“We’re probably the first series to utilize a game engine to the level that we have in physical production, we’re using the Unreal game engine (Bioshock Infinite, Unreal Tournament) to execute the show,” Hefferon says. “It’s pretty exciting, the worlds that we create. What I like to look at is creating an experience. We have really created a real 360-degree experience for kids.”
When Hefferon says the show will be an experience, he means it. This time, you can actually put on a virtual reality headset and watch the show happen around you. That’s just one of the ways you can take the show in.
“At the point the original Reboot was, there was no such thing as ‘second screen’,” he says. “A kid plopped down and watched a linear show. Now, what kids are interested in are those things that they can have an impact in. You create that engagement factor. That is what we’re doing with Reboot from a second-screen experience, including a VR component to Reboot, where kids can watch that battle sequence on the television show, with their Google Cardboard and their smartphone, they can reenact that experience by being in the middle of that battle with our Cyber Guardians.”
Our cast of characters is four students at Alan Turing High who meet while playing this online game. Leading the battle is Austin, who goes by the name Vector in cyberspace. His best friend is Parker, aka Googz. They meet up with two transfer students Tamra, also known as Enigma, and Trey, who goes by D-Frag.
The kids have been playing the Cyber Guardian game that has also been training them. “Ultimately, when dark code was detected, it triggered them into activation. They’re activated early, they’re basically fish out of water. Though they understand how the characters work, the expectation of being those characters in cyberspace took a real turn for them,” Hefferon says. “Their mentor character – Virtual Evolutionary Reconnaissance Avatar, better known as V.E.R.A., is the one who has been training them. She’s a computer program and ends up getting next-gen-printed bio-constructed as a 16 year-old girl in the real world. She’s basically their mentor, but at the same time, she’s learning what it is to be human, but especially human as a teenager. We have a lot of cool action and wicked effects, we also have great characters, great relationships, comedy, just the everyday life of being kids, which is hopefully the relatable factor for kids.”
Hefferon compares the real life / digital transitions to Peter Parker juggling his real life and secret identity as Spider-Man. “Your conflict starts in the real world,” he says. “The concept of the show for me is a digital slice of how we’re connected and how kids are digitally connected in their everyday lives. Whatever story or plot that starts in live action, is worked out in cyberspace, the CG [computer generated] component of it, it’s never one or the other, it’s a constant inter-cut between live-action and CG. It’s not like in one half of the show in the real-world and the second half is in cyberspace. We’re always cutting back and forth. When there’s a conflict and something is attacked in cyberspace, we see the real-life side of what’s being affected by that. We’re always creating that jeopardy for humanity of what the consequences could be if our Guardian characters fail. It keeps that over-arching character story arcs, the serialization of the series. Each episode continues to build and advance the story line. As we learn more and more about our Guardians, the people that they come in contact with.”
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