Total Immersion Creates Interactive Augmented Reality Applications for Paramount, Fox, Universal

Augmented reality specialist, Total Immersion, recently contacted [itvt] to let us know about some of the interactive AR applications it has completed over the past few months. The apps are all triggered by holding up a movie or album's packaging in front of a Webcam, which allows a hidden visual code to launch the app:

• For the Blu-ray/DVD release of Paramount's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," the company created an application that allows consumers to bring to life an AR incarnation of the movie's robotic character, Optimus Prime. Consumers can also access a special Web site that "asks that they assemble the Matrix of Leadership to bring Optimus Prime back to life, fix his armor and calibrate his weapons by controlling his aim during target practice," the company says.
• For the Blu-ray/DVD release of Paramount's "Star Trek," the company created an AR app that allows consumers to take a self-guided tour of five cabins on the USS Enterprise and to fire on enemies from the ship's deck.
• For the Blu-ray/DVD release of Fox's "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," the company created an AR app that allows consumers to bring to life, among other things, a dinosaur, a giant squid, and Amelia Earhart's plane.
• For N-Dubz' new album, "Against All Odds" (Universal Music TV/All Around The World), the company created an AR app that allows consumers to bring to life 3D images of the members of the band that chat and then give a performance of their new single, "I Need You." The company says that consumers can turn the album sleeve artwork around to view the band from different angles.

According to Total Immersion, AR represents "a new benchmark in entertainment marketing" that "transform[s] the way key brand assets of hot film and music properties--performers, characters, scenes, and more--migrate from the original medium to the consumer's world." "We're helping home entertainment marketers engage their audiences on an entirely new level, with experiences from each film crossing from cinematic 'reality' to theirs," Total Immersion co-founder and CEO, Bruno Uzzan, said in a prepared statement. "After more than a decade in development, augmented reality has moved into primetime. Some of the world's largest brands are using AR to enhance both brand loyalty and the customer experience, by propelling consumers into a unique 3D interaction with their film. Hollywood is embracing the opportunity to enable fans to explore their handiwork through a process that blends the physical and digital worlds. AR is a major technical achievement. But it's just as compelling a marketing milestone. Through AR, we're taking the equity of the franchise--key assets like characters and scenes--and giving them to consumers. AR adds value by enabling consumers to explore and experience what amounts to a new entertainment ecosystem. And this is just the beginning."