The Onyx Project, the World's First 'Hyperlinked' Movie

Filed in archive Announcements on October 2, 2006

aka, In This Movie, the Audience Picks the Scene

I was reading an article in the NY Times today that might be of interest to you. It is about the film, "The Onyx Project" which is meant to be an experiment in nonlinear storytelling for the digital age. Hollywood passed up on this film idea so the producers are marketing it directly to the public.

It tells the tale of Col. Robert Henderson, a United States Army Special Forces officer played by David Strathairn (who received an Oscar nomination last year for his role as Edward R. Murrow in "Good Night, and Good Luck,"). Col. Henderson undertakes a rogue mission to capture Al Qaeda's #2 man (code name Onyx) in Afghanistan that goes terribly wrong.

The interesting part is that the producers are using a new software program called NAV, whereby viewers are constantly being presented with fresh links to click that serve as a departure point from one scene to the next.

One idea behind the venture is that no two viewers may see the movie unfold in the same way, yet its basic facts, characters and message will permeate the experience.

The DVD is available today for $23.95 at www.theonyxproject.com. The DVD features nearly 400 scenes of up to a few minutes in length, adding up to five hours of film in total. A late-model Windows computer is needed for viewing.

UPDATE:

The Wall Street Journal writes about how kids today consume video in shuffle mode, using Onyx as an example.