The world might never be the same

Ever since Allee Willis saw her first CD-ROM title last year, the award-winning song writer, artist, filmmaker and pop culture aficionado has been looking for ways to use interactive technology to “reinvent the mass entertainment market.” Now she just might get her chance.

Willis, who has won numerous awards including a Grammy and a Cable Ace, recently became the first authorized developer of Loren Carpenter’s newly commercialized audience participation technology, which — as a testament to its capabilities — enabled 5,000 people to play a rousing game of interactive Pong during a 1991 Siggraph show (see Vol. 2, No. 2, p. 30).

The technology behind the Cinematrix Interactive Entertainment System (CIES), as it is called, consists of a hardware board still in development that will initially run on Silicon Graphics’ Indigo workstations, and “wands” wrapped in a highly reflective material called Reflexite that can control the computer’s actions.

CIES was invented by Carpenter of Pixar, who recently won an Oscar for his work on the RenderMan rendering software. When completed, the system will be distributed worldwide exclusively by Magic Box Productions of Beverly Hills (see Vol. 2, No. 6, p. 22).

Though Willis says she certainly does not plan to use the CIES for playing interactive Pong, she is cautious to give away too much of how she plans “to walk the world into the 21st century.”

She emphasizes that the work will be a collaboration with members from the entertainment community and technical experts such as Carpenter and Magic Box producer Sally Rosenthal, who told Willis about the audience participation technology during Seybold’s Digital World conference last year and facilitated a meeting between Willis and Carpenter.

“It is a commitment among all of us that we absolutely don’t want to do anything, unless it’s going to create a new form of entertainment,” says Willis, who is writing, directing, producing, scoring and co-designing the interface for her first audience-controlled event.

She says the production will transcend many different media, including television, film, games and live events. “My idea for interactive (products) is very character driven, very story driven,” says Willis. “I have created characters, a place and situations that are absolutely crazy. My characters are true interactive characters; they change over time based on decisions made by the audience.”

According to Willis, some of the 21 characters in her new interactive project might be making a comeback rather than a debut. Several, she says, were first introduced during her famed celebrity “pajama parties,” which have graced the cover of Details magazine and have been the topic of conversation on David Letterman’s late-night TV show.

During these parties, Willis-invented “characters” would walk around and interact with guests, involving them in different activities — from winning a dream date with Fabian to outfitting them in the latest garbage-bag apparel.

“My things in the past have always been interactive,” says Willis. “Now technology is making it a million times easier to do this — to create the energy and the pandemonium essential to the type of entertainment I want to create.”

Willis has been underwhelmed by the interactive technologies such as CD-ROM she’d seen previous to CIES, which should be a functional prototype by May, according to Magic Box’s Rosenthal.

“If you are going to try to create entertainment you have to move at least as fast as the audience,” Willis says. “And if you have a technology that constantly starts and stops, how can you expect an audience to care?”

Willis says that the first incarnation of her project might appear on an already established medium while the technology catches up with her artistic vision. “I am a pop artist, I have ultimate respect for pop culture — I have 17 TVs and they are always on — and I feel very strongly about doing what I am going to do via pop, existing, linear media such as TV and film. I have written a script that is not dependent on when the technology is ready.”

Janice Maloney