BELL FUND PICK: Join the ICS team and protect The Border

The Border (CBC, Mondays at 9 pm), a White Pine Pictures series, dramatizes the issues of the Canada-US border. In keeping with the crime-solving theme of the show, the interactive components produced by Stitch Media, invite the players to participate in simulation border-related crime solving using tools of surveillance and decryption. In The Border, everyone watches or is watched. Inside the sleek, stylish Immigration Custom Services (ICS) headquarters, a bank of monitors displays suspects' faces no matter their country of origin, race, religion or political faction. Some are friends, some are foes - and some are both. The Border: Interactive is divided into two parts: a prequel game where users are drawn into the story by being asked to help solve border-related crime by the actors in the show through gaming, and a mobile scavenger hunt using QR codes and camera-equipped mobile phones. On The Border's website (http://www.theborder.ca/), the game section launches with an interrogation sequence where the player quickly realizes that he or she is being interrogated. Players must answer questions and are then asked to join the ICS team. Players are then "debriefed" and assigned their "missions" before every game. Four additional games include: Surveillance Hunt - find a hidden suspect terrorist through a satellite image of Damascus Decoder Ring - hack into the suspect's computer using a "Hacking Tool" Wiretap Descramble - unscramble the intercepted phone call between this monitored terrorist and bomber Bomb Search and Defuse - navigate through an airshaft to a hidden bomb and then defuse it The other interactive aspect uses Quick Response codes or "QR codes" in a scavenger hunt mobile contest. Players participate by taking pictures of the QR codes using their cell phones that decode into virtual passport stamps for actual border crossings in Canada. With each stamp uploaded from their cell phones to their virtual passport (which they can check online through The Border's website), they are entered in a weekly draw throughout the 5-week campaign. These codes are found on both television and print material in a cross-Canada CBC-run marketing campaign. The Border: Interactive adds depth to The Border experience by inviting the audience to be a part of the team. It offers new dramatic material exclusively created for this immersive experience. The QR codes, a relatively new technology to the North American market, enables players to play with emerging technologies in an entertaining way and provides for personalized experiences.

BELL FUND PICK: Join the ICS team and protect The Border

Broadcast | January 31, 2008

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