It is not uncommon, especially in the science fiction realm, for fans of certain movies to show up at the theater in full costume portraying their favorite character or joining a LARP group in their area to act out scenes in real life with fellow role players. Now imagine yourself in a role playing game in which you do not meet your fellow role players anywhere. In fact, you most likely don’t meet them in person at all. That’s because in this new experimental game, Nowhereland Exhibit, your role playing takes place via video uploads to tell the story of a post apocalyptic world.
From what I understand, this appears to be a very unique idea and I want to give you more details about this brave and creative undertaking. To do that, I was able to ask the creator of Nowhereland Exhibit, Morrison Keddie, some questions about this new and exciting role playing venture.
SF: Welcome Morrison! We’re very excited to hear about your project. First of all – can you tell us a bit about your background and what led you to this current path?
Morrison: Thanks for having me, it’s my pleasure! I’m a big fan of science fiction and have been following ScienceFiction.com for a while now, so am very excited about NLE being featured here. I’m primarily an actor, but have lately been writing and producing my own content. To keep sane. I’m not sure if it’s working. Within the past two years I wrote and produced a play, then a short film that went to festivals. Now, I’m trying out this little experiment in collaborative world building called Nowhereland Exhibit. I hope the readers of this take part and become survivors in the post apocalypse of Nowhereland Exhibit!
SF: In your words, can you explain to the readers what exactly is the – “Nowhereland Exhibit?”
Morrison: The Nowhereland Exhibit is a collection of artifacts, manuscripts, and videos that tell the stories of the survivors of the most devastating pandemic (Viroxycognex) in human history. This pandemic takes place in the near future, and the exhibit takes place in the far future after society has recovered. Does that make sense? I hope so.
Viewers can join us in creating the world by posting video responses as a survivor and expect to be included in the series. We’ve already had a few jump in, and some of our main characters have responded back to continue their stories. It’s been fun so far.
SF: How often are videos posted? Will it be weekly, daily, or monthly?
Morrison: Videos are posted each week, on Wednesday. We’re almost done with airing Season 1, so we may be taking a break after the final episode (Episode 11) to give us some lead time to prep Season 2.
SF: What made you think to do this, in other words, what was the inspiration behind this?
Morrison: I saw a YouTube video of a rapper who collaborated with other musicians to do a song over video chat. I can’t remember the name, and if anyone knows what I’m talking about I’d love to know. That inspired me to do that with film, and started thinking how that would be possible. In what world would it make sense? In Nowhereland Exhibit they have to use this technology to connect in order to survive. And I love the post apocalyptic genre.
SF: Now, Virox
Morrison: Viroxycognex is completely fabricated. What it is and how it came about will be revealed as the seasons progress.
SF: What are you looking for when choosing a viewer posted video? Are all answered, or do you select only one to respond to?
Morrison: Anyone can post a video response and be included in the series, as long as they play within the world we’ve created. We have suggestions on the submissions page of the site to help people look the part, but really they are just suggestions. We want people to be as creative as they can be with their videos. What would you do in the post apocalypse? Are you trying to find other survivors? Are you living it up in an empty mall? We just had a viewer submitted response from San Fransisco, and they’re ‘partying through it’. I love that.
We’ll answer all of the responses we can as long as they’re in the world of Nowhereland Exhibit. (I might and hopefully am setting myself up for a lot of work here).
SF: Where do you see this going in the future?
Morrison: It is open ended, so we’ll take it as far as it will go with whoever wants to join in. It isn’t that we don’t have a plan, we do…there are 6 seasons outlined, but those are just a rough suggestion of what might happen.
Season 2 is already shot…we have several points in the story where the main characters call on other survivors (viewers!) for various things. That will be fun. And…Shane Warren. Whoops! Dropped a name there. He plays Cyrax in the Mortal Kombat web series. He’s in Season 2. You may have already noticed the stellar Sonita Henry as Saga (Star Trek, The 5th Element) in Season 1, who will also be in Season 2. Whoops! There’s another.
SF: What should the readers know about the season finale coming up tomorrow?
Morrison: Tomorrow we’ll see an Eater for the first time, who are the monsters everyone in the world is avoiding/fighting. It’s also a preview into the more action heavy Season 2.
We have an amazing stunt team, some of whom are from the extremely talented Thousand Pounds Fight Team (YouTube them!), so please tune in!
We’re also working with the software wizards at Coincident TV to make the entire experience hyper-interactive. That should be ready tomorrow as well, we’ll see!
On behalf of our talented cast and crew, thanks again for having Nowhereland Exhibit featured here. It’s my pleasure to share their great work with as many people as possible, and I hope we can do this again sometime soon.
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Thank you, Morrison, for taking the time to tell us about your exciting new project!
You can find Morrison and the NLE experiment on Twitter and Facebook.
Here’s a trailer to get a glimpse of what you’ll see.
