In late 2007, to spur interest in the upcoming release of the latest Batman movie, the people behind "The Dark Knight" launched a multimedia, guerrilla marketing campaign.
Mysterious e-mails led recipients to websites, where visitorswere instructed to go to bakeries to pick up cakes that, it turnsout, had cell phones baked inside.
The complicated, Internet-aided campaign eventually led participants to special screenings of the first six minutes of "The Dark Knight" at IMAX theaters in five cities. While only a few dozen people took part in the cake hunt, 1.4 million people watched online.
By the time "The Dark Knight" premiered in July 2008, 10 million people had participated in the "Why So Serious?" marketing campaign. The movie made $1 billion during its 33-week run.
"Why So Serious?" was more than just a successful public-relations campaign, according to author Frank Rose. It was anattempt to create an alternate reality, immersing the participantswho tried to solve its puzzles and blurring the line between reallife and fantasy.
At a basic level, "Why So Serious?" is one possible answer to thekey question that Rose addresses in his new book, "The Art of Immersion": How do we tell stories in the age of YouTube, Twitter, DVRs and densely rich video games?
Rose is a contributing editor for Wired magazine and author of "West of Eden," about Steve Jobs' 1985 ouster from Apple.
In "The Art of Immersion" -- subtitled "How the DigitalGeneration Is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue and the Way WeTell Stories" -- Rose argues the pervasive interactivity producedby modern technology has changed storytelling.
Not being passive consumers of content, we expect engagement fromour movies, TV shows, books, games and other media.
Stories, Rose argues, give our lives meaning, and every advancein technology -- from the printing press to the motion-picturecamera -- changed how we tell those stories.
Through most of the 20th century, we consumed stories assequential narratives, but the Internet allows for nonlinear,"inherently participatory" storytelling. These deeper, alternatestory lines now play out through multiple media, and blend into ourlives.
Rose spends a lot of time in "The Art of Immersion" addressing video games -- how their developers are coming up with new ways to tell stories and why gamers enjoy them so much.
Rose details research that looks at the effects of video games onthe brain, which is wired to seek out the promise of a reward, and how the most compelling games create a system that rewards gamers unpredictably.
Video-game players want well-developed characters, back storiesand plot lines, and game designers are using artificialintelligence to try to deliver all of this.
In Hollywood, executives at networks and studios are working to stay relevant as first VCRs and now the Internet and the DVR erode their control. Directors such as James Cameron, of "Avatar," view 3-D as a way to immerse the audience in the story. But so far 3-D movies have not stemmed the tide of declining movie attendance and 3-D TV has failed to catch on.
Rose poses another question: If everyone who has a cell-phone camera and broadband Internet can be a moviemaker, what makes a storyteller?
People want to imagine themselves in the story, retelling it and making it their own, whether in "Harry Potter" fan fiction or in homemade YouTube videos.
The writers of books, movie scripts and TV shows still speak to millions, but the conversation isn't one-sided anymore.
TV producers are trying to find new ways to interact with those fans, but giving up control hasn't been easy for them.
When fans of the AMC hit "Mad Men" set up Twitter accounts using the identities of their favorite characters from the show, the cable channel initially had the accounts shut down before changing its mind in the face of negative reaction.
Still, networks are losing viewers and advertising, and marketersare looking beyond the 30-second TV spot to reach this fragmented audience.
Like the campaign for "The Dark Knight," this means relying on multiple media platforms, interactivity, audience participation and product placement, Rose contends.
And, instead of preaching to consumers, advertisers must listento them, too, because consumers define brands whenever they write about a product on a blog or a Twitter account.
In the end, Rose wonders who will create the truly immersive experience we seek, the kind promised in the holodeck familiar to any "Star Trek" fan. And, when we do find ourselves so completely immersed, Rose asks, how will we keep track of what is real and what isn't?
It's the last of a series of questions posed by Rose in his book,which, despite being "old technology," will interest anyone who wonders about the effects of the digital age on how we communicate.
Stephen T. Watson covers technology culture for The News.
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The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation Is RemakingHollywood, Madison Avenue and the Way We Tell Stories
By Frank Rose
Norton
326 pages, $25.95
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