The make-believe town of Beckinfield is the setting for the Mad Libs-style show of the same name, which uses crowd-sourced amateur actors from all over the world who create the show's story by posting videos.
Writers outline the plot and email a "town happenings" newsletter to actors each week. Each actor tells a small piece of the story in their video, adding their own flair. Related segments are linked together to create a kind of webisode that will be unique to every viewer depending on which videos they watch.
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Beckinfield is a production of online network Theatrics.com. Friday, at Macworld, director Jonathan Frakes (Ryker of Star Trek fame) presented the winner of Theatrics' "Ultimate Online Audition Contest," with $10,000 and a vacation to Hollywood, Calif. Entrants selected one of six characters and showcased their acting chops in videos posted to the site.
Billed as "mass participation television," Beckinfield is like a soap opera where anyone can be an actor. Three minute recaps are posted once-per-week on theatrics.com and pick-up where the previous week's plot line left-off.
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Here's the confusing part: There is no one weekly episode. Actors submit their videos to the site, ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. In theory, this lets every viewer creates their own experience. A short summary video is posted the following week.
It makes more sense when you consider that Beckinfield was originally created as a tool for actors' character development. Co-creators Bob Gebert and Tracy Evans launched the site at South by Southwest in 2011 -- then soon found out how many non-actors wanted to be part of Beckinfield, Evan said.
There are around 4,000 actors involved with Beckinfield, although most do not get chosen to be in webisode wrap-ups. You can sign up to be a performer anytime. At the moment, the number of viewers is roughly the same as the number of actors.
The question is whether there is a larger audience for do-it-yourself compilations of YouTube videos of varying quality. The movie Life in a Day managed to stitch together a story arc from YouTube videos, drawn from people around the world aiming to document one day on Earth.
Life in a Day, however, was a curated experience. Beckinfield is scattered and difficult to follow. Without a clear plot line and no direct character interaction, it seems unlikely the show will garner a mass audience.
But it does point to a possible future trend -- crowdsourced entertainment. Cable networks have already tuned-in to consumers' eagerness to integrate social media and their favorite TV programs, sometimes known as transmedia.
With the integration of social media and television, Evans says it's possible this will become a niche interest for super-fans who want to act out their favorite characters and create a community who wants to watch the result.
What do you think about crowdsourcing talent for a show? Tell us in the comments.
Beckinfield "Crowd Sourced TV"
Beckinfield is a crowd-sourced show on theatrics.com. Anyone can audition to be an actor and post a web-cam created video. The videos are linked together to form a story.
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This story originally published on Mashable here.
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