Shadow Peak

The creation of Shadow Peak.

In 2019 we came together to experiment with the idea of interactive storytelling through social media. A format where the audience voted for what should happen next. The series was released in 1-minute episodes with two choices at the end; the most popular dictating what happens next. 

We had no idea how a webseries in this format would work, but the results were far beyond what we’d imagined. By putting the audience in control of the story, we’d created a platform of open discussion and communication that naturally formed into an engaged community along the way.

Why tell more of this story?

To make Shadow Peak, we first had to create a world for our audience to inhabit. The world we made quickly became so vast and detailed that we knew our 6 episode test series couldn't tell it all. So, to see if people would want more, we left the last episode on a cliffhanger and since then have continued to received messages like:

"This was such a great idea. Please make more!"

"Ohhhhh I'm so hooked!! Need to watch more please!"

"I need to know what happens next"

"Standing ovation....please make more"

"That was fantastic. Please let there be more of this"

The fans of our test series have motivated us to work hard over the last couple of years, spending what feels like 100s of hours of zoom sessions writing the next installment and this time, we're doubling the amount of episodes!

We’ve loved the engagement our series has received already and can’t wait to share even more of the world with you! The locations are really exciting, the choices have bigger consequences and the horror element has been ramped up.

This time, we really focused on the psychology of natural human fears; especially darkness and unusual sounds.

This campaign.

To make the next season of Shadow Peak happen, we need your help. The $10,000 raised through this campaign will allow us to really showcase our series and deliver high quality content for you to enjoy.

For the next 12 episodes we're continuing to self-fund, but we're also using this as our calling card for the industry.  After the episodes have been released, we plan to combine them together into a short film that we can enter into film festivals all over the world.

The money raised on this campaign will help us cover:

• Location fees

• Gear rental

• Paying our cast & crew

• Catering

• Post production

Shadow Peak ​ teaser.

Plagued by nightmares, the series follows Casey as she investigates the mysterious forest of Shadow Peak. While searching for answers, she learns more about the powers that not only haunt her mind, but also the forest itself.

She’ll need to navigate through what is real and what isn’t as she faces one ultimate decision at the end. Multiple endings are possible, depending on the choices made by the audience.

About the team.

Jordan Rivers is an award winning Samoan Actor/Director and Sarah Dawes is an Actor/Writer/Producer who is a recent winner of the NZ 48Hours Outstanding Female Filmmaker award.

We’ve come together as we both share an interest in combining traditional and social platform storytelling. In addition to film, we would love to continue exploring the world of video game storytelling as this is still a young industry across NZ and Australia.

We are experiential creatives who enjoy developing new ways to engage with audiences, thinking outside the box whilst telling character led stories. Our webseries is disrupting the usual way of telling narrative and we’re excited to experiment with more ways to tell stories on our next projects.

We couldn’t have made Shadow Peak without our Co-Producer and Production Manager, Melanie Swears. Along with being a talented actor, she is also a producer and storyteller herself. Sharing the same values for collaboration, she is a core member of this project.

We all believe in creating a culture on our sets that is collaborative, supportive and professional. An environment where people can grow and contribute their ideas.

The first six episodes of Shadow Peak.

If you’d like to catch up with the story, we’ve combined the episodes together and have also displayed the choices that were made by the audience along the way. Check it out here.

Stay up to date:

If you’d like to stay up to date with our campaign then follow our social channels:

IG: @theshadowpeakseries

Thank you so much!

The Shadow Peak Team :)