Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 4, 2011. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The app was developed by the multimedia agency Powerflasher Hamburg. The special element is part of an integrated campaign by the agency Jung von Matt/Spree for the pay-TV channel 13TH STREET Universal.
The interactive film combines virtually inserted video sequences with a GPS real-life game. Selected viewers experience their own personal thriller with “The Witness”. Registration for the live event begins on March 14, 2011, with the official relaunch of the channel 13TH STREET Universal at http://www.13thstreet.de. The live event then begins in Berlin on April 9. The players are interactively involved in solving the thriller and have to investigate directly at the different crime scenes. They receive important clues on their iPhone and Follow the events through film scenes virtually inserted on location.
For “The Witness”, Powerflasher implemented an iPhone app that literally turns the player into an eyewitness. The multimedia agency used technologies such as augmented reality (AR) for video integration and location-based services (LBS) to trigger actions based on the players’ location.
iPhone App Becomes an Investigation Tool
To allow players to move interactively through the game and receive important clues, the iPhone becomes an indispensable investigation tool. With the smartphone, players can navigate, collect evidence and communicate with allies and opponents. This requires special software for the iPhone, developed by Powerflasher’s multimedia specialists.
The live-event player experiences the abduction of a young woman directly at the scene of the crime. The viewer thus becomes an eyewitness and then embarks on a chase with the kidnappers across Berlin. Players are directed live to the various crime scenes through calls and SMS messages. Stations include a run-down hacker’s flat, a red-light bar or into a gloomy warehouse. Through films that participants retrieve on location on their smartphones, the entire crime is assembled piece by piece directly before their eyes.
The campaign trailer presents the app: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeMOfhEPLpE
Players Investigate with Mobile High-Tech
The app was developed entirely in the native Objective-C language for the iPhone. This makes it possible to use the smartphone’s features optimally to give the player the most realistic and involving game experience possible. Functions such as the built-in compass are supported as a result. Using the compass and augmented reality, the player is shown, for example, the direction in which they must move the phone’s camera to start a video scene depending on their position in the room. This places the player in the middle of the action.
For the most involving game experience possible, a QR-code scanner was also built in. Users scan codes hidden on the set that provide important data in the game. Depending on how the player handles this data during the course of the game, the outcome of the game turns good or bad.
The application also tracks the user’s current route via GPS (location-based services). If the player leaves a crime scene, they receive instructions on how to reach the next location. As soon as they arrive there, the application recognises this automatically. The next game level then starts automatically as soon as they also arrive at a new game location in real life. At various points in the interactive game, they have the option to decide which location to visit next. These decisions are taken into account in the app and automatically change the course of the game. Depending on the game status, the user also receives calls during the game. These calls are triggered automatically by the app and made as voice calls. Even if the app is no longer active or in the foreground, the player receives all notifications.
On “The Witness”, Powerflasher again worked with the partners with whom it had already successfully implemented the interactive horror film “Last Call” for 13TH STREET Universal in the previous year. The interactive film project, in which cinema viewers could control the film character by mobile phone, received numerous international awards. Jung von Matt/Spree again provided the concept and idea for the new project “The Witness”. @radical.media and nhb Berlin were responsible for production.
Further links:
- Campaign trailer
