Just in time for the fifth season of TNT’s Leverage, the show’s producers have launched a free interactive book in the Apple’s iBookstore.
The book is called Leverage Season 4: A Companion Book [iTunes link], and as the title suggests, it’s a companion to the fourth season of the show.
The book is free and offers fans an inside glimpse at how the show — and the fourth season — was made. It includes full screen photos, videos, production story documents, script pages and storyboards. It was created in-house by Electric Entertainment, the same company that makes the show.
To us, the most interesting aspect of this project was that it is an iBook — rather than a stand-alone app. We spoke with Dean Devlin, the Executive Producer of Leverage about the project and the rationale behind the direction.
QA With Dean Devlin, Executive Producer and Director of Leverage
Why did you choose to create an iBook rather than an app?
It all started when Apple put out the iBook Author application. It looked really cool and I wanted to play with it. After checking it out, I came up with the idea that we could put out a book that includes clips and storyboards and artwork in a way that you just couldn’t present in the normal format. I got very excited about the idea of doing something like this.
So we got together in house and we decided to work on this together. Paola Ferrari, who is part of our publicity and marketing team at Electric Entertainment, picked up the ball and ran with it. I’m very happy with how this came out and I think the fans will enjoy it.
What was it about the iBookstore (and the iPad) that made it your platform of focus?
Well to begin with, I’m absolutely wild for my iPad. I think that I do about 85% of what I used to do on my computer now on my iPad. I thought that a book like this on that platform could be a really unique experience.
The ability to interact with the book is unlike any other platform that I know of. So if we were going to put out an episode guide, we wanted to do something that was truly unusual, something that’s never been done before.
Have you considered doing any sort of second-screen experience for past seasons (or even the upcoming season) for Leverage?
We’re planning on creating an ebook for all the seasons of Leverage, including season 5.
Can fans expect to see more of this type of interactive content in the future?
Definitely! For example, during our season premiere on Sunday, fans were able to launch the Viggle app and answer trivia questions as part of a live event.
We’re hoping to be able to incorporate more of these types of apps and interactive approaches with our fans in the future.
What do you think of the way Leverage is using iBooks and the iBookstore to create interactive content? Let us know in the comments.
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