My newest project is headed to CineMart next month. Held in conjunction with the Rotterdam International Film festival, CineMart is a co-production and finance market. This year 36 projects from all over the world were invited to attend. My project HIM is the only one from the United States. I’m excited to return to Rotterdam – hard to believe it will be 10 years since I last attended with my first film THE LAST BROADCAST.

HIM is a transmedia project that is a feature film at the core but also a fusion of gaming, live events, serialized shorts and graphic novel content. I’ll be detailing the project more here in the coming months. Already there has been tremendous interest in the project which will be a continuation of my Horror 2.0 experimentation. I look forward to CineMart and I’m honored to be the first transmedia project to take part.

In other news:

Last month I traveled to MIT’s Futures of Entertainment to speak about transmedia storytelling and the franchising of media. It was a lively discussion. Here’s the description from the program. “Media convergence has made the complex intertwining of multi-platform media properties more and more common-place, yet the creation of storyworlds that extend beyond a single text is not a recent development. With a history that includes sequels, spin-offs, and licensed products, what is the future for the media franchise? Is there a material difference between creating media franchises or transmedia properties?

What is the role of television programs or films in anchoring wider narrative franchises, especially when they extend beyond media and into the “real world”? What is the significance of the creative individuals who contribute to franchises, including creatives, professionals, and fans?”

- Excited to report that HEAD TRAUMA is airing on Showtime.
- The transmedia approach to HT was just covered in MovieScope magazine.

- The Workbook Project (WBP) an open source project I run has been growing in a number of exciting ways. Here’s what Seven Magazine had to say:

Support networks, allowing filmmakers to offer and receive advice, share ideas and resources, are gradually evolving into influential production forces. One notable example is The Workbook Project; founded by Lance Weiler, a filmmaker and “self-distribution pioneer”, the project’s goal is “to create a free resource for content creators that will become a user contributed repository of information.” Describing itself as an “open source social experiment”, The Workbook Project offers extensive information about funding, production values, clearance and delivery issues, how to create a fan base and a buzz, how to make TV deals and deal with sales, and how to target emerging markets. It is essentially a support network, and offers invaluable assistance to filmmakers starting out and following alternative funding and distribution routes.