At the website, audience members are able to interact with the film even further, and even speak to the hooded kidnapper. He asks you questions over the phone, and your answers dictate what you see on the screen. Then he asks you to tell him something no one else knows about you, and when you do, he replays your words, in your voice, back through your computer, taunting you.
"Sometimes ARGs are dense and take a quite a bit of time to get into," says Weiler. "With this we were doing media-integrated gameplay. You can enjoy it at multiple levels. You could dig as deep as you want, but you can just look at the web videos if you want. You don't have to play the game."
If you do want to play the game, prepare for the launch of a second installment after the first of the year. To date, over 2 million people have joined the search for Hope, with points of entry springing up practically everywhere users congregate online. There's even a wiki.
"The Language of Storytelling Has Changed"
"We live in a remix culture, an on-demand culture," says Weiler. "Media consumption is changing, and because of that media creation is changing. Everything now has become decentralized, controlled by the end user. When that happens it's about discoverability. It's all about empowering that user and finding ways to interact with them, and the language of that storytelling has changed."
Meanwhile, at Hope is Missing, Chambers is at his wits end, and Hope's mother is in the hospital, in a coma after a failed suicide attempt. Tips are streaming in, and Chambers is considering dropping out of school to search for Hope full time. He receives suggestions from audience members that Hope's abduction is startlingly similar to a scene in a film from last year, in which a hooded figure abducts a young woman. The film, according to tipsters, is Lance Weiler's Head Trauma ...
Wheels within wheels.
