The suspense of a serialized mystery story. The pseudo-authenticity of a mockumentary. The dazzling natural phenomenon of a real-life eclipse. Combine all three and you've got Two-minutes.com, a dramatic online whodunnit disguised as an informational Web site.
The plot kicks into action 11 August, the date of the next total solar eclipse in Europe.
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With its imaginative text, sharp graphics, and digital video files (yet to be added to the prototype version of the site currently online), Two-minutes.com follows the misfortunes of a fictional British TV crew documenting an updated version of a Northern European folk ritual in Cornwall, England. The ritual, presided over by a Druid leader, will be a frantic 12-hour chase of a randomly designated "victim," culminating in a raucous bonfire at the time of the eclipse.
There's no real TV documentary, of course. But the site tracks the pretend crew's filming process and provides background on the story's characters, presented as true-life biographies. The site's title refers to the amount of time the sun will be hidden during the eclipse.
Two-minute.com's producers and writers, Tobias Sturt and Finbar Hawkins, the team behind the hip, year-old London Web production firm Bomb, promise a web of intrigue and murder that will unfold before, during, and after the real-life eclipse, which takes place at 11 a.m. GMT.
Sturt and Hawkins' will slowly spin their tale by gradually posting text, graphics, and video to the site.
"The audience, visitors -- whatever -- can take the story at their own pace, approach it from their own angle, undictated by a director or writer," said Sturt. "We merely construct the world in which the mystery happens and let them dive in and enjoy it for themselves."
A far cry from hoax Web pages like the infamous Our First Time, Two-minutes.com follows more in the tradition of classic British novels that use faux letters and journals as literary devices, such as Samuel Richardson's 1740 epistolary novel Pamela.
In the early 1990s, contemporary print fiction writers such as Douglas Coupland (in his novel Microserfs) revived the tradition by incorporating email text within their novels. But Sturt and Hawkins take the concept further by presenting their unfolding plot entirely on the Web.
"The Web is conspicuously good at bringing a story to people in the form of letters and journals to build up the characters and sketch in the world they live in," said Sturt. "Text on the Web is quick to download, needs no plug-ins, and is generally easily understood."
The site currently presents background information on the fictional project, as well as factual historical and scientific text intended to provide context for the plot -- and perhaps educate site visitors about Cornwall, England, and solar eclipses as well. Visitors can subscribe to fictional email updates on the TV shoot as the plot progresses and can receive what appear to be the personal emails of the documentary crew. Sturt and Hawkins write the notes, which are full of believable interjections. Both sets of emails provide convincing clues to the murder mystery, said Sturt.
Sturt and Hawkins' approach might seem somewhat similar to that used by the makers of The Blair Witch Project, the wildly popular, low-budget horror mockumentary currently in US theaters. The Blair Witch Project Web site serves as a faux-informational online resource on the film's characters and plot and has been a successful marketing vehicle for the movie. But any similarities are unintentional, according to Sturt and Hawkins.
"Blair Witch Project hasn't reached these shores yet," said Sturt when asked if he and Hawkins were influenced by the film and its creators' online marketing tactics. "I had heard of it, but what inspired us is probably the same stuff that inspired them: fly-on-the-wall documentaries, the thought of doing something cheaply."
The overall cost for Two-minutes.com, said Hawkins, will total a mere £2,500 to 3,000 (US$4,000 to 5,000), significantly less than a film would cost to make. Hawkins sees a parallel between Two-minutes.com and The Blair Witch Project, but not because both are horror mockumentaries. Rather, Hawkins believes both similarly utilize everyday technologies in fresh, creative ways to update the storytelling process.
"I think the public is hungry for new ways of looking at things. Blair Witch hit that right on the nose, taking the simple ghost story and wrapping the home video revolution around it," said Hawkins.
"With Two-minutes, we're trying to use now-common tools and media -- Web sites, digitized film, email -- and think about them as pieces of the fiction, elements of the storytelling itself."
Susan Thomas, founder of trAce, an active online community of writers headquartered in Nottingham, England, thinks the site works well as a piece of fiction precisely because it seems so real.
"A faux documentary Web site must be even more real than the real thing, just as fiction must be more 'real' than reality in order to work," said Thomas, who says trAce will also post online stories related to the 11 August eclipse.
"So far, Two-minutes.com looks very professional," said Thomas. "I think it's a very clever idea. It has a good combination of a guaranteed natural phenomenon, which is so unusual to have in an online fiction piece, and the technology to respond to it minute by minute."
