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Is it a gimmick or a true interactive programming innovation? Warner Bros Digital Distribution has launched what it claims to be the first “social series” from a Hollywood studio in Aim High. It’s an action comedy series that has McG among its producers, is directed by Diary Of A Wimpy Kid helmer Thor Freudenthal, and stars Twilight Saga’s Jackson Rathbone, Friday Night Lights’ Aimee Teegarden and Ally McBeal’s Greg Germann. It launches October 18. The plot: A handsome high school junior moonlights as a highly trained teenage government operative. The social networking innovation: 
Viewers can supply their Facebook profile information, with photos and text, and see it worked into scenes, from a photo appearing on a student body election poster to a name scrawled in graffiti on a wall. “Facebook is an increasingly influential destination for discovering and acquiring movie and television content,” Warner Bros Digital Distribution president Thomas Gewecke said in a statement. “This effort takes video distribution to a whole new level by making the actual viewing experience personal and social in a truly innovative and entertainment way.” The series is created and written by Heath Corson and Richie Keen.
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Move along. Nothing to see here
I think this may be the funniest thing I’ve read all week. NOTE TO TRANSMEDIAFILES: americans want to enjoy entertainment PASSIVELY. everyone involved will blot this from the CV, guaranteed.
This is the content offering I’ve been waiting for my whole life. Forget Xbox. Blurays. Features. Sports in HD. Or the rare decent TV show. THIS is going to keep me riveted.
“Facebook is an increasingly influential destination for discovering and acquiring movie and television content…” Really?? I see nothing but retreads & remakes. I must be living in a parallel universe.
Oh really? Was there ever a period of time when the film and TV industries weren’t making movies and shows based on existing or recycled ideas/material? (Plays, books, tales, properties, etc.) Please tell me what that long-lost era was that you’re so nostalgic for?
Is there really enough information here to make such a cynical assessment? I actually think it sounds interesting. Why does everyone hate on everything on this site?
Yes, there is: ‘…a handsome high school junior moonlights as a highly trained teenage government operative…’
those studio execs are so creative! bla bla bla…
“Retreads and remakes” make money. End of story. Watch how big “Footloose” is going to be. After you’ve convinced millions of people to stop buying tickets to the “retreads and remakes,” maybe things will change. But until then, this is a business.
Footloose is going to snuff out like a candle dropped into a bathtub. Kids can smell shit far better than their parents and grandparents could (except, apparently, when Transforming robots are involved).
What they don’t tell you is (from what I heard) that the series will use content from your Facebook wall to populate items in the series in real time. I think that’s still the case. So, your face or public info might appear on a billboard in a transition (bumper) between shots and other cool integrated social devices during your own personal viewing experience. Everybody’s experience may be different….
Since 90% of the posts will be attempts to get THIS SHOW SUCKS to appear on the interactive billboards, there is no chance this experiment is going to be unfiltered, in real time.
But if someone had the guts to do that, it would be massive success. People hurl insults at shows while watching them all the time; why wouldn’t they love a chance to see their insults appear on screen? It would even be fun to see the insults even if they were other people’s (and let’s face it, everyone would be saying pretty much the same thing).
Novelty factor: very high.
Watch-more-than-10-minutes-of-pilot factor: very low.
Was the goal to devise a way to integrate social media platforms into the show in a manner that makes it feel as fresh and original as a cheap 1950′s gameshow giveaway?
The whole point of interactive media is that the users create the content. Treating the users as viewers who passively consume the content is missing the point.
People have been trying to shoehorn interactivity into the passive mediums of TV and movies forever, but they’re always lame, like this latest example. It will never work until the creators of the content are willing to let loose the reins and risk ending up with YouTube.
Bravo, well said! spot on!
I’ve seen it. It’s well done.
Aimee goes from Emmy award winning FNL to Facebook show? And Lutz and MG are doing major legit films, but rathbone is doing this?
Idiots.
This is not about the quality of its plot. Avatar was a horrible script but because of the technology everyone watched it.
They are testing a new method, a new way to make money and they aren’t going to do that with an artsy European movie that has a slow but wonderful plot. Of course it will be the most mainstream subject that targets the facebook users who are teenagers that are in high school and would love to be a CIA agent. I don’t think that kind of demographic would read deadline.com either so the fact that you say “everyone here dislikes this show so it will be unsuccessful” is not a valid argument.