Somethin’ Else to create virtual soap for C4 online

The 5 x 5-minute online order is dubbed The SuperMes and is set in a The Sims 3-like virtual world. It will feature four young adult characters, along with a supporting cast, who have been given a variety of traits, ambitions, motivations and a dramatic context.

The Somethin’ Else production team will guide the AI-led characters using “gentle nudges and hints” for a six-week period, capturing around 30 terabytes of content, which will be edited into the video-on-demand series.

The SuperMes is billed as a “whole new way of telling stories” and forms an extension of C4’s teenage empowerment game SuperMe.

The cast include attention-seeking Anita, a party-loving, couch-potato called Robert, the shy, over-emotional Clare, and Ryan, who is trying to start a band.

The series will follow the cast’s adventures as they move in together in a shared house situated in a specially constructed small English town, which has been designed to include shops and homes as well as smaller details such as cycle racks.

It features a series of virtual “cameras”, which will record their exploits as they fall in love, experience tragedy and find jobs.

It will be distributed via the dedicated SuperMe site as well as on the related Facebook site.

Somethin’ Else chief creative officer Paul Bennun compared the series to voyeuristic film The Truman Show.

“The SuperMes is the first ever example of emergent story-telling. It will be a cross between a Ken Loach film and an ob doc, except all the characters are robots with artificial intelligence,” Bennun said. “The series was created as part of our continuing work exploring teaching techniques of resilience for teens.”

The SuperMes was devised by Somethin’ Else’s Bennun and Jo Roach, and commissioned by C4’s Jo Twist. Ian Sharpe is the exec producer.

The project was inspired by games designer Robin Burinshaw, who used computer game The Sims to create the story of a homeless father and daughter dubbed ‘Kev and Alice’.