Imagine being able to watch the lives and goings on in a New York apartment building unnoticed? Watch Big Brother? Nothing different then.
Ok, how about watching four more apartments across the city? Hmm, yeah, so what?
Now imagine each of these lives are inextricably linked to each other in mysterious ways and it’s up to you to solve it before anyone else?
Sounds like Big Brother can finally take its bat and ball and go home? Yay !!!
HBOVoyeur (HBOV), a dark, complex and multilayered creation from HBO – known for their obscure and rich character depth, nuances and eccentricities, think, ‘Sopranos’, ‘Carnivale’ and ‘Six Feet Under’ - is their dip into the multiplatform. It drew in a fascinated and salivating online audience wanting more. The use of past tense will become apparent.
True to its voyeuristic nature, there is no dialogue to scrutinise. The sometimes over-animated performances of the actors the only clue to deduce what’s going on in each apartment and their spill-on effects. Like an anxious woman meeting her lover in the stairwell as a fire alarm is trigged, water from the sprinklers raining down and the arrival of the fire brigade.
But what is it all about? Perusing through the users’ blog is an interesting start to this baffling concept. The creators were purposeful as to not give anything away like instructions or where to start. A HBO-hired blogger, Kesu, ran regular project updates from before the launch at thestorygetsdeeper.com. Reading through these posts, it’s uncertain whether Kesu was an independent or a HBO insider cleverly steering viewers through the story.
HBO launched the project in New York on 28 June 2007 with the teaser short film ‘The Watcher’. The film was only available to subscribers through HBO On Demand but later from thestorygetsdeeper.com. Advertisements for HBOV appeared in print, on radio, tv and in cinemas. The HBO creatives then sat back and waited. Perusing the user forums is a good gauge of its success.
In the beginning, the posts were vague to say the least:
Longlashgirl at 3.54pm launch day wrote:
When does this show start on HBO? The previews aren’t very informative. Will this only be shown on HBO ON DEMAND or on the regular HBO Channel? And is this an actual series or just a one time program?
Viewers were required to collect clues or ‘character artifacts’, described by Kesu (thestorygetsdeeper.com) as ‘ … fingerprints that the characters from the stories have left behind to show that they’ve been there or done that. I don’t know the exact number of how many artifacts there are or how deep they go, but I’ll keep linking to them on this blog as I find out more.’ Users were led to online classifieds, Flickr sites, YouTube, blogs and social networks. HBO Mobile content carried 30 second CCTV footage from within the apartment building.
A little further on the forum posts showed some pennies had dropped …
elserod at 3.51pm 2 July:
I thought it was extremely creative and original. HBO is moving into unknown territory and it’s very exciting but I have a problem, not with the concept but the content. … These stories are just as detailed but I think that maybe they are too detailed. I think that if the actions were more subdued we as an audience would be more engaged. The director talked about how he wants us to get around and debate what took place across the way in this apartment building but there’s nothing left to debate. It’s all spelled out quite clearly.
Admiration turning to obsession:
85intrigued at 11.10am 28 July:
I am surprised that more people aren’t commenting about this project. I found out about it through an email from HBO… I sincerely hope that HBO continues the project. I, too, have been checking the voyeur site as well as Kesu’s site daily just hoping that something new will appear. Come on HBO, give us more!
But suddenly, over at thestorygetsdeeper.com:
Due to a corruption of administrative privileges this web log has been archived by HBO ADMIN VP.
TheStoryGetsDeeper.com is no longer live, all content is frozen, and comments have been disabled.
Visitors can view archived posts by clicking under recent entries or by searing for a particular term.
HBO VOYEURS should refer to HBO forum for most recent discussions about the HBO voyeur project.
A ploy? A marketing stunt? Technical glitch? This sent the community into a frenzy.
craftylildevil at 10.55pm 31 July believed they’d made a connection between Kesu and one of the character artifacts:
… Shortly before Kesu ‘disappeared’ from thestorygetsdeeper.com I had written a couple of posts. … Not long after this was sent to him he stopped blogging. I would like to apologise to Kesu if I caused him any grief … it was never my intention to freak anyone out. I was merely playing along and trying to figure out clues.
Had the community crossed the line from fiction to fact and turned their mice at Kesu?
Latlu at 11.26pm 31 July, commiserated:
I really doubt that Kesu was really creeped out by anything. His comments were over dramatic about ‘weird s**t going on’ and invading his personal life and such.
Believers hung in there,
85intrigued at 10.40pm 31 July:
I think, at least I hope, that we haven’t gotten anymore updates on the characters or on Kesu, for that matter, because it’s a ploy to whip up more interest in the project. I really don’t think that HBO would sink as much money as they have in the project and then just pull the plug. HBO puleeze give us more!
An intriguing coming together of story-telling and user-generated content. But interactive drama? As disembodied as it was, users went from the voyeur world to the forums to discuss characters and artifacts, information which was not able to be collated or analysed within the drama to change or alter the course of the story. What was it all about?
Ever-knowing Wikipedia had the go all the time. An article from Hollywoodwiretrap.com stated the project was ‘a strategic marketing move.’ (HWT.com):
At a staggering cost estimated between 7-10 million, HBOVoyeur was designed to ‘reinforce our brand image of being the best place for storytelling.’ (HWT.com)
bossanovaville at 10.12pm 17 September:
Well, I stopped in to see if anything new has happened. Apparently, nothing has changed. Seems so lame that HBO would not develop anything worthwhile out of this “project”. It has a lot of potential to become something really unique. Shoot, HBO could even keep this project running without any official television production going on. Keep it mainly online…
Oh who am I kidding. That sure was a lot of money to spend on a marketing ploy. It didn’t even work, really. I’m still sticking with Showtime and all this project succeeded in doing was frustrating me to the point of wanting to buy a pair of binoculars and camping out at my own window for a bit!
So what did that huge chunk of marketing expenditure prove?
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Online audiences are different beasts and want something more? If there’s a well-constructed game or drama some will want to spend hours of the day and night solving it. Take that opportunity away from them and they’ll lose interest, fast.
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That promoting one’s storytelling talents in an incomplete format is frustrating and defeats your purpose?

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