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26/07/2013 by
5085 views

Intel And Toshiba Launches New Social Film “The Power Inside”

The Power Inside is an interactive social film, which claims to be Hollywood’s first film that asks the audience to help save – or destroy – the earth.

powerinside

The film is a collaboration of Intel® Corporation and Toshiba’s Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems Inc.

The Power Inside will be directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon (“Blades of Glory” and “The Switch”), the movie stars Harvey Keitel(“Reservoir Dogs”), Craig Roberts (“Submarine”), Analeigh Tipton (“Crazy, Stupid, Love”), Reid Ewing (“Modern Family”) and Zack Pearlman (“The Inbetweeners”).

Check the trailer below:

YouTube Preview Image

The two tech companies says the film will be a blockbuster-class experiment in social entertainment, brought to life by leading minds in Hollywood, technology and social media.

This will be the third year that Intel and Toshiba have partnered with award-winning directors to produce a Hollywood-quality film. Last year’s “The Beauty Inside” film won a 2013 Daytime Emmy award for Outstanding New Approach to Daytime Programming.

harvey-keitel

Will Speck of the film’s directing team Speck and Gordon:

“The way that we make films and how viewers interact with entertainment content is evolving. Social films give us the opportunity to tell stories in a new way by creating an immersive, participatory experience for the audience. Co-Director Josh Gordon added, “This project was also a chance to collaborate with talent from all fields of entertainment, technology and advertising, pushing the boundaries of filmmaking. It’s exciting to work in this new model and to allow viewers to participate alongside the creation of the content.”

The film’s plot follows an alien invasion by a race of extraterrestrial moustaches and unibrows who take over the upper lips and eyes of people around the world.

The main character is Neil, who together with his friends and the help of technology discovers his inner strength to defeat the moustache and unibrow invaders called Uricks.

power-inside-neil

Of course the Intel-inspired Ultrabook™ devices by Toshiba play an important role in Neil’s journey of self-discovery.

Viewers from the around the world can visit www.thepowerinside.com  or www.Facebook.com/insidefilms to watch the trailer and audition to be in the film.

power-inside-website

To join the Urick team and potentially be featured in the film people are invited to upload a photo from their computer webcam to the Facebook Page*, and the facial recognition software will add a moustache or unibrow.

Viewers can also upload videos of themselves removing a moustache to join the Guardian team. These photos and videos may be incorporated into the social film episodes.

And for those who don’t want to be in the film, can join Moustache Madness Sweeptakes and win some nice prices.

power-inside-audition

Neil’s character will engage the audience through the “The Power Inside” Facebook Page. The global audience can watch the first episode online starting August 15.

The film trailer will launch on July 25 along with a consumer casting call; visit www.thepowerinside.com.

The first episode of the social film will be available on August 15 and continue online over the next six weeks.

My Opinion?
I really like the idea of a social film, although its not entirely new.

Famous Dutch movie director Paul Verhoeven already harnessed the power of creative crowd-sourcing with his film “Tricked“. He let the audience write most of the script, which resulted in thousands of people teamed up to submit 600-700 entries per chapter.

So the idea of a social movie is not entirely new in my opinion. That fact that the audience can audition for the film on Facebook and maybe even feature in the film is definitely new (to me).

As an social media professional, I really like this approach, although I must say, despite Harvey Keitel plays a role, I’m a bit disappointed with the trailer. Could have more speed and suspense in my opinion.

And if it’s suppose to be funny: not quite funny yet.

Looking forward to the results of the episodes!

Update: One of our readers mentioned that there has been a branded entertainment movie in which people were casted online (though not through facebook).

Last year, Deutsche Telekom made a movie called “Move On”. It was a road movie filmed in 8 European countries starring Mads Mikkelsen.

User from 11 European countries (including the 8 mentioned above) could either contribute something to be part of the set (pictures, newspaper headlines, etc.) or audition for actual roles in the movie.

You can find it here: http://www.move-on-film.com

What About You?
Do you share my opinion? Looking forward to your ideas in the comments.

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About the Author
Laurens Bianchi is an independent online (sport) marketing professional from the Netherlands and has been blogging on ViralBlog since 2008. Currently Laurens is also the Social Media Consultant for the Royal Dutch Football Association.