Interactive Annual 18:
entertainment
HBO: Inside Boardwalk Empire
“It’s fun to take a stroll and experience the depth and richness of this world while never leaving it.”
—Michael Potts
“High production value may be making a comeback with projects like this coming out. It deepens the connection between fans and the show.”
—Keith Butters
The premiere season of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire transported viewers to 1920s Atlantic City and trailed Prohibition-era gangsters. This iPad app relives the first twelve episodes of the series with an interactive boardwalk—a guided tour of the locale that gave the award-winning show its name. In addition to the ability to play trivia games and share scores and video clips with friends, the content includes enhanced episode guides, excerpts from the final scripts, a look at key themes from each episode and the artistry employed to bring the historical period to life.
- • The app was produced, designed and developed in six weeks.
- • A control wheel enables visitors to move easily between Season 1 episodes and videos.
- • Swiping along the boardwalk unlocks videos of behind-the-scenes with the series creators, cast and crew.
Comments by Anna Kardaleva
“It was challenging designing for a platform that we were not familiar with so we kept the navigation simple: swipe, tap and tilt. The control wheel, for navigating between episodes, was more unique than the standard gestures but it didn’t compromise the user experience.”
“Initially we envisioned sophisticated 3-D effects within the scrolling boardwalk, but we had to scale back because we only had a month-and-a-half to complete it. Ultimately, keeping the graphics flat helped with the overall app experience and paid greater homage to the time period (we took visual cues from 1920s boardwalk postcards) and enabled the download time for the app to stay small.”
“We would integrate a backend publishing system so we could update the app with new content each season.”
Credits
Jake Taylor, associate art director
Marin Gazzaniga, writer
Lynn Kim, graphic designer
Anna Kardaleva, creative director
Tammy Grella, director of creative services
Kevin Pearce, senior editor
Adam Dubov, executive director
David Lee, producer
Atimi, development partner
HBO (New York, NY), project design and development/client
