ABOUT

INTRODUCTION
SCARS is a grounded sci-fi cinematic universe set in the near future. The world is similar to ours today, but with a twist. Whenever a person tells a lie, a scar appears somewhere on their body. The placement is unpredictable, but the severity of the scar always matches the severity of the lie.

Society has transformed those scars into a system of measurement known as Scar Count. Calculated by the total surface area of a person’s scars, it influences where they can live, where they can work, the loans they can receive, the places they can enter, and the degree to which they are trusted.

We believe that there needs to be a larger conversation about the role of truth in our society. As you go down the rabbit hole, you start to wonder; If a scar appeared every time a person lied, what would lawyers look like? TV news personalities? Televangelists? when is it OK to lie? What would I look like?

THE ORIGINS
“Scars” was originally written as a response to short story written as a reddit writing prompt. We control the rights to the original short story, which received over 14,300 upvotes, countless stars, and over a million reads.

STYLE, TONE & THEMES
The world of SCARS is very similar to our own, but slightly more advanced. Technology has advanced, but human nature has not. Tonally, it occupies the space between the grounded futurism of LOOPER, the social unease of THE HANDMAID’S TALE, and a brighter CHILDREN OF MEN or darker HER.

The original film examines honesty, judgment, and the assumptions we make based on physical appearance. The beauty of this world is that there’s a foundational universal theme, but it acts like an endless sandbox that other filmmakers can use to tell their own stories and comment on the social issues that matter to them.

THE WORLD
We wanted to do more than say “HeY, WaTcH My ShoRt FiLm.” We love 360 Storytelling/transmedia so we built a broad web of over 150 supplementary content deliverables designed to take the viewer on a story driven journey across platforms and deeper down the rabbit hole of our story universe. Fake ads based on fictional in-world products, a VR experience, Snapchat and Instagram filters to accompany festival screenings, and an easter egg blog site written as one of the main characters are just a few of the avenues we utilized.

We also created an 80 page “Scars Universe Handbook” that explains all of the rules and aspects of the world.