I am moving into Tilt the Town!!!

YAY I got my moving papers for TilttheTown! http://tiltthemovie.wordpress.com/tilt-the-town/ I am a full fledged resident now ;)

I am red 42 on the map - backer 142 (give me a holler @geologylady on twitter anytime and come "visit" me).

Where is this town and what does that mean?

Wellllll - there was this Kickstarter Project (see here www.kickstarter.com/projects/PhilHolbrook/tilt-an-independent-thriller-from-brainerd-mn) to fund this movie called TILT.

Reading through the description and watching the little video gave me a heads up this looked to be a very cool movie. They just needed some crowdfunding help - ala Kickstarter. Now these are not just people begging for money and holding out hats (well maybe they do that too, I am not sure what they do when not insanely busy getting ready for the movie and creating a whole world ala TILTtheTown and not sure I would want to know what they do :-P anyhoos....

One of the beauties of Kickstarter is you get something for helping out (I guess the age of just doing a good deed and giving something away for nothing is gone - but I really like my bio so I am overlooking the whole doing something for the better of man mentality - gimme fun bio - oh yes where was I....

Kickstarter has levels you can set up so when someone backs your project - they can earn a reward - it really is an awesome idea, kinda (but that is another rambling post another day and goes back to the getting something for nothing idea). For TILT - one of the levels awarded the following "All of the above and you will get a creative, personalized biography and honorary citizenship in the virtual Tilt: The Town, where you will get to meet and learn about the characters, creators, and other contributors."

THAT IS THE MOST COOL BEANS AWESOME SAUCE PART ;)

Not only did the creators make a swell movie, not only are they showing behind the scenes stuff and talking to people and fans and such, they are bringing people INTO the story universe (the buzz word here folks is transmedia, but who needs buzzwords) THIS IS COOLNESS.

Not only did I sign up, but I forced, begged, coerced, blackmailed, bribed and well ended up having some of my writing group friends sign up too (I actually gave them the bio as a gift, which I do like giving unique, weird gifts and is not a bio in a town a bit... different ;)

Why?

Well here is the true beauty of a viral, transmedia, this kinda project - one person likes it and finds ways to bring others into it; they want to share the love, share the experience. For my writing group friends, we create characters and RPGs (role playing games) - we write these characters as part of our group - have done so for years. Now we have someone else creating a character for us but tied to other characters and tied to a larger universe. Very slick and....

Hello that is the format of all of the RPGs that have ever existed.

Of course everyone has a small view of what RPG is like (Say Dungeons and Dragon or the like and I bet ya a fiver people immediately conjure up the typical young male or else Felicia Day (ok that was an inside gaming joke)

But - where was I - oh yeah TILTtheTown is an RPG, kinda (hope the writers do not ever find this and smack me for calling this that) but it is not a fantasy, science fiction world - it is... Brainerd MN - it is something that takes the fun of a social game and creating a character and interacting, but springs it from fantasy, war, and the "traditional" RPG game themes.

Plus - it gives people who are interested in TILT a topic of common discussion and way to "socialize" and have fun - the TILT creators are "kickstarting" the conversation for people to help bring fans together (I had to have a semi pun reference to KS, you know I did...)

My friends and I at least intend to write and RPG and play some once we get the bios - we are wacky like that - maybe some of the other town residents will want to write and play too (some interesting side twitter conversations have started and I think there are other items floating around too check out #TILTheTown on twitter and they are on facebook too)

I write fanfiction too. Many have done so. These bios are a great way for a creator to encourage that fan participation and buy in, yet still retain some creative control and canon of their storyworld (another blog for another time but that is a big sticky wicket in how fans and fanfiction and fan created content is viewed by the original creator ala copyright, intellectual property and all those wonderful discussions). Many properties create canon RPG sets that allow people to participate in the storyworld - IMO that's kinda what the writers/creator have done here (and they have done ALOT of work do check it out if nothing else for the beauty of the design and creativity of the writers http://tiltthemovie.wordpress.com/tilt-the-town/)

I think extensions of projects like these are interesting - they are very very time consuming from a writers perspective I am sure, but they are doing something, in a sneaky neat way, that has gone on for a long time in covert fashion, but may be finally ready to take the next step to a larger audience - creating game/story extension of an initial tory.

so anyhoos - a very awesome idea, project, story and come give me a visit in TILTtheTown :)