Adobe AIR-Based Interactive Trailer Launched for James Cameron's "Avatar"

Fox Filmed Entertainment has launched an interactive trailer for James Cameron's new movie, "Avatar." The desktop-based trailer has been available for download since November 24th on the movie's official Web site (http://www.avatarmovie.com), via the movie's social network profiles on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and via Adobe's Web site.

The hotspot-enabled trailer--which was built using Adobe AIR--is billed as enabling viewers to "delve deeper" into "Avatar's" world and story by accessing special supplemental content embedded in the trailer, including short-form video on the making of the movie and on the movie's main characters and cast. It also provides real-time feeds of conversations about the movie on Twitter, and real-time updates of official "Avatar" video content on YouTube and images on Flickr. In addition, it allows users to purchase advance tickets for the movie.

In other interactive content news:

• Toronto-based digital production company, March Entertainment, announced last week that it has teamed with toymaker, Playmobil, to co-produce a series of interactive animated movies for DVD. The first of the movies--which allow viewers to select their own narrative path via a DVD menu and which are distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment--is entitled "The Secret of Pirate Island" and can be purchased at Best Buy, Toys "R" Us, Costco, Walmart, Amazon and select Playmobil distributors. According to March Entertainment, it provides viewers with 27 possible story combinations to choose from. The company says that additional interactive movies, all of which will be targeted at children five and older, will be released at a rate of around one per year. The next release, which the company says is currently in production, will be entitled "Knight's Adventure: Quest for the Golden Scepter" and is based on Playmobil's Knights playset.
• Radical Friend, a Los Angeles-based music video directorial team comprised of Julia Grigorian and Kirby McClure, has developed an interactive video for "Ambling Alp," a track from "Odd Blood," the latest album from the band, Yeasayer (note: Radical Friend also directed the interactive video for Black Moth Super Rainbow's "Dark Bubbles" that was profiled in an article in [itvt], May 6th). The video--which features extensive nudity and is therefore not safe for work (NSFW)--is available here.
• Interactive/cross-platform production company, Xenophile Media, has developed an interactive mystery game to accompany "Empire of the Word," a four-part documentary series airing on TV Ontario that examines the history of the written word. According to a report in Canada's Mediacaster, the video-enabled game, entitled "Lehka's Journey," is shot on location in Toronto, Alexandria, Berlin, Herculaneum, Istanbul and London and "follows young Toronto author Lehka in her pursuit of a controversial ancient manuscript--a document that re-emerges over the centuries at the center of struggles around freedom of expression with cataclysmic repercussions for those who attempt to stifle free speech...Interactive episodes merge into Flash games to transform viewers into players as they assist Lehka in her round-the-world voyage to unlock the secrets hidden within the ancient manuscript," the Mediacaster report continues, and "the experience also features interviews with dissident authors who have faced opposition throughout their careers."