Atlantis Communications’ first trek into multimedia encompasses one cd-rom title, plans for merchandising, a possible strategic alliance with an animation company, and production of interactive drama.

Initially, Atlantis aims to turn the interactive play Tamara into a cd-rom title by spring of 1996, at a projected cost of about us$2 million, by combining live action and animation.

When Tamara was conceived by Richard Rose and John Krizanc almost 14 years ago, it challenged conventional drama narrative form by introducing an interactive set whereby each member of the audience could choose to follow, at any given time, any one of 10 characters through any one of up to nine scenes.

‘Just as Tamara changed the rules for theater when it was originally produced,’ says executive producer Martin Katz, ‘we expect to change the rules for cd-rom now, and change the rules again for interactive broadcast by being the first to create a drama.’

Eventually, when the technology is available, Atlantis wants to create a drama based on the play for interactive broadcast, although Katz estimates that may be anywhere from four to eight years away. If the cd-rom title is hugely popular, Katz says Atlantis may decide not to wait for an interactive broadcast, but could go ahead with a traditional miniseries that has an interactive spin.

Katz and special projects director Hewon Yang attended Milia in mid-January – the new multimedia market in Cannes with about 5,000 people in attendance – in search of a multimedia partner for Tamara and other projects. Atlantis is also looking for an animation partner for the interactive drama and future productions.

When Yang joined Atlantis last summer (from Nelvana), her mandate was to focus on merchandising, animation and digital media – all new areas for the company – which has produced drama primarily for television since 1978.

Distribution for Tamara has not been explored yet, but Katz doesn’t see any reason why Atlantis Releasing would not be involved. ‘What’s interesting about digital media is the cost of producing and distributing are remarkably low. So it is a possibility.’

While rights for multimedia product are still largely confusing, beyond an assignment of copyright, the best protection is to get the product out on the market as quickly and widely as possible, says Katz. ‘My belief is that if you make something innovative and good, people will try to copy it. The best way to protect what you have created is to make it first, make it best, market it widely and follow it up with subsequent products, building on the uniqueness of the product.’

For the Tamara cd-rom, Krizanc will collaborate with Rose on the script, and Chuck Clanton, previously with First Person, will work as multimedia designer.