Brought to you by
A Swift Spotlight: Electric Noir
Positioned at the intersection of film, TV and video games, BAFTA-nominated studio Electric Noir has hit the ground running in their four years of operation. Offering up to the industry their first instalment of critically acclaimed, interactive mobile game Dead Man’s Phone, the studio is showing no signs of deceleration, with the blueprints of studio expansion and the development of a truly immersive platform for narrative content on the brink of fruition.
ardvark Swift went “in conversation with” Electric Noir’s CEO and Co-Founder Nihal Tharoor, to reflect on how the industry outsiders became pioneers of interactive immersion, as well as bringing into consideration the future landscape of the mobile medium and Electric Noir’s place within it.
A
Co-founders Nihal Tharoor and Benedict Tatham first conceptualised the bare bones of what would become Dead Men’s Phone around half a decade ago, spawning out of their time as a creative partnership in advertising. “One day an email forward came around about a soap opera depicted through a WhatsApp conversation” reflects Nihal. “Immediately, that struck us as a really interesting concept; we never considered something like a messaging app as being a vehicle for narrative fiction. We had a eureka moment where suddenly like a bolt of lightning, we imagined a story where you took the role of a detective, searching the phone of a murder victim for clues.” This became the catalyst for the pair to set up shop in an industry foreign to them, with their unwavering vision being the driving force in their project. “It was certainly a huge challenge, particularly in the first few years where it was just a team of three. It was just me, Ben and our CTO Sam with very little resources”. Nihal continues, “I think we were really ambitious with the level of interactivity that we wanted, a fully fleshed phone simulation where the user can explore multiple apps and features. We luckily always had quite a clear vision of what we wanted to create, and we’ve never really pivoted that much on what we wanted to do.”
Since then, Electric Noir have released their flagship title Dead Man’s Phone, a nuanced crime drama exploring
“The hope is to create a platform for interactive storytelling; we believe the interface of the phone really is the most accessible and scalable format.”
the hidden issues of racism within the UK, immersing the user in the perspective of a detective combing the phone of murder victim Jermain Jacobs. “It’s a story we were really passionate about telling” Nihal highlights. “We began writing long before the Black Lives Matter surge in 2020, and includes some really challenging scenes that the actors brought an immense amount of integrity to.” The studio is now intent on evolving the season into a platform for a plethora of interactive stories, and have begun to expand their capacity, both technically and through studio hires to realise this. “We’ve brought in an established creative team now, including three senior creatives authoring their own seasons.” Nihal continues “we have ambitions to have hundreds and eventually thousands of hours of content on this platform, so we’re really focused on future facing development as much as possible. The hope is to create a platform for interactive storytelling; we believe the interface of the phone really is the most accessible and scalable format. We’re trying to pioneer the medium, and while we’re not the only ones doing it, we really think this will be the first mass market, interactive storytelling medium that’s adopted by gamers and non- gamers alike”.
Electric Noir are already making huge strides to achieve this, Nihal believes the cornerstone to reaching the heights they’d like is the studio values they cultivate. “We’re a young studio. We’re always iterating and optimising our processes and trying to learn from other people and on different methodologies. We’re looking for exceptional minds unified by one concept, which we call generosity of spirit that we define as a sustained approach towards kindness, playfulness and curiosity. We think these values are some of the most important values in building a really healthy and enduring creative culture.”
You can listen to Aardvark Swift’s full conversation with Electric Noir’s Nihal Tharoor through the Aardvark Swift Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, third-party apps, and the
aswift.com website.
Nihal Tharoor, CEO and Co-Founder Electric Noir
January 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 41
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
