"Getting Lost" takeover
An internet-proxy stunt: browse anywhere and get pulled through the vortex into the film's world.
fwa site of the day · july 2009
FWASite of the DayJuly 3, 2009
Universal Pictures · Theatrical Site · 2008–2009
Space-time vortexes suck.
I produced the official movie site for the Will Ferrell tentpole: a teaser, four explorable Flash worlds with portal-orb navigation, and one of the App Store's earliest movie apps. This is the story of how a blue-sky fantasy pitch became a lean shipped reality.
Teaser4 EnvironmentsiPhone EPKDownloads
The Brief
Make the film's world explorable online
Universal wanted the mashed-up prehistoric dimension of the film to be a place, not a poster: somewhere new fans could wander and cult fans of the 1974 series could hunt for references. The whole schedule walked backward from one immovable date, the theatrical release on June 5, 2009.
"This is a land in which ganja is man-eating, strawberries are the size of human heads, and Roman chariots lay abandoned next to mopeds." (Statement of Work)
- Client
- Universal Pictures
- Film
- Land of the Lost
- Release
- June 5, 2009
- Job
- W-08-623
- Agency
- 65 Media
- Role
- Producer
November 3, 2008 · The Blue-Sky Pitch
The pitch that got away
This is what interactive agencies pitched in 2008. A fantasy menu, fully loaded. My job was landing it in reality.
Real-time virtual world
A persistent explorable world with avatar chat. The single biggest line in the fantasy menu.
Survivor Handbook webisodes
Will Ferrell green-screen shorts, produced for the web.
Pylon photo booths
Physical portal pylons in major cities, taking your picture into the land.
Baby Dino Rock 'n' Roll
"Think prehistoric Guitar Hero!" A rhythm game with hatching dinos.
Sleestak email attacks
A viral prank engine, plus "a splash of dinosaur pee for good measure."
"Have you ever been Rick Rolled at work? Well try being Sleestak attacked!"
Nov 2008 – Mar 2009 · Scope Evolution
Ten proposals. Eight SOWs.
The scope story, told in versions and features. Tap a stage to see what got cut and what survived.
In scope
- Four explorable side-scrolling environments
- Portal navigation between worlds
- A teaser to open the campaign
Cut here
- Nothing yet. Everything was on the table.
Scope and scale of work was minimized to help meet required budgetary constraints.
The Showpiece · Four Worlds
The world we shipped
Four side-scrolling environments, one per 4-day design sprint. Navigation between them ran through glowing portal orbs, each a porthole preview of the next world. Tap a portal to travel.
DesertHolly · Anna FrielWrecked landmarks, half-buried in the sand.Storyboard note: An ice cream truck falls from the sky.
Process · Schematic to Ship
How it was made
One designer. One Flash developer. One environment per 4-day sprint. Every world went schematic, then annotated storyboard with its red ASSETS NEEDED list, then final comp.
The Producer's Section
Production reality
Every date on this rail was walked backward from June 5, 2009.
Nov 3Blue-sky pitch
Dec 12Contract v1 signed
Dec 22Teaser live
JanTeaser 1.5 parallax
Jan 26Design, one world per 4-day sprint
Mar 2Flash build
Apr 8QA
Mid-AprMain site launch
Jun 5Film opens
Jul 3FWA Site of the Day
585projected hours
5person core team
4 daysper environment sprint
Studio security, one fax at a time
To receive a single data DVD of split .wav audio files, we signed Universal's faxed materials-release contract: facility inspection rights, unmarked return packages, the works. For one disc of sound effects.
materials-release contract · faxed march 6, 2009March 2009
An App Store app, eight months in
A late scope addendum wrapped the iPhone EPK site as a downloadable App Store app. The App Store was eight months old. This was before "there's an app for that" was a cliche.
"the iphone site will be wrapped to bundle the website for local play back on the iphone, downloadable from the app store" (iPhone addendum, verbatim)
Exhibit · landofthelost.net · 2009Built for the browsers of its time
Flash 10 · FLV video · 1024×768 stage (980×570 safe area)
PHP 4.3 · MySQL 5.0 · Apache 1.3
IE6-compatible · Flash-sniff HTML fallback
- Role
- Producer
- Agency
- 65 Media
- Client
- Universal Pictures
- Shipped
- April 2009
Challenge
A studio tentpole site with a hard theatrical date, a scope a fraction the size of the pitch, and a five-person team.
Approach
Cut scope in the open across ten proposals and eight SOWs, convert dream features into integrations, protect the commitments, and walk the schedule backward from June 5.
Result
Teaser, four worlds, downloads, and an early App Store app all shipped. FWA Site of the Day three weeks after the film opened.
FWA Site of the Day4 Environments585 Hours5-Person Team
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