In the 1940s a guy with the spark of an idea placed a camera in front of a group doing a radio drama. Someone else came along and decided to experiment a bit further, adding a second camera to see what would happen with some cutting.

‘That’s where we’re at today with interactive drama on the Web,’ says Alfredo Coppola, president of Animatics Multimedia, an Ottawa-based company pioneering the way in soap opera-style interactive dramas on the Net. ‘We’re the guys who thought of the second camera.’

And just as that small film experiment exploded into a big-bucks business, Coppola has a strategy in place to ensure his company plays a leading role when the online fireworks begin.

With one Web drama, Club Mode, and two cd-rom titles already sold, a number of projects in the works, the buyout of its regional competitor a done deal, and an American division set to open, this ‘Imax’ of the Web entertainment scene is on top of an industry that hasn’t even arrived.

Animatics’ secret to success is in making creative use of current technology with all its foibles and flaws, creating product that is viable today in the infancy stages of the cyberdrama scene.

The bottleneck over bandwidths and the frustrating delays downloading video is the first wall Web soap designers have hit. But the next big hurdle for online drama isn’t distribution, insists Coppola. ‘Technology has been in the forefront for too long. We are delivering drama, not necessarily technology.

Creative geniuses, not technical wizards, are what the fledgling industry needs. A case in point is the adsl (asymetric digital subscriber line) modem which is being billed as the most viable solution to the distribution dilemma. The two-way modem will increase downloading time tenfold over isdn, offering nine megabytes per second downstream and up to 800 kilobytes per second upstream.

Bell Canada has the technology set for a July trial but d’esn’t have the content to test on it. This is where Animatics jumps in. The company is currently developing two content proposals for the Bell broadband trial. ‘We’ve told them our ideas and they have expressed an interest verbally,’ says Coppola, who can’t elaborate until the written proposals have been sent to Bell.

‘Content is king’

strategy

But even if adsl passes the test, telcos will have to upgrade switching equipment and the modems won’t be widely available or affordable until at least 1998. Coppola estimates it will be a couple of years before an effective distribution system is in place.

But he isn’t planning to sit still and wait.

With a ‘content is king’ strategy in mind, Animatics is grinding ahead full-force on the Web drama scene, stressing the interactive component in its creative pitch for its latest proposal, The Project, which is being shopped around at Warner Bros. On-line and Imagination Network.

In the cybersoap, users participate in the production of their own drama, accessing a simulated software environment, e-mailing each other and the owners of a fictitious production company, critiquing cast selection, location, story development and footage, and actually creating an online production.

Players also take part in the back-stabbing and soap scenarios unfolding behind the scenes and use the Animatics mood bar. Apple’s Quick Time video conferencing for the Net is also being applied.

‘We will spin people off into production groups that communicate using video conferencing tools,’ explains Mark Ury, head of business development at Animatics. ‘The storyline brings together people in a chat group or in discussion threads, even offline letter writing.’

Photo-realistic images shot on Betacam of the Hollywood sets, pictures of actors with text boxes, and the slowly materializing production make up the visual component.

‘The technology we are proposing is no big brainer, it’s not groundbreaking,’ says Ury. ‘What’s novel is how we use the technology to make the environment more dynamic. We are looking at the ingredients available today and saying let’s make a souffle instead of just scrambled eggs.’

One example is making the best of crackly am-quality audio (the only sound which currently can be downloaded realtime) by incorporating it into the storyline as the fuzzy sound of secretly tapped phone calls.

cd-rom spin-offs of Animatics’ online dramas serve as experimental ground for the company. A three-title cd-rom urban drama trilogy is in the discussion phase with San Francisco-based Mindscape. The first title, The Human Agency, a sequel to Midnight Stranger and Club Mode but with a more advanced user interface, is currently in production for an October release. The other two titles ­ Nexus and the third unnamed ­ are still in the development phase.

In Human Agency players take on the role of a casting director auditioning actors with hidden agendas up their sleeves. Nexus offers more danger and intrigue: players meet up with odd characters, pursuing romance and adventure as they roam the city after-hours.

Unlike most titles on the market which go full screen and reduce the resolution, the new cd-roms will feature high resolution without a full screen, opting instead for a letter-box approach full left and right of the screen.

In addition to the mood bar, interactive characters have been built in, which players click on for different reactions.

Some hints and tricks will be available on a Web site designed for the dramas while other elements can be discovered only on the cd-rom titles. This twinning of cd-rom titles with an online component is central to Animatics’ content and technology strategies ­ the cd-rom serves as a short-term solution to video retrieval limitations and fulfills the Web audiences’ desire for live, full-motion video playback.

‘The cd-rom is the high bandwidth of today,’ says Coppola. ‘We are positioning the cd-roms as hybrid products that give the dynamic, interactive information whereas the timely, episodic component can be downloaded from the Web.

‘At one point the Net and cd-rom mediums will twin together and audio/video will stream quickly in a network environment,’ says Ury. ‘Then our cd-rom work will pay off.’

cd-rom titles also provide developers with much-needed cash which they currently don’t generate in Net dramas. Animatics has set a production budget of us$250,000 for each new title. Publishers advance production fees to developers and generally offer them 15% of net sales. ‘The publisher d’esn’t guarantee they will sell any so you’re not sure of any profit,’ explains Coppola. ‘That’s why you get as much money as you can in the advances.’

The push is on for cybersoapsters to explore potential money-making avenues online as well, and with business models covering uncharted territory, the financial landscape holds as great a challenge as the bandwidth conundrum.

The early January shutdown of Web soapmeister American Cybercast has upped the heat. This leading-edge online company had been spending us$100,000 per month on the Web drama The Spot, with even more financing funneled into Eon 4 and The Pyramid. Lack of revenue required to keep up the investment was one of the key factors for closing shop.

American Cybercast provides a warning for other companies trying to make too large leaps onto the cyberfrontier, says Coppola. ‘This was Hollywood trying to do something on the Web. Its production budgets were way too high. I think the site could have been done for half the price and then it would have been viable to keep it going.’

He points to Microsoft Network’s You Don’t Know Jack, an online/cd-rom set based around a trivia game show and its comical host. ‘I know it’s much less expensive than $100,000 a month to produce ­ there’s no video, it’s just animation and sound ­ but it’s very clever and really well done and generating revenue.’

Animatics is also taking cautious steps when it comes to technology and production budgets, limiting spending on prototype development to the $15,000 to $25,000 range, with another $5,000 to $10,000 eaten up shopping the project among publishers.

Fees advanced to developers cover production costs. In the Club Mode deal with Corel, for example, Animatics received $850,000 to produce 15 episodes, ‘a pretty standard’ figure, according to Coppola. ‘We also try to make deals to gain a percentage of long-term revenues,’ he explains. ‘Maybe our fees will be lower in exchange for some kind of royalties whenever profits are realized. But this can be difficult to arrange because returns aren’t projected for about three years.’

Another fallout from the American Cybercast collapse is the growing sense of urgency to come up with ways to bring advertisers online. In fact, half the Animatics’ Project proposal was taken up by a business plan looking at where revenues could be generated. ‘Let’s face it, if you are pitching a publisher the creative idea alone is not going to cut it,’ says Coppola.

Once again the Animatics approach involves incorporating business and technical angles in the creative. The firm’s recent pitch proposes corporate sponsorship by giving brand names to companies in the storyline and strategically placing their products in the photo-realistic interface.

But with only 6% to 10% of the Canadian and u.s. population surfing the Net, advertisers are still dubious about the potential of online advertising. Recognizing this, Animatics is also integrating into the programs lifestyle trend surveys, which players must fill out in order to move through the drama. Coppola is betting that these consumer profiles will convince advertisers that online advertising can target niche markets, making their money well spent on the Net.

‘Even if the site is only attracting a million people, it’s not a bad market for advertisers if it’s attracting the right million people,’ he says.

Advent of the online

media buyer

And interest in Web advertising is starting to buzz. Three new American online media buyers have set up shop, measuring the quality of sites based on how much information they have on their users and recommending where potential advertisers should put their money.

‘I’m impressed that these online media buyers have evolved so quickly,’ says Coppola. ‘If they continue this type of growth, we’re going to see more advertisers turning to Web marketing because they know they are reaching the consumer one on one.’

Indirect user fees is another avenue Animatics is exploring. Since some form of competition between players occurs in their dramas, Ury has proposed a means of making money from the Web soap craze.

‘We come up with elements that give users more power, such as information or access to something/body else,’ he explains. ‘They can play the game for free, but players who want to get first in line or get a leg up on somebody else will have to pay for it.’

San Francisco-bound

Although Coppola admits no one is making money on the Net today, he has no doubts that a windfall is around the corner for those willing to take the gamble.

‘It’s a free-for-all,’ he says, noting that Microsoft Network, America On Line, Paramount Digital Entertainment and Warner Bros. On Line are all hungry for Web programming and putting money into experimental sites. ‘Their formula is, ‘I have $30 million to invest so I’m going to invest in 30 companies and two of them are going to take off.’ It’s just like gambling.’

But most of these big-name players are huddled in the Silicon Valley, and to compete effectively on the American front lines is Animatics’ next step on the cyberfrontier. Mid-January it bought out Ottawa competitor Mackenzie Beach, a leader in QuickTime virtual reality simulations and Web site development, whose clients include Bell Canada, Northern Telecom and Statistics Canada.

The two companies are merging operations, with Mackenzie founder James Fox on board as Animatics’ vp of operations. With these combined resources backing it up, Animatics is leaping onto the American Web scene in June, opening a marketing and sales office in the hotbed of new media technology ­ San Francisco.

Coppola says this presence is crucial to fostering relationships, joint ventures and distribution agreements with the key players in the American entertainment and software industry, as well as competing for new media projects.

Animatics already has a number of irons in the American online fires, including Arlington’s, a Web drama set in Memphis, which has been optioned by Paramount Digital Entertainment. A prototype is in development.

Animatics is also fostering a relationship with Intel and C-Net, which have set up a new entertainment site, Media Dome, and are looking to these new media innovators for cybersoaps.

‘The artists of today who are experimenting will be that much richer down the road.’ predicts Coppola confidently. ‘Anyone investing in interactive drama right now is doing so to be completely poised and ready when the industry revolution actually takes place.’

But he cautions that just as the infrastructure for the film industry took years to develop, those entering the Web sub-scene will have to bide their time. ‘We have a long way to go and could very well be defining this industry for the next 10 years. But I’m ready for that journey.’