INTERACTIVE MUSIC
The Aerosmithsonian
Little did I realize the journey awaiting me when my boss received a call from Geffen Records, asking us to develop a “spec” script for an interactive musical history game featuring Aerosmith.
I grew up in Boston as a fan of the band, and in one frenzied evening wrote the treatment for the “Aerosmithsonian”. The band reviewed a number of treatments from other companies and personally selected my vision for the project.
Once the treatment was accepted, four companies bid Aerosmith for the rights to produce the script.
Me & Steven hard at work
At that point, I teamed with Tribeca Productions (Robert DeNiro’s production company) to build the game. I played a pivotal role in landing the project for Tribeca. As a result, I became a cofounder of Tribeca Interactive.
The game was put on a fast track development schedule with internationally renowned artist Mark Ryden joining the project as the art director.
During the course of production, a number of issues arose between the copyright holders and the record company. Due to these challenges, the “Aerosmithsonian” was transformed into the game “Nine”.
RELEASED AS:
NINE: THE LAST RESORT
Featuring the Vocal Talents of:
Cher, Jim Belushi, Christopher Reeves, Steven Tyler & Joe Perry from Aerosmith
Entertainment Weekly: Game Review
Entertainment Weekly: Feature Article
Following the Aerosmith project, I spent several years working on enhanced CDs. Entertainment Weekly even featured me in an article after I completed a project for the multiplatinum German Hip Hop band, Real McCoy and Arista Records.
There is a decent chance I am the only computer nerd to hold that honor.
DESIGN OF THE TIME:
CD ENHANCER DAVID GREENE
Written by Kipp Cheng
Multimedia guru David Greene wants to rock your world. Or at least enhance it. As founder and president of the San Francisco design outfit Creative Spark, the energetic Boston native – who “grew up in the parking lots of America”, playing in rock bands and worshiping Aerosmith has carved out a cool career enhancing audio CDs with ”digital art” for your computer.
Greene stumbled into a gig in 1994 as cofounder of Tribeca Interactive (the multimedia division of Robert De Niro’s film company), where he was lead designer on the hallucinatory game 9.
For Greene, effective multimedia “must be a theatrical experience, combining the drama of theater and the presentation of television with the excitement of music.” His latest effort is the trippy animated enhancements on Europop trio the Real McCoy’s album One More Time. “I’m just a rock & roller at heart who lucked into the world of computers.”