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BEST IN CLASS TRANSMEDIA SHOWCASE: Down the Rabbit Hole with Lance Weiler.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
“The most experimental story told at this year’s
Sundance Film Festival in Park City wasn’t just on a
movie screen… What it all amounts to is something
distinctly new.” - GIZMODO

“The experience was exhilarating, creating the feeling
that we were in the middle of an action thriller where we
were the protagonists.” - TURNSTYLE NEWS

“Leveraging emerging platforms, the project takes the ideas
of interactivity to the next level.” - HUFFINGTON POST

www.lanceweiler.com @lanceweiler

An ofﬁcial selection of the Sundance Film Festival, PANDEMIC 1.0 was an immersive
storytelling experience designed for 40,000 festival attendees as well as a global audience.


Crafted as a Story R&D experience, PANDEMIC 1.0 mixed social entertainment with research and
development. The goal - to enhance the story world, test new business models and study social
interactions. Medic Mobile and FreedomLab worked with us to model various game play interactions in
hopes of gaining insights into how items spread in social environments.

Participants online and those at the Sundance Film Festival worked together to stop the spread of
a ﬁctional pandemic outbreak over the course of 120 hours.

PANDEMIC 1.0 had numerous access points across ﬁlm, mobile, online and the real world. At its
core was the story of a strange sleep virus that infects adults and leaves the youth struggling to
make sense of the world around them.

At the center of the PANDEMIC experience was a short ﬁlm. The short tells the story of a young boy and
his sister as they struggle to come to terms with the fact that their mother has fallen ill. The short
premiered at the festival, on TV, via mobile and online outlets. It screened in the US Shorts section, one
of 44 ﬁlms out of over 6,000 entries. Later this year and into 2012 a series shorts will be shot in London,
Berlin, Paris, Barcelona and Rome which expand the story world of PANDEMIC.


Online players remixed digital assets in order to unlock the locations of objects hidden throughout Sundance.
Fifty GOLDEN OBJECTS and ﬁfty BOTTLES OF WATER were unlocked by online play. Once an object was
unlocked online players worked with festival-goers on the ground at Sundance to ﬁnd and return the items to
MISSION CONTROL.

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MISSION CONTROL was a physical space designed to give the sense of a Center for Disease Control
(CDC). It provided an overview of all the game play. All of its data visualizations were powered by
participants game play. Real world and online actions impacted the pacing of the story world and also
unlocked hidden elements within the game.

Fifty NFC (near ﬁeld communication) enabled Nexus S phones were circulated throughout the festival.
Distributed in biohazard bags along with hand cranks to keep them charged - the phones were randomly
passed from one festival-goer to the next. When activated the phones presented a series of morality
questions. Based on the userʼs response a simple task was presented – “shoot a photo with your eyes
closed.” Thousands of photos were taken over the 120 hours.

When the phones made their way back to MISSION CONTROL, users could set them on the Microsoft
Surface table located in the center of the room. As the phone rested on the Surface all the media that
had been shot with the phone would become accessible.

Hidden objects brought to MISSION CONTROL that touched the Mircosoft Surface table were able
manipulate the walls of the room and impact the spread of the pandemic. For instance all the hidden
objects had health properties that when found and touched to the Surface table would combat the
pandemic and reduce the number of people infected.

A special room was created as a memorial to those who contracted the virus. Players discovered that each
person is related to a GOLDEN OBJECT. The objects hold stories and memories that show how the people
in the room know each other and provided insight into how the virus has spread socially.

Over 600 NFC tags are utilized making it the largest deployment at a public event to date. When scanned
with an NFC compatible device story elements are unlocked. For instance, holding a phone up to a
“closed eye” portrait results in the “person” opening their eyes on the phone. This action symbolizes a
connection and unlocks a story about the person.

All ﬁfty GOLDEN OBJECTS hold a story that provides insight into the victims of the pandemic. The level of
engagement between those online and those at the festival was amazing. During the course of the 120
hour experience each phone passes on average at least twenty times per day. At points throughout the day
phone numbers of the ﬁfty phones are released. This resulted in calls which connected those online with
random strangers at the festival. Together they would work to get items to MISSION CONTROL.


Based on a theme within the story world related to memories and material possessions four special
BEARS were created. The BEARS moved throughout the festival. Each one is a connected toy with a
camera in the stomach, an mp3 player in the arm and a slide viewer for an eye. The BEARS are also
dockable and can easily connect to a laptop or desktop.

As the 120 hour experience moves into the last day, the narrative of the story leads online and ofﬂine
players to a secret location at Sundance. In a seamless ﬂow the narrative thread of the previous play
melds with a special secret show with world renowned DJ - Kid Koala.

The show with Kid Koala is streamed live for all the players of the game and the 120 hour experience
comes to a close. Within the narrative of the story online players and those playing at the festival lead 33
of the phones that had been in the wild for 5 days back to us.

PANDEMIC 2.0 will be heading to Europe later this year as the story world continues to expand along
with its player base. 


THE TEAM
Story Architect / Experience Designer  Integrated Marketing & PR
HOPE IS MISSING book
Lance Weiler
Fleishman-Hillard
Creative Director 
Data Visualizations  Digital Strategy and Research  Lance Weiler
Kinetic Fin  Freedomlab Future Studies
Jeff Clark
Designed by 
Mobile app / surface design and UX  Laura Mazzeo & Janine Saunders
Creative Technologist   Vectorform
Mark Harris
Produced and Casted by 
NFC chips provided by  Janine Saunders
Producer  NXP
Zeke Zelker
Production Manager 
Water bottles by  Tim Farrell
Community Engagement
ARTWATER
Janine Saunders
Grime (art)  Portrait Photographer 
Bradley Farrell (design)
Lorenzo de Guia
Creative Producer
Nick Childs
Nexus S phones provided by  Artifact Photographer 
Google
Eniko Szucs
Social Transmedia Platform 
Monteur & NetVentures
Surface Unit provided by  Writers 
Microsoft
Nick Childs, Tim Farrell,
Microsite  Jason Hood, Brent Cole,
Bastiaan Grutters (development)  Unit Photography  Daniela Croci, Jenny Nasal
Dim Rooker (design)
Elaine Zelker & Mike Hedge
Special Thanks 
Transmedia Unit  Additional Production Support  Faith Weiler 
The Sabi Company  Jennifer Nasal
Josh Cramer 
Zak Forsman  House of Trim
Kevin Shah  Twitter Story Editor 
Gary King
Chuck Wendig

Comic Panels by
Twitter / Short Fiction
Dean Haspiel, Tim Hamilton
Chuck Wendig, Andrea Phillips
Project developed at
George OʼConner, Rick Parker
Jesse Scoble, Will Hinmarch,
The Sundance Institute
Stephan Blackmore

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BEST IN CLASS TRANSMEDIA SHOWCASE: Down the Rabbit Hole with Lance Weiler.

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BEST IN CLASS TRANSMEDIA SHOWCASE: Down the Rabbit Hole with Lance Weiler.