s County Hall at 7PM, 8PM (sold out), and 9PM.

Breathe is a continuing saga, the story starts in London, and moves to Paris, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Sydney, and ends in Berlin.  The project will work with local production crews, new and emerging local talent, artists, fashion designers, and musicians to deliver a localised experience, each comprising of film, live events, online interactions, adventure and much more.

Remix Fiction is excited to announce this weekend (Sunday @11am Pacific Time) we will interview the creative team at Funnel Productions on the heels of the recent conclusion of their alternate reality game, Purity Towers.  This was Funnel Production’s third full-scale independent ARG following their previous productions; Man of the People and Myth of the Seeker.

We’ll dive behind the scenes and learn what was happening on the other side of the curtain as players chose their alliances and helped co-create this complex tale of class oppression.  We’ll talk to the actors who portrayed Randy, Earl, Melissa, and the rest of the characters who communicated with the audience through email, tweets, and Facebook messages.

We want the players of Purity Towers to be a big part of this special broadcast of Remix Fiction Television by helping us come up with interview questions.  You can submit your questions by typing them into a comment, or you can call and leave a voicemail (206-350-1072) which we’ll play on the air.  We also encourage you to video your question and upload it to a video sharing site.  Just leave a link to the video in the comments and playing those videos during the show will be our top priority (there will also be a surprise for some of our video question authors)

Funnel Productions:  Our mission is to create the best games around and to build a broader community of ARGamers in the process.  We are a grassroots alternate reality gaming organization. We have day jobs, though one day we hope to create games full time.  Our games are produced entirely out of our own pockets, but we do our very best to keep them fun, immersive, and enjoyable for the players.

We would like to thank everyone who participated in our first official broadcast of Remix Fiction Television last night. Michael Andersen (new owner and senior editor of ARGN.com) was our special guest and talked about the future of the Alternate Reality Gaming Network.  We also highlighted the Funnel Productions independent game, Purity Towers by doing a quick walk through and chatting with Jane Doh who is playing the game.  We’d also like to extend a special thanks to our only on-camera guest and friend of the show, Angela Copolillo.  During the broadcast we promised to put up an ARGN interest poll asking our audience what types of articles you want to see at ARGN.com – feel free to add more opinions about the future of ARGN in the comments.

Congratulations to everyone who made Maddison Atkins a huge success! This independent Alternate Reality Game, billed as a “social show” or “diet ARG”, followed Adam Wilmont (Jason Zednick) and Maddison Atkins (Faye Austin) as they struggled to deal with the strange events unfolding in their lives.  The transmedia story was told through video, social media websites, dead drops, live events, and direct interaction with their internet audience.

Remix Fiction’s Martin Aggett was an active player during the last few weeks of the game and got to see first hand how much the fans enjoyed this 12th Street House production.  That’s why we’re excited to announce that he will be hosting a post-game interview on 27 August at 8PM (Central time) with the creators of this amazing story.  The interview will be broadcast live on Remix Fiction’s ustream channel and will also include a simultaneous chat session with the cast and crew.

Because Maddison Atkins wouldn’t have been a success without their dedicated fans, we’re going to ask “The Community” to join in one last time and send Martin their questions for the broadcast.  There are several ways you can ask your questions, and they will be answered based upon the following criteria:

• Priority one:  Video questions (uploaded to YouTube please) with the fan on camera
• Priority two:  Video questions with text or audio with the fan off camera
• Priority three:  Audio only questions (just leave a voicemail for Martin at his house 206-350-1072)
• Priority four:  Questions asked in the comments of this post or during the live chat session

Please keep your video short (3-5 minutes) and limited to one question per video so that everyone gets a chance to ask a question.  Once you make a video you’ll need to leave the link in the comments so we know where to find it.

12th Street House is a media design company based deep in the Texas Forest Country which produces short and feature-length Independent Film, Documentaries, and Alternate Reality Games.  Their mission is to find that balance between quality entertainment, effective advertising, and a reasonable budget.

Pinocchio is often portrayed as a morality tale used to admonish young children to keep them from lying, and to highlight the consequences of being less than completely honest. However, at it’s core, it’s the story of a wooden puppet (a fictional construct), brought to life by a magical fairy, who strives to become a “real boy”. If you focus on this aspect of the story you could make several analogous comparisons to what’s happening with the Rachael Webster and, more recently, Martin Aggett characters. I understand that the parallels between Alternate Reality Gaming and the story of Pinocchio have been discussed numerous times, perhaps most notably by Jane McGonigal in her research paper entitled A Real Little Game: The Performance of Belief in Pervasive Play (a work that is as insightful today as when it was written). I’d like to use this analogy once again to try and extend the dialog on realism and ethics in Alternate Reality Gaming.

During the course of Pinocchio’s adventures he joins a marionette show and sings “I’ve Got No Strings” for a live audience who show their approval by throwing coins onto the stage at the end of the performance. Even though Pinocchio is not a live actor his contribution to the enjoyment of the theater patrons was still very much real and acknowledged. It’s been said that despite Rachael Webster’s now apparent fictional condition her commentary on video games is refreshing, insightful, and adds value to the game blogger community. Daniel Purvis from the Graffiti Gamer had this to say about the incident in a comment on the Brainy Gamer blog:

However, the substance of the work posted on the blog is still true. The thoughts posted regarding Far Cry 2, Fracture and others are still legitimate critique and, though this might be rather stupid now considering circumstances, I’d hope that the author of the blog, whoever that may be, continues to provide similar conversation further down the line.

Many share the opinion that this fictional character makes a significant contribution to the game-blog community while others argue that her fictional status voids any value that would have been achieved had she been a “real girl”. A corollary argument could be made for Martin Aggett’s attempt to contribute to the photography community. Martin has written several articles for the iPhoneography website providing reviews and commentary on iPhone photography applications. When not writing feature articles he comments on articles written by others. He even entered an Easter-themed photography contest and won one of the top prizes. Does his fictional condition invalidate his contribution to this site? Should the other participants in the Easter contest protest his entry and “demand a recount”?

This creates yet another philosophical dilemma. Can fictional characters be trusted to become productive and contributing members of society – assuming your definition of society extends to the online space. Some dismiss this possibility with a simple “No. Not at all.” while others expand on the argument by addressing the very nature of social interaction in real life and online.

What I’ve learned in building the online persona of Martin Aggett over the past year is that this whole debate can be summarized in two words – Free Will. As is the nature of most analogies and metaphors used to describe this genre, under close scrutiny they tend to fall apart quickly.

The fairy who grants Geppetto’s wish by giving his wooden puppet the gift of life explains to Pinocchio that “to make Geppetto’s wish come true will be entirely up to you.” You see, along with animating the inanimate wooden puppet the blue fairy also gave Pinocchio the gift of free will. The Blue Fairy also provided a way for Pinocchio to improve his current condition by saying “Prove yourself brave, truthful and unselfish and someday you will be a real boy.” This is where the analogy begins to unravel.

No matter how brave, truthful, or unselfish Martin proves himself to be he can never become a “real boy” because he can’t cut the strings of the puppetmaster and make decisions of his own free will. The debate would then shift and be better framed as; Can the people controlling fictional characters be trusted to make a productive contribution to society through their fictional constructs? For now, we’ll save that debate for another time so that I can address what I think is a much bigger concern.

The creation of fictional online personas and concealing their true origins is not only irresponsible game design, but borders on the unethical. It creates an imbalance in the power that is shared between game producers and players, and ignores the fundamental tenant that game play must be voluntary.

Sean Stewart describes this concept best during the ARGFest 2007 keynote address (starts at 21:02) on trust in alternate reality game design. Sean uses a dance metaphor saying [explaining the concept of leading in a couple's dance] “The man proposes the step, the lady decides whether she will accept the step. We will propose the step, we will never accept the step for you.” In Martin’s case, the people he came in contact with during his online activities did not even know they were dancing.

As Martin began interacting with real people and acting as though he were a real person (which is his job as a character – to believe himself a “real boy”) I negated the free will of actual real people to voluntarily invest effort in their relationship with him. This fact should stand as the fundamental argument when trying to dissuade future game publishers from adopting this method of creating deep and complex characters in online communities. This practice takes the immersive and fun experience you’ve intended to create and turns it into a hoax that can engender feelings of betrayal, anger, and mistrust.

So Martin will forever be stuck in purgatory between the fictional world and the real one, and never become a “real boy”. My analogy started out strong but quickly fell apart when looking at it through the lens of free will. Perhaps the lesson to learn from the mistakes that have been made comes down to a simple song from Jiminy Cricket “Give a little whistle, and always let your conscience be your guide”