When Jason Zada first explained his overall concept for creating a social film for Paranormal Activity, I knew it was the project I'd waited for my whole career. I rarely write about our work in first person perspective, but this project deserves a personal touch, because at the end of the day, this project was about creating a personal connection with people. Developing a social film which would roll out with the release of Paranormal Activity 4.   First we started by learning the mythology of the Paranormal Activity franchise by immersing ourselves in the films, speaking to the Executive Producers, Studio Executives, Creatives at Paramount, the people who created the characters and stories that quite frankly scared the living you know what out of us. We thought we already knew it, but we didn't. We also got access to footage from the cutting room floor of Paranormal 1, 2, and 3. We couldn't have done what we did without it being an absolute partnership with Paramount, they opened the door to enable us to create a story. Even sharing their production assets, filters, fonts, process,  everything that would enable us to make the best work we could. We engaged collaborator Nathan Atkins to help us put together an outline which would give birth to a family. The Degloshi's. Jacob, a single Dad who's Daughter Sarah comes to live with him in his newly rented house in Henderson Nevada (Where Paranormal Activity 4 takes place). From there, we planned and moved through what would be the most complex campaign execution i've ever worked on.  We kept the team small, because we believe that if you have a team of experts that communicate, and work closely together we can deliver the most value and efficient experience to our clients. We engaged long time collaborator, and line producer Steven Steiner to make the impossible possible, and put together a shoot in LA to really capture the feeling of the franchise. Jason Zada even stayed in the house. We looked to have as much cross over with the film as we could, including meeting with Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman, visiting set during production, and overlapping our characters to feature them in both the online experience and the film. We could not have done this without the kind of collaboration I've dreamed of my whole career. 

We called on Sean Cochrane of TheVanity to help us create believable visual effects and help us to match the visual treatment we've all come to know in the Paranormal Franchise, and our long time sound partners Six Degrees  to foley, and design the experience of sound, and leaned on a variety of editors including Jason Zada, and Steven MacGregor. The video components were only one part of our story, there were images, words, sounds, channels. We know that digital has an incredible opportunity to create the kind of engagement that most mediums can't. Interaction and connection. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Youtube, Soundcloud, Google Plus, Craigslist. These were our channels for telling this story.   Emily Buller came on board to help manage assets, post and Amy and Jason. The content library alone for this campaign of catalogued images, video, text, components. It was a campaign that had to be agile, it had to work around the engagement. Jason creates experiences like that, and It was up to us to execute it. The social aspects, automation, and engagement was all managed by one person. Amy Miranda, with some support from Evan Borgstrom at Fatbox on managing the video assets and components. We also could not have done this without our client and team members at Paramount Pictures. Dani Bernfeld, Darrell Wheat, and the legendary Amy Powell. The team stepped in to make edits, help with VFX and sound when we needed a hand. Unheard of, and delighful. This project belonged to all of us. To have a client who understands the medium, who trusted us with the story and the production, and who believed in this type of innovation. Including the risk of using social media in a way that, well, was risky, and doing it anyway. 

We created a character Jacob Degloshi, who we cared about, a daughter who was the quintessential 14 year old. Karyn, the ex-wife. We needed to care about these characters, so that consumers would. And they did, and do. We built a structure for a 14 day campaign where Jacob would live, and die. Where the experience would escalate, where people would find connection with this person who of course we knew would be viewed as a viral Marketing campaign, but that we hoped would capture interest and attention, enough to get people interacting. They did.  The idea was that consumers could find components of the story, and follow what they wanted to based on what interested them, whether it was Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or all of the above. The idea was that the story was enhanced, but that components could stand alone. We believe we succeeded based on our numbers and consumer response. 

This project was a case study before it even launched. We hope it inspires people to think about interactive storytelling and marketing differently. You can market to people without it feeling like marketing, we know that because that's what we gravitate to, so we wanted to create that for consumers. 

You can read some of those interactions here: @JacobDegloshi on Twitter

You can review Jacob's whole story here by "Subscribing" to Jacob on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/mrjacobdegloshi

You can view all of Jacob's videos on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/user/jacobdegloshi

You can review Jacob's Blog on Tumblr - http://jacobdegloshi.tumblr.com/

RIP Jacob. We're going to miss you. But we enjoyed knowing you so much and I'm sure we'll meet again. #RIPJacob

Thank you to the whole team : Creator: Jason Zada Executive Producer: Amy Miranda Director: Jason Zada Story Writers: Jason Zada, Nathan Atkins Social Writing: Jason Zada, Amy Miranda, Daniele Bernfeld Line Producer: Steven Steiner/Randall Bobbitt Post Producer: Amy Miranda/Emily Buller Editorial: Jason Zada, Steven MacGregor, Darrell Wheat Visual Effects: TheVanity, Darrell Wheat Audio: Six Degrees Music: Clara Venice (Sarah's Birthday)  Social Strategy: Jason Zada, Amy Miranda  Social Execution: Amy Miranda Consultation: Evan Borgstrom/Fatbox

Our Incredible team members and clients at Paramount Pictures: Dani, Darrell, Amy, Mitch, Paul, Akiva, Henry, Ariel, Steven, Oren and everyone else who touched this along the way,

And to our incredible talent: Matthew, Georgica and Anna.