DH Presents Case Study: Tim Kring's Conspiracy For Good.
Join master storyteller and "Heroes" creator Tim Kring and his team as they discuss the creation, production and success of The Conspiracy For Good, in partnership with Nokia, which has created a new game-changing genre of entertainment called "Social Benefit Storytelling". A true transmedia experience, CFG blurs the lines between fiction and reality, compelling the audience to become a part of the modern story with real world events and outcomes. Combining rich narrative, music, participation, commerce and philanthropy across multiple platforms CFG burst off the screen and into the streets of London last summer. Are you a memeber?
Tim Kring, Creator Executive Producer
Bob Soderstrom, Executive Producer, Writer
Liz Heller, CEO Buzztone, Marketing
Brian Seth Hurst, CEO The Opportunity Management Company, Brand
Click here for photos from the panel at the fall summit.
The Conspiracy For Good™ is a global movement for change created by Tim Kring, master storyteller and the creator of one of the world’s most successful internationally renowned entertainment brands, “Heroes”. A narrative mythology dating back to the 2nd century, the story plays out across both traditional media and new media platforms including smart phones, tablets and PCs. CFG blurs the lines between fiction and reality, compelling the audience to become a part of the modern story with real world events and outcomes. Combining rich narrative, music, participation, commerce and philanthropy across multiple platforms, The Conspiracy For Good™ creates a new game-changing genre of entertainment called “Social Benefit Storytelling”.
The Conspiracy For Good officially launched this summer with the pilot chapter Read the Signs in partnership with Nokia. The drama, which focused on literacy, literally burst off the screens of the net and mobile and into the hands of participants on the streets of London in live events in August. Powered by Nokia’s Ovi platform including the special edition app called Conspiracy For Good: DeadDrop from Nokia’s Point & Find service, Read the Signs benefitted the NGOs Room to Read http://www.roomtoread.org/and the Pearson Foundation’s We Give Books http://www.wegivebooks.org/ providing books to children in need and raising funds for a library and stocking it with books in the Zambian village of Chataika. Future “chapters” are on their way.
The Conspiracy For Good™ is real. Are YOU in on it? www.conspiracyforgood.com
Tim Kring, Creator Executive Producer
Tim Kring is one of the creative community’s original transmedia storyteller, who successfully works across entertainment and information mediums, including viewing screens and delivery devices such as film, TV, broadband, computers, mobile devices and the printed page to engage audiences around the world in narrative and immersive story arcs. In April, 2010, Kring received the Pioneer Prize at the International Digital Emmy® Awards in Cannes in recognition of his industry-leading creativity in multi-screen storytelling.
From 2001 to 2010, Kring’s key role in the entertainment industry was as creator and executive producer of “Crossing Jordan” and “Heroes,” NBC’s Emmy®-nominated epic saga that chronicles the lives of ordinary people who discover they possess extraordinary abilities. During his work on “Heroes”, Kring connected with both traditional TV and cross-media viewers who watched and followed the “Heroes” characters and plotlines across broadcast TV, cable, online/broadband and mobile devices. Kring was the first in the television industry to create and offer significant interactive online programming to both engage and build a fan base of an estimated 76 million people around the world during the Fall, Spring as well as traditional Summer re-run season.
Current projects include Kring’s first book, SHIFT, part of a trilogy entitled THE GATE OF ORPHEUS co-written with New York author Dale Peck. SHIFT, a Crown Publishing release will debut in mid-August, 2010 in bookstores nationwide.
Holding the belief that narrative has the power to create and promote positive change in the world, Kring is also working with Nokia to stage an interactive narrative story, code named Project TEVA, which will once again engage ordinary citizens to join forces for good against evil. The project incorporates charitable social benefits for Room to Read and the Pearson Foundation. Visit www.conspiracyforgood.com to join this ground-breaking narrative-driven community that will include exciting meet-up activities across London in late summer, 2010.
A prolific and accomplished screenwriter and producer with the ability to seamlessly move between the mediums of television and film storytelling, Kring got his first big break in Hollywood in 1985 writing an episode for “Knight Rider”, which taped its first episode in 1982 and aired for four seasons and was syndicated worldwide. He then spent the next eleven years writing feature films, including the sequel “Teen Wolf II,” series pilots and made for television movies such as “Bay Coven” and “Falling for You.”
In 1996, Kring became a producer on the popular television series “Chicago Hope” and assumed the role of supervising producer on the series one year later. In 1998, he co-created the series “Strange World” and served as co-executive producer on the drama “L.A. Doctors.” In 1999 he joined the creative team of NBC's “Providence” as co-executive producer and signed an overall deal with NBC Studio. In 2001, Kring created the procedural drama “Crossing Jordan,” which ran for six seasons and more than 100 episodes.
Kring grew up in Northern California and moved during his teenage years to Santa Maria on the Central California coast where Kring studied film at Allan Hancock Junior College before transferring to the University of Santa Barbara, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies. He then attended the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Southern California’s renowned film school and honed his storytelling skills from the visual behind-the-lens perspective, working his way up in production as a grip, gaffer and eventually a camera operator.
Deeply involved in the Hollywood creative community, Kring is a member of Producers Guild of America and Writers Guild of America. His work in television has earned two Emmy nominations, a Golden Globe nomination, a BAFTA Award for Best International TV Series, two People’s Choice Awards, a Television Critics Association Award, a TV Land Future Classic Award, a Saturn Award plus three nominations, a PGA Award nomination, a WGA Award nomination, an Image Awards nomination and a Humanitas Prize nomination.
Kring and his wife, Lisa, who is a social worker, are actively involved in local charities, having received the Plato De Oro from Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles and honored at the 2010 HeART Project.
Kring and his wife reside in Los Angeles with their two children. In his spare time, he enjoys photography and collecting acoustic guitars.
Brian Seth Hurst, CEO The Opportunity Management Company, Brand
Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of The Opportunity Management Company, a strategic consultancy driving the next generation of entertainment. Referred to as “the father of cross platform”, Hurst coined the term in 1998 as MD of Convergent Media, Pittard Sullivan, where he launched TV Guide as the first ever cross platform brand. Hurst's credo “go to where your audience lives” continues to transform the relationship of audiences to brands and programming.
TOMC assists clients in extending their programming and building communities on new platforms; and has a rich practice in the building of “cross and transmedia ecosystems”. Clients have included: Showtime, Lifetime, SVT (Swedish Pubic Television), New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, NBCUniversal, Intel, and AOL and successful start-ups Nixle and Paltalk. Hurst is at work on Tim Kring’s next project the “Conspiracy For Good”.
Hurst spent 10 years on the Board of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences building the Primetime Emmy® Brand Strategy and serving in various positions including second vice chair. He served 3 terms on the Board of the Producers Guild of America, serving two terms as Chairman of the PGA’s New Media Council. Recipient of an Interactive TV Today Award for Leadership in Interactive Television, he was profiled in Emmy magazine as one of the 10 media executives leading the industry’s digital drive and was named two years running to the Hollywood Reporter/PGA Digital 50. Hurst was appointed Global Digital Ambassador for the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2009.
Photos from the fall panel.
