Advice & inspiration

Multimedia Must-See: Prison Valley

This post is also available in Spanish

Stop what you are doing. Seriously. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about a multimedia project since I came across the interactive documentary “Journey to the end of coal.” Now, you are going to have to dedicate quality time with “Prison Valley” – don’t just click on it to take a peek before quickly getting distracted by your email or RSS reader.

The French duo David Dufresne and Philippe Brault decided to produce a documentary on the issue of incarceration in Colorado. But, they didn’t just throw up a passive, hour-long, badly compressed web video. Instead, the end product became an interactive documentary with user-submission tools throughout and available on multiple platforms.

They created an iPhone app, and they have a presence on Twitter, Facebook and their blog. They will then reverse publish it to a TV special this summer and a book next fall. Welcome to the next generation of multimedia storytelling!

The site is available in English, French, and German. That alone is extremely impressive considering the fact that the documentary is an hour long with another hour of complementary “extra” footage!

Viewers begin by watching a four-minute introduction. While the interface doesn’t allow viewers to skip it, the producers do some creative editing to keep their attention. The interface then seamlessly moves to the interactive portion where users can make a profile for themselves by either connecting their Facebook or Twitter profiles, or filling in their information manually and choosing an avatar.

Every couple of minutes in the documentary there are opportunities for the user to stop the film to interact with complementary content, such as a map of the area, documents, and tons of extra footage. The site also has a rich forum with half a dozen topics related to the production of the story and issues related to incarceration in America.

Impressive programming behind the scenes remembers where users left off so they don’t have to experience Prison Valley all in one sitting. Furthermore, every section of the experience is deeplinked so users can share one particular section of the presentation if they prefer.

For example, once users have logged in, they can check out one of their exploratory options by going into the motel room to have a look around and perhaps leaving a message for one of the characters. Furthermore, “the ability for users to interact with the protagonists of the film is offered every Thursday at fixed times.” What a great idea to connect users with the story subjects!

According to the French blog AFP-MediaWatch, producers David and Philippe worked for a year an a half on this project and each received € 30,000 compensation (~ $40,000 USD). They shot this documentary with Canon EOS 5D and “light Panasonic” cameras.

The total budget for the project was € 230,000 (~ $308,000 USD). It was financed by interactive multimedia agency Upian and media publishing agency Arte France, with partners FranceInter.com, Liberation.fr, and Yahoo.fr.

I’m not sure I like the deep Hollywood movie voice-over for the narration. I also think the two producers should have been paid more for their time! Otherwise, I absolutely love the creativity, effort, and innovation that went into this project.

Kudos to producers David and Philippe, Upian CEO Alexandre Brachet, creative director Sébastien Brothier, Gregory Trowbridge, Flash developer David Després, and everyone else involved in the project. I can’t wait to see more innovative multimedia initiatives like this one!

Hat tip to Antoine Laurent for the great find.

Other posts that might interest you:

• Behind the scenes of “Prison Valley”
• Honytonk and 31Septembre introduce interactive documentary
• STLToday launches interactive speech analyzer

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