The lines have blurred between different forms of media with the integration of interaction and traditional forms of media in particular, the integration of film and interactive media.

The film Holy Hell made a innovative step towards blending movies and viewers’ experience by becoming the first film to premier content as an iPad app.

“We found that it because it had religion, a lot of people wanted to pigeonhole us,” said director and co-writer Rafael Ruiz. “We wanted to find a way to distribute the movie in the right way.”

Those involved with the movie felt that having the movie distrusted exclusively as an iPad app would be the best means of first distribution.

Development for the Holy Hell app began over a year and a half ago.

“Everything in designing the app, we wanted to build everything into the app and have it be self contained,” said Ruiz.

The movie was originally shot as a full length feature film, but for the iPad app, the movie was serialized into six chapters with additional material corresponding to each chapter of the film.

“The supplementary material helps color and grow the world of the movie,” said Jeff Blagg. “Getting to sink your teeth into the supplementary material really helps people get into the lives of the characters and the [movie’s] world.”

Having the supplemental material as part of the app, user activity and interactivity with the app can be tracked,  which cannot be done with movies on disk.

The iPad app allows the movie creators to look at what material is being viewed and where users stopped watching or interacting with the supplementary  material.

Price point was a major concern for the directors and the creation of the app was an economical way to produce movie with extras.

Blagg said that many users had trouble with figuring out where to start in using the app in order to watch the movie and figuring out how to use the supplementary material.

“You are looking for the best way to get it out there and make it special,” said co-writer Lowell Bartholomee.

Click here to download the Holy Hell movie app.