
Why do stories need to be linear and repeatable? What if instead of finishing a movie, you could keep exploring it? What if your favorite side-character could become central to the plot? Why canât we harness technology to explore our creativity in a new hybrid of full-interactive, immersive animation? A new startup is determined to do just that.
MashUp Machine seeks to bring the creativity and open-ended nature of traditional storytelling to the era of mass media. The idea is deceptively simple. The startup provides their users with a suite of tools to make it easy to create interactive stories, and a bit of machine learning code to help them explore ideas. In return, anyone can contribute to the infinite iterations of a constantly branching, evolving story.
MashUp Machine is backed by industry veterans Ben Cole and Christopher SjĂśholm. Cole is an Academy Award-winning developer, former North American Head of Software for one of the worldâs largest visual effects studios, MPC. SjĂśholm complements that with nearly 20 years as Creative Director for major video game franchises like FIFA, Prototype 2, and skate.
The way we deal with stories now is âalmost Darwinian,â Cole told Gizmodo. Creators make something, then throw it out into the world and hope it finds an audience. But the current way of producing stories doesnât fit with how we consume stories.
People readily embrace inserting their own theories into stories and dreaming up new adventures for their favorite characters. The modern media market includes an entire subculture of fan fiction and alternative interpretations. âPeople want to take things and keep them moving,â said Cole. âThey want to put their own stamp on it.â
Yet our consumption is throttled by how many movies, games, books, or comics a creator can churn out in a year. We want to explore alternate endings, but we are trapped in a single static story. We want to change the stories we consume to reflect the lives we lead, swapping genders, racial identity, cultural background, and economic classâbut we canât. So why not crowdsource collections of evolving, branching stories exploring every possible idea?

Enter Scary Cabin, a proof-of-concept for this new breed of storytelling. The setting is simpleâa scary cabin in the woods, and a cast of likely characters. But what happens next is up to you, and a few thousand of your closest friends co-creating together.
MashUp Machine embraced horror genre stereotypes in creating the cast, but those characters donât need to behave like their archetypes. âLeave it to the audience to decide who these people really are,â said Cole. âMaybe the characters will have different personalities in different spaces.â Donât like where the story is going? Branch it somewhere different, or start over. Instead of writing a bunch of comments, go in and change it to what you want it to be.
The suite of tools also includes machine learning code for assisted storytelling. âItâs a fun, creative suggestion tool whispering over your shoulder,â SjĂśholm told Gizmodo. âWe want it to inspire you to create something unique.â When youâre feeling stumped, or just want a challenge, you can turn to the code for that little extra nudge.
As MashUp Machineâs code learns, its suggestions will become more advanced. Instead of asking about an aspect of a plot, it might pipe up with a one-liner, or propose a camera angle for the next shot. âItâs a collaboration between people, but also between people and the machine,â said Cole. So far the code uses a mix of deep learning, Bayesian techniques, and natural language processing. âWe donât believe in a one-size-fits-all solution,â he said. As for the upper limits on what it might do one day, âWho knows?â
âDigital for me is a synonym for interactive,â said Cole. At itâs full potential, âItâs not a game, but a movie that adapts to fit your mood, your humor, and your attention.â If your attention drifts to a secondary character, the movie can focus on them and their story. MashUp Machine is aiming for a future where stories can adapt, learn, breed and evolve, and where the audience influences how their entertainment unfolds.
And itâs a story format just begging for virtual reality. âVirtual reality takes some of the control away from the director, and into the hands of the audience,â Cole said. Even a simple head-turn throws out carefully-crafted camera angles and points of focus in favor of what the audience finds interesting. By mixing infinite branch points into the inherently immersive nature of virtual reality, MashUp Machine hopes to create a feedback loop between story creation and story consumption. The startup is embracing this with the ability to virtually go on set when using Google Cardboard, or by scrolling around the scene by rotating your smartphone.
But this goes beyond a creepy cabin in the woods, or even teaming up with friends to tell stories together. This is a chance to open up storytelling so it stops being a static experience. Scary Cabin will keep getting richer, and MashUp Machine will become home to more original story worlds.
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Fan fiction is popular in part because itâs familiar, yet different. âYou get to keep living inside a world, but experience something new,â said Cole. For the content creator, partnering with MashUp allows the stories to keep going as fans take on exploring and customizing what happens after the credits roll.
It also allows for more diversity in stories. âTraditional media are gatekeepers,â said SjĂśholm, deciding which films are greenlit and which TV programs go to air. âBut thereâs a huge population with ideas. We want to give them tools to share their stories.â
Creating fully-interactive stories is an ambitious goal, and MashUp Machine is taking the first steps with their beta release. SjĂśholm laughed that after so many years in the entertainment industry, theyâre accustomed to taking on ambitious visions. âWeâre asked to do the impossible by our directors, or trying to do the impossible to appease our fans.â he admitted. âWe recognize this is a hard problem, and weâre excited by it.â
Right now Scary Cabin is in a slow-release beta. Sign up to join, and give feedback on the user interface as it evolves. Only a starter set of content creation tools are currently available, but more will be released as Cole, SjĂśholm, and their team see how people are using them. Want to be even more involved? MashUp Machine is actively looking to talk to machine learning researchers, software developers, UI experts, and more. âWe want to catalyze communities to create something bigger,â said Cole.
Sign up for the beta here, and follow the latest updates at @storymashup. Have questions? Cole and SjĂśholm will be swinging by the comments, so ask away!