Oz prodco zeroes in on Suspect

Australian multi-platform production company The Project Factory has received funding for The Suspect, a digital interactive thriller that crosses the boundaries between games and narrative.

Scripted by Tim Wilde and Glenys McLaughlin, the story follows a suspected serial killer who is arrested after two bodies are discovered, although the evidence points to more people being in danger.

Users get to interrogate the suspect with the aim of finding out what makes him tick and uncover the truth before anyone else is harmed.

The executive producer is The Project Factory’s group executive director Guy Gadney.

The project is among nine that received a total of A$2.5m (US$2.26m) funding last week from Screen Australia’s multi-platform drama production programme.

Other projects to receive cash include new sci-fi thriller Airlock, from Distracted Media, which will be distributed using peer-to-peer file sharing service BitTorrent.

Ludo Studio’s interactive comedy series #7 Days Later, which allows its audience to write a brief via social media that will then be broadcast on public broadcaster ABC2 a week later, has also been backed.

Funding has also gone to comedy web series How to Talk Australian, from Guilty Productions; multi-platform TV comedy series Maximum Choppage (working title), from Matchbox Pictures for ABC2 and NBCUniversal; and comedy web series Hunter N Hornet, from iFodder Content Creators.

Among The Project Factory’s other recent commissions are a mobile-based application for Network Ten’s drama series Offspring; the game Skirmish, a spin-off from the Nine Network crime series Underbelly for producer Screentime; website builds for pay channel 13th Street’s interactive detective series Precinct 13; and Tiger Aspect’s The Great British Property Scandal for the UK’s Channel 4.