30
It’s been a while since we’ve given you guys an update. I figured it was high time I sat down to discover if I was still capable of actually WRITING a post (if I ever was). What follows is my best attempt.
To say things have been insane would be a bit of an understatement. The entire Mysteria Film Group team has been called to action in the last ten days and the world has never looked so daunting and so promising at the same time.
A phone call to a connection the week before last has yielded results with a speed we never anticipated. We were put into contact with a gentleman with a great deal of personal relationships within the industry last Monday. After an initial phone call, we were tasked with creating a document for him - a primer of sorts - detailing the history of Myst and its financial market viability. He felt that he had some friends that would find our project to be of significant interest. These friends included one studio exec and two major production company heads. I promised him a document within a few days. He told me not to rush it, and to “just make sure we got it right” (nothing was going to change in the matter of a week or so).
Last Monday also brought another call with a producer who had reached out to us via our website. He, too, was quite interested in talking about the possibilities for our project. Being as he presented himself as a huge respecter of Myst, I was excited to talk with him. His primary interest turned out to be in simply providing us with some much-welcome advice and support. He’s pledged himself as a resource for any questions, concerns or help we may need (awesome and generous).
Last Wednesday, only two days after my initial call with our Hollywood hook-up, we received an email requesting the primer document as quickly as possible. Surprisingly, he had some people already interested and needed something to put in front of them. This launched us into a 6-hour writing frenzy to have something to send the on Thursday. I will drop it in below. Please forgive the lack of formatting…
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Myst Primer Sheet
A Brief History of Myst
Myst is a graphic puzzle adventure game series rooted in rich story content and fueled by dynamic immersive environments. The games put the player in the role of “the Stranger”, who utilizes specially written books to travel to new worlds known as “Ages”. Clues found in each of these Ages help reveal the back-story of the game and its characters.
The first title, Myst, and its sequel, Riven, were designed and developed by Cyan Worlds, a Spokane, Washington-based studio. The games saw their releases in 1993 and 1997, respectively, and were massive commercial successes.
As the first CD-ROM game developed, the original Myst was lauded by critics and gamers for its groundbreaking technical achievements, engaging storytelling and unprecedented graphics. Myst quickly became the world’s best selling game of all time – a title it held until finally being supplanted an impressive nine years later by The Sims. Myst was a revolutionary creation and its release irrevocably changed the face of computer gaming.
The incredible popularity of Myst and Riven gave the franchise strong brand recognition within the market. While the original game was initially developed for the Macintosh platform exclusively, its popularity soared, spawning ports to the PC and various other gaming consoles. Three more sequels, a series of novels and an MMO followed, with Myst V: End of Ages - released in 2005 - serving as the final chapter in the epic saga created twelve years before.
Myst Today
Fifteen years after its creation, Myst still holds the imaginations of many nostalgic gamers and has also successfully indoctrinated new players eager to explore its worlds.
In the last two years, the original title has seen a resurgence in popularity with a port to Nintendo DS, Playstation Portable and, most recently, the iPhone. Within one week of its release on the iPhone application store, Myst became one of the top five best selling paid applications – a testament to its undying allure.
The universe of Myst has generated a sizable cult following. Its dedicated fans flock to Mysterium, an annual, Myst-themed convention held in various major cities throughout the United States. Similar overseas conventions offer the international fan base the same opportunity to celebrate their passion and commitment to the franchise.
The Myst series has also maintained a strong web presence with hundreds of pages dedicated to the various fictional “guilds” described within the lore. Countless fan-created forums, blogs and wikis supply encyclopedic reference to the complex and dynamic stories of Myst. Fan-generated fiction, films and games have also found their way into the web annals.
Myst as a Film
With the cultural impact Myst has achieved, it is not surprising that a film adaptation has been often rumored and deeply desired.
In 2002, Mandalay Television and the Sci-Fi Channel attempted to broaden the franchise with a four-hour mini-series. This endeavor quickly failed due to a misguided attempt to focus the project’s storyline on the content of the games while ignoring the rich, character-driven plot offered within the novels. The resulting script presented no coherent storyline and failed to capture the imaginative universe Myst has become so known for.
In the few years that followed, Cyan Worlds was reluctant to pursue any other cinematic opportunities for fear of similar disappointments further harming the integrity of the franchise and their reputation.
However, in the winter of 2005, Mysteria Film Group, LLC approached Cyan Worlds with a new envisioning of their properties, offering a detailed plan for the inception of a film franchise. This approach would find its source material not in the games, but within the deeply engrossing novels. Such a move would provide a literary pedigree to the film adaptations and avoid the evident pitfalls now so commonly associated with game-based cinema.
Cyan Worlds embraced the proposal, engaging in immediate talks with MFG principles, who began developing a screenplay for Myst: The Book of Ti’ana, the first installment of the films while simultaneously launching a viral marketing campaign to raise awareness amongst the fan base.
The film’s official production blog, mystmovie.com, was launched in January of 2008. Its initial design included a series of puzzles intended to emulate the original appeal of the property while revealing elements of the novels in the solutions. The fan base jumped at the opportunity to experience new content centered around the universe of Myst.
Since its creation, the production blog has garnered a great deal of attention, prompting media coverage in notable online gaming publications such as Joystiq.com and 1up.com. The fans have shown continued support and viewership has expanded at an average of thirty percent per month. It now boasts 30,000 page views per month and 130,000 requests for the blog’s RSS feeds monthly.
Myst: The Book of Ti’ana
As a fantasy-themed film with its roots in the gaming world, The Book of Ti’ana finds itself planted squarely in the middle of two major Hollywood trends. The success of films like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia have laid the groundwork for general audience appeal in the genre of fantasy, while the astronomical revenue streams in the video game market offer significant incentive for game-based cinema.
Mysteria Film Group’ s conceptualization of the material covers a socially relevant thematic structure and classic cinematic plotting designed to engage the audience on multiple levels, offering entertainment as well as thought-provoking explorations of modern themes.
Myst: The Book of Ti’ana is the epic story of the downfall of a great, and obsessively proud civilization. Although set in an ethereal world, and possessing fantasy and science-fiction elements, it is the human condition which drives this story and informs its potent themes. Exploring the strength of love and acceptance, and the terrible consequences of neglecting these virtues, this story depicts the corrosive nature of power. It bears witness to the racism that stems from a puritanical and ethnocentric society, demonstrating the way in which fundamentalist views are used as the manipulative tools of tyranny – tyranny that will ultimately lead to the death of an empire.
While The Book of Ti’ana exists within the context of a book series, its structure offers a complete, self-contained storyline, rendering it accessible even to those with no prior knowledge of the series; however, the potential for sequels exists and is adequately set-up within the narrative of the film.
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The document went out on Thursday as planned, and by Friday we had another call from our contact. He informed us that he had a studio (and no, I’m not going to tell you which one) interested and that we needed to get our documents and a pitch in order.
Since then, then entire team has been pulling long hours to get everything prepared. Jason, Yale, Patrick and I have been toiling away to create the four different synopses commonly required for a pitch. Those are the logline, the three paragraph synopsis, a thematic synopsis (included above), and a huge, all inclusive synopsis that will be used to verbally pitch the story.
Isaac and Nate (and yes, they are officially part of our happy family, so congratulate them) have been focusing on the visual aspect, designing and creating artwork to bolster the power of our pitch and give the execs some idea of what this all will look like. They’re coming up with some great stuff. We’re excited to have them on our team.
Isaac has also been reaching out to some of his contacts for some advice and coaching on pitching (this will be our first one). All and all, it has been a whirlwind of creative panic. It’s fantastic.
Danielle (collaborator on F.T.P.) came in for the weekend. She was brought up to speed and began analyzing the script for potential edits, etc. She’s not able to be with us full time right now, but her input and thoughts are easily transmitted by email and phone.
Finally, I’d like to say thanks to Ben Miner for his hard work the other night. He took time to build a comprehensive outline of the script to aid us in our writing of the synopses. It’s been a huge help. Thanks, Ben. Great work.
So, that’s my update. Hope you enjoyed it. I’m gonna get back to work now.
3:19 pm
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Jun 30 2009
Wooohooo! Good work!
*waves to the whole happy family*
And don’t worry, you good write.