Is Young Indiana Jones the first of a new breed?

By now, we have all become accustomed to the concept, at least, of “repurposed” video. Since the possibilities of digital videos began presenting themselves, this concept was one of the most attractive to owners of archival footage: someone takes video originally shot for traditional narrative movies, documentaries or news stories and reuses it as the basis for an interactive product.

BORN TO BE CLICKED

This, of course, is much more trouble than actually designing a production for interactivity in the first place. George Lucas’s Young Indiana Jones TV series, currently showing on ABC, may be the first of a new breed of “pre-purposed” television shows and movies. The TV series was filmed specifically so that Lucas would have footage for a subsequent interactive educational product.

Lucas — who has, after all, formed an educational foundation in his name — knew that the educational market could never support the cost of filming the story framework he wanted to use for his educational titles. So, he struck a deal with ABC which pays him $27 million for the first 17 episodes and contains an option for 22 more episodes to be aired next year.

Both parties win: ABC gets a “name” show (it has also been pre-sold in a number of overseas markets), and Lucas gets the footage he wants for the story framework for his interactive video.

Savings via digital techniques. To film a historical drama (set in 1908 and 1917) in fifteen countries at $1.6 million per episode, Lucas has had to use some new production and post-production techniques. These techniques include heavy use of digital effects.

For example, a dozen mounted cavalry soldiers are digitally replicated into an army of 500 soldiers. Scenes filmed in London, Paris and Vienna are digitally edited to remove modern artifacts and restore the scene to the proper 1908 or 1917 appearance.

These techniques, most of them being used in a television series for the first time, may have considerable impact on future video production. In television, as in film, it is increasingly becoming less expensive to apply some digital magic than it is to build sets, manipulate models, create monsters or blow things up.

The downside. The problem with most repurposed video is that it is not very interactive. The linear nature of the original material shows through.

However, the problem with the initial episodes of Young Indiana Jones is just the opposite: its future use as a framework for an interactive work shows through, too. The story is constructed to introduce you to as many famous people, important events and interesting places as possible.

In an interactive title, having George Patton or T.E. Lawrence pop up improbably is just what you want. It provides the “hooks” to which all manner of additional material can be linked. But in a narrative film, it just seems silly and pretentious.

Maybe the later episodes will get better. But in any event, you may expect very soon to hear much more news about film studios, producers and broadcasters starting interactive projects in the pre-production stage as they become entranced with the concept. Lucas, who has been working on the Young Indiana Jones project for two years, is certainly the pioneer. Let’s hope that he and others quickly learn how to refine the concept.

Jonathan Seybold