Interactive content

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Want to make a Hollywood movie? Now you can…

Edgar Wright is responsible for some of the funniest, best British movies in recent films – notably Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Bill Gates is responsible for a little company called Microsoft, which is in turn responsible for a Web browser called Internet Explorer.

Now, in the best ever example of how great content IS content marketing, Wright (along with renowned comic book artist Tommy Lee Edwards) and Internet Explorer have joined forces to create a new entertainment experience – one that we’re likely to be seeing far more of in the future. Particularly as they want YOU to help them tell the story.

The Random Adventures of Brandon Generator has been called ‘part interactive movie, part comic book, part game’, with the audience influencing the outcome of the story. ‘Interactive’ content is nothing new, of course. Films and even books have tried it – more as a gimmick than anything else – and computer/video games have more or less nailed it.

But until now, the technology hasn’t really existed to enable the three mediums to combine in a fresh, new and possible groundbreaking way.

Here’s the teaser trailer for the project, or you can watch an interview with Edgar Wright about all things Random and Brandon here.

How it works

The pitch to wannabe collaborators is simple: ‘Brandon is a would-be writer whose world unravels as he seeks to break the dam in his head and let ideas flood out. He needs inspiration. He needs an intervention. He needs your help.’

His first random adventure is already available on the website, with episodes two and three set to follow this month. You can go there just to watch, like in the movies. Or you could write a story for future use, draw a creature, listen to ideas and more.

It’s cool, it’s clever, it’s inventive, it’s enticing and it will got a lot of people (from geeks to budding writers to general creative types) interested. And above all, it is fantastic content marketing.

The Random Adventures of Brandon Generator uses content – much of it user-generated, which is the Holy Grail of social media and content marketing – to keep people coming back to a site that is produced in partnership with Internet Explorer and that politely but constantly suggests site visitors ‘consider switching to Windows 7’ in order to ‘access exclusive content and have Brandon’s story within easy reach’.

Clever, Microsoft. Very clever.

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