I am sorry for everything
Hi.
My name is Scott, Lead Writer for Future Proof, and I just… I want to get this off my chest.
I apologize.
When we started this project back in (what feels like) the Cretaceous Period, I had no idea what it was going to become. The one thing we DID know was that immersive theater in NYC was taking itself way too seriously, and we were determined to make something funny, weird, and truly interactive. So, we wrote ourselves a blank check to build a world about a sad AI that wants to make movies, and the unhinged people that surround and/or oppose it.
Things got a little out of hand, and well, here we are.
In the pursuit of those (noble?) goals, I made you do some stupendously ridiculous things and exposed you to some weapons-grade weirdness. You took it like champions and stepped up to the plate every time, but that doesn’t undo the fact that it’s my fault you had to endure it all. Here are just a few things I feel I need to own up to:
- I am sorry I made you spend 3 weeks figuring out that someone’s car battery wasn’t plugged in. But we had to do some kind of online puzzle that felt more real than your standard ARG stuff. Kudos to Chris Mahon for figuring it out, though.
- I am sorry for making you put together a 500 piece End User License Agreement puzzle.
- I am sorry for making you respond to a questionnaire in Iambic Pentameter. I am also sorry that I disqualified one of you for using rhyming couplets.
- I am sorry for this image:
- I am sorry for making one of you write me a thesis paper on Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- I am sorry to everyone who played Pshell. Some of you had to engage in single combat with a cyber-squid. Some of you accidentally allowed demon-clippy to burn down a rain forest. Others even assisted in federal tax evasion in pursuit of sending an email to a sad Facebook Algorithm.
- I’m sorry for asking “What if we crossed Mr. Robot with Chuck E. Cheese?”, (but I’m not sorry for renting out an entire warehouse in Brooklyn to house the answer.)
- I am sorry for making the New York Jets a part of our universe. Though honestly it was worse for us than it was for you; we pretended to be Jets fans so hard that we accidentally became Jets fans:
- I am sorry for all the [bracket text].
- I am sorry for locking you in a beat up Buick with an over-caffeinated millennial conspiracy theorist.
- I am sorry for trying to sell you a foam block with googly eyes as “the collector’s item of the future”:
- I am sorry for including a Big Mouth Billy Bass as a character at a murder mystery event. I am sorry for painting him red. I am especially sorry for naming him Harold the Red Herring.
- I am sorry for convincing several of you to show up to a real movie screening wearing tinfoil hats.
- I am sorry for making the Buddies follow you like obsessive puppies. I also apologize to the Buddies, for…everything.
- I am sorry for all the confetti.
Finally, here’s a list of phrases that I am sorry for putting in our scripts:
- “full blockchain hash trojan virus”
- “Pish Posh Hieronymus Bosch”
- “In the pipe, five by five”
- “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow”
- “2.5 yottahertz Neural Sync package”
- “Pathett-t-tic hacker… creature of of of of meat and bone”
- “it means taking arms against a sea of of troubles, especially when those troubles are military-grade robot killers, and that’s what we’re going to practice now”
- “No more Doctor Nice Guy!”
- “DON’T TOUCH ME FUNGUS MAN!”
- “I have no choice but to hold you in FUNtempt of Court.”
- “I will remind you that any [testimony] not delivered from the [mouth] of a [puppet] is considered invalid and will be [stricken from the record]!”
- “Together we will engage in 24 hours of sacred purification at the hands of the legendary Neil Breen.”
- “Operation Banana Gambit Part II: The Cavendish Countergambit”
- “But it wasn’t my fault! You see, the bastard had me dead to rights with 100,000 pesos in bearer bonds outside a rest stop on route-”
I could keep going. We have been through a lot over the past 3 years. When we first started this project, it was with the idea that an immersive experience could start before you bought a ticket and continue long after the show was over. We imagined an experience where the fans and attendees weren’t just an audience, but the driving force of an interactive narrative that persisted across multiple events and online interactions.
We had this idea that people were ready and willing to get weird with us. We hoped that we hadn’t misread the room, but there was no way of knowing, short of leaping into the deep end and seeing what happened.
Thank you for being even weirder than we thought you were. It’s only going to get better… or worse.
—
Scott Bullock is (somehow) the head writer for Future Proof. He was also a one-time news writer for a now defunct gaming news website, a sauced flatbread transport specialist, and semi-professional dipshit. Don’t follow him anywhere or you’ll likely find yourself somewhere terrible.
Future Proof is a transmedia entertainment company producing immersive events, digital video, online games, and more in Brooklyn NY. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
