The official HEAD TRAUMA movie blog

We can’t officially announce it yet but HT will be coming to a living room near you. That’s right we are finalizing a deal that will have the movie on TV early next year. Can’t go into full details yet but can say it will place the film in front of a lot of people.

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It’s been a bit since an update and a lot of behind the scenes stuff has been happening with HT. The big news is we’re prepping a release around the film for the UK this coming fall. The HT cinema ARG will be back in full force. We’ll be doing some live events combined with wider gameplay around the film. The field of play will increase to include theaters, living rooms, online and mobile devices. More details will be emerging in the coming weeks but the event will take place in time for Halloween.

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Answering questions after the panel.

I’ve just returned from a series of speaking engagements. Last week I spent 4 days in Austin, TX at SXSW. During the festival I spoke on two different panels about the work that we’ve done around HT. The first panel was on “Digital Cinema for Indies” moderated by Scott Kirsner of Varitey and cinematech the panelists included

Ted Mundorff CEO, Landmark Theatres

Lance Weiler founder, Workbook Project, Head Trauma

Josh Green VP, Distribution, Emerging Pictures

Russell Wintner Pres, WinterTek Inc

Christian Zak VP Indepedent Feature Svcs, Technicolor

The second panel was entitled “Independent Film Distribution: It Takes an Online Community” Here’s a description from the SXSW catalog. “Tech-savvy filmmakers are redefining “Indie.” Learn how to use interactive technologies to distribute your film and build community. Susan Buice (Four Eyed Monsters), Arin Crumley (Four Eyed Monsters), Brett Gaylor (Basement Tapes), Micki Krimmel, moderator (Mickipedia.com), Lance Weiler (Head Trauma)”

Then yesterday I spoke to a number of delegates from the Canadian film industry at at the Canadian Consulate in NYC. It was interesting to revisit the various distribution and audience building tactics that we deployed while releasing the movie. One thing has become clear since we started rolling out HT in 2006, there is a DIY digital distribution movement growing around independent work.

The following interview was conducted by Christy Dena, a cross-media entertainment strategist, mentor, designer, writer and PhD researcher. In the detailed discussion we cover a variety of subjects with a focus on the creation of story worlds.

Filmmaker Lance Weiler is the special guest on this first video podcast at UC101. Weiler talks about the unique ways he has experimented with extending the storyworld of his feature films out to other media platforms and artforms, and he shares his insights into innovative digital distribution techniques he has been spearheading for years. To jump to particular topics, here is a short guide:

03:02 The Last Broadcast
14:32 Head Trauma
44:14 From Here to Awesome
54:53 Workbook Project
59:01 Random Future

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Recently, I was asked about 2007 and I have to say it was a good year. The HEAD TRAUMA cinema ARG shows caught the interest of Wired, the Village Voice and a number of other press outlets, thanks in part to the two large ARG productions that we did in Philadelphia and New York. Through out the year HT played numerous festivals around the world with stops in Chile, Argentina, and Sweden. In the fall, Warner Bros released HT on VOD. It is currently available in various outlets nationwide. Below is a screen grab from Xbox Live.

“Hope is Missing” the online / offline cinema ARG that we created for the Warner’s VOD release racked up massive views / players and created quite a stir. The cinema ARG lead to a series of great meetings and new opportunities. I accumulated a lot of miles as I traveled to Europe and crisscrossed the US with speaking engagements at the Berlin Film Festival, London Film Festival, SXSW, various universities, film societies, ad agencies, and entertainment companies.

So far 2008 is off to a great start. There are some exciting things in the works for HT as it moves into the next phase of its’ release. More details coming soon.

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DV mag ran a story about the cinema ARG

“No one is safe from the Net effect of Head Trauma, a horror feature film with a Web 2.0 twist, as Philadelphia-based writer-director Lance Weiler takes his self-produced “cinematic alternate reality game” on the road this weekend.

Weiler—whose first all-digital feature, The Last Broadcast, is currently distributed in over 20 countries, having enjoyed runs on HBO and IFC—looks to create what he calls “a new experience in horror” by engaging audiences on city streets as well as in theaters, then following them home with cell phone calls and social networking site posts from Head Trauma characters.”

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The Escapist Magazine covers the HEAD TRAUMA cinema ARG

“Today is Hope’s birthday,” writes Richard Chambers on his blog, Hope is Missing. “She is 23 today. I sang happy birthday this morning to a picture of her and couldn’t get all the way through.”

“Hope” has been missing since June. Chambers started the blog out of frustration shortly after her disappearance. Police had no leads; Hope’s mother, one of the last people to see her alive, wasn’t any help; and his wedding date was fast approaching. The feeling of helplessness in his posts is overwhelming. It’s also false.

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The Philadelphia HT cinema ARG that I co-produced with Joseph Gervasi was recognized with a Citypaper Choice Award.

Best Argument That Film Can Still Be an Experience …new cult-in-the-making films presented in imaginative settings. That includes the multimedia expansion of Lance Weiler’s Head Trauma, which incorporated live music, characters and even cell-phone interaction.

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HEAD TRAUMA is now on VOD and can be found on various Warner Bros VOD outlets nationwide. For cable and satellite check local listings.

For online outlets or 3rd party services here are a few of the featured outlets












For those who are looking for a physical copy -
DVDs can be purchased at Lance Weiler’s store

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CINEMA GAMES

The HOPE IS MISSING cinema ARG has concluded. Over the course of two and half weeks more than 2 million people viewed elements of the game over myspace, stage6, eyespot, xbox, twitter and myopera. Players setup blogs, wikis, forums, and chat rooms. The game attracted some interesting reactions and was covered by a number of press outlets.

For more on the game:
Filmmaker Magazine article
ARG network podcast interview

HEADED TO LONDON
Tomorrow I head to London for the Power to the Pixel conference on digital storytelling and distribution. I’ll be giving a case study around HEAD TRAUMA and the HOPE IS MISSING game.

A NEW STORE
In other news we’ve launched a new store on the site. So for those interested in picking up a copy of HEAD TRAUMA or my first film THE LAST BROADCAST visit the store. We have a number of cool bundles that include posters, t-shirts, dvds and soundtracks. In the coming weeks we will be expanding elements of the store. Special thanks to bside.com for creating the store and managing it!

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