A key reason Discovery Channel is so happy with the online aspect of its $20-million Mars mega-project is that it had Toronto interactive firm QuickPlay Media involved from first discussions through to final script.

‘From the moment the Mars project was conceived, a significant interactive component was integral to the overall success,’ says Paul Lewis, president and GM of Discovery Channel Canada, which will air the miniseries Race to Mars, about a 2030 mission to the Red Planet, starting Sept. 23. Mars Rising, a 10-part doc on the actual science behind such an endeavor, follows beginning Oct. 7. Montreal’s Galafilm Productions is producer of both.

The goal behind the $1.5-million RaceToMars.ca, which launched in August, was to create a site that builds up the environment in which the mini takes place.

QuickPlay producer and creative director Richard Lachman calls it ‘transmedia’ storytelling, in which each element of a multiplatform project, be it a website, interactive game, TV production or book, introduces new elements of the world where the story takes place.

‘This project is showing the way that Canadian productions need to work. They have to think of all the different ways in which you can get to an audience from the beginning. You need to have that kind of foresight so you’re not just tacking interactive elements on at the end,’ he says.

RacetoMars.ca features background articles and installations, video simulators and educational tools for teachers, as well as an online community and a variety of games. QuickPlay has had an average of 15 fulltime staff working on the project over the last three years.

Downloadable 3D games are one of the site’s highlights. They were built with top-quality game engines and incorporate CG elements from the TV production, which were spearheaded by visual effects supervisor Jacques Levesque.

The 3D Rover game, Rover XPL, for example, adapted the series’ Rover model to the PC. Players choose from a variety of maps to navigate Mars with up to four other players, taking samples and observing the planet’s surfaces. In September, QuickPlay will add an element that allows players to design their own features on the surface of the planet.

Creating experiential, non-didactic educational elements was also a key goal for the site. ‘Discovery really wanted to raise the level of discussion in the country on the subject of a human mission to Mars,’ says Lachman.

QuickPlay is building a separate site for the Mars Rising doc series that will launch in September. While the two websites will be distinct, the community aspect of both will be shared. Visitors will log into a single community space and join message boards to chat about each of the various aspects of the Mars project.

Being involved on the project from the get-go has given Lachman new insight into how interactive and TV producers can work together more effectively. ‘It’s very unique for convergence properties in Canada to be done this way,’ he notes.

Participating in discussions about plot, for example, was an asset because interactive productions have very different schedules compared to television. TV productions can make plot changes far along in production schedules, whereas interactive productions need stories to be locked early on, so, for example, they avoid creating a video game based on scenes that don’t end up making the final cut.

Lachman says that in many cases, interactive companies are still being brought into the equation towards the end of the process – often at the marketing stage – which tends to create boilerplate promotional websites – definitely not what Discovery wanted for its prestige project.

‘Discovery really wanted this to be a resource. It’s based on the television series, but this will continue and have a life beyond just the broadcast run,’ he says.