You may have seen a musical biopic or TV show: a story about the popularity of a certain band you know. You must have heard the songs of a virtual band, the cartoon characters playing music recorded by real creative artists.
We Are OFK is both of these.
- OFK is our virtual band, with real songs on streaming services, just like any other band you like.
- We Are OFK is a video game about our band’s origin story.
With me so far? Okay, we’re making a biopic about ourselves. An automatic biography, for the nerd…
The story of a musical biopic often goes something like this: A small-town artist works hard, gets unappreciated, and almost gives up. Then they either meet a record label executive who “gets it,” or they impress someone famous at a bar, and that person makes them famous. They record an album! They go sightseeing! They see the world! Sex! Oh no, drugs! … They hit bottom. Their friends were angry or upset or whatever, and some combination of these terrible things prompted the artist to turn their lives around. They rediscover their love of music and remember why they did this in the first place. I love these stories! They’re inspiring, but they’re so big.
Do you know how many artists became superstars? It’s not much. Most musicians never “make it”, and making music is Not pay a living wage. But there are still a lot of people who make music, regardless of whether they get paid or not. Those big pop star stories are very inspiring, but I think people are trying to create anything… that’s magical to me.
Same thing with virtual bands. They are charming and imaginative, but they are bigger than life. For all of us on Team OFK… we really don’t know anyone like that. We mostly hang out on the couch, doodle, eat bread in the park, or order delivery noodles again.
We Are OFK is our independent scale experiment in creating a smaller biopic. A smaller virtual band. A fantasy team, created by artists, musicians and game designers. What it’s like to create virtual musicians who watch these pop stars perform on their laptops in bed and know they’ll probably never play a stadium concert ? We wanted to tell that story – how hard it is to make music, write even one song, shoot another video to post online, and hope someone leaves a good comment. Getting your daily chores done, loneliness, awkward group chats, someone at the party who doesn’t stop talking to you… it’s all there.
We make our biopic like a game, because we feel so close to this band, our band, and we want you to do the same. It’s up to you to decide what they say, what they text, how they present themselves as they go through the small journey rather than trying to create something they can be proud of. I know we’re proud of this game/band/series… the whole thing!
We Are OFK launches August 18th on PS5 and PS4, then weekly after that, until you have all of our episodes, including all of OFK’s new songs from their debut EP. surname.
Still not a full album, because making these is hard! We all have to start small.
