Why do stories need to be linear and repeatable? What if instead of finishing a movie, you could keep exploring it? What if your favorite side-character could become central to the plot? Why can’t we harness technology to explore our creativity in a new hybrid of full-interactive, immersive animation? A new startup is determined to do just that.
MashUp Machine seeks to bring the creativity and open-ended nature of traditional storytelling to the era of mass media. The idea is deceptively simple. The startup provides their users with a suite of tools to make it easy to create interactive stories, and a bit of machine learning code to help them explore ideas. In return, anyone can contribute to the infinite iterations of a constantly branching, evolving story.
MashUp Machine is backed by industry veterans Ben Cole and Christopher Sjöholm. Cole is an Academy Award-winning developer, former North American Head of Software for one of the world’s largest visual effects studios, MPC. Sjöholm complements that with nearly 20 years as Creative Director for major video game franchises like FIFA, Prototype 2, and skate.
The way we deal with stories now is “almost Darwinian,” Cole told Gizmodo. Creators make something, then throw it out into the world and hope it finds an audience. But the current way of producing stories doesn’t fit with how we consume stories.
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