Blade Runner transmedia in Purefold, a world premiere
by Jean-Yves Le Moine, published on 24.07.2009
Ridley Scott, the man who made Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, Gladiator, Hannibal, American Gangster etc., has just announced he’s working on a series of shorts for the web and television based on the universe of Blade Runner, the adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?
The project is to be developed by Ridley Scott, his brother Tony and his son Luke in association with the English studio AG8, which is run by one of the creators of Where Are the Joneses? (among the first English hit sitcoms on the web). AG8’s object is to develop the collaborative platforms and contents of the future.
Their joint project is called Purefold. The core theme is nothing less than what it means to be a human being. Set in the Blade Runner universe, Purefold will revolve around the concept of empathy.
Purefold will be open to everyone, to internauts and creators of all persuasions, of course, but to brands and advertisers as well, for the project is also about exploring future forms of partnership and product placement.
But the most original thing about Purefold is its truly revolutionary approach to copyright: here we have a big-name Hollywood director committing to a form of free culture. All the films produced within the framework of this project will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, which allows internauts to share the contents for non-commercial purposes – and even change them to their heart’s content – as long as they cite the Purefold project.
This is the first time an experiment of this type, perfectly in sync with participatory free culture (which doesn’t necessarily mean free of charge), is to be launched on such a large scale and with the active involvement of a star like Ridley Scott.
It is bound to intersect with the new uses of the New Technologies, and the business model experiment with advertisers is bound to yield a wealth of insights. At all events, it’s a project which, even if not totally transmedia, we will be following attentively on transmedialab.org.
