BAIN CAPITAL and VIEWPOINT
Scripting a Scavenger Hunt, Creative Direction, Director, Producer, Location Scout, Casting

Bain Capital, a private investment firm, acquired Viewpoint, a Portland-based construction software company.

Ah! To be part of an acquisition transition by being tasked with creating a game that would take both entities through Portland in an unusual and fun way! XPLANE — a fabulous business-strategy-through-design company that I have worked with as a scriptwriter over numerous years — was charged with creating a scavenger hunt game that is, well, outside of their typical fare. XPLANE-ers, were privy to the shenanigans I get up to outside of working together, thought, yeah, she’ll know how to pull this off! I was stoked.

The event was a surprise to both teams. To get insider intel I interviewed the executive secretaries of each team to ensure the game was tailor made for them. For the end of the game I recruited a top-rated Portland comedian to roast the participants to using the intel I gathered. To be frank, we were a little worried about their reaction, but they ate it up with a spoon. It was incredible.

To make this merger less, er, tension-filled, I turned the entities involved into two teams of special agents. Their mission? To use clues, a map, and a suitcase full of fake cash to be the first team to free the CEO of Viewpoint from capture — before the whole merger deal blew up. That’s right.

To do this, I hired actors and comedians to burst into the client’s merger meeting, scare the shit out of everyone, and then send people on their mission with their first clue. They were INTO IT.  They had vans with drivers, team names, nicknames, lanyards with their stats, team baseball caps — no expense was spared. There were elaborate ransom, motivational, and other kinds of videos I cast, directed and produced that acted as clues for the participants.

I think this quote from the project manager Marc Hewitt sums it all up perfectly:

“The event felt more like something out of a Hunter S. Thompson novel than a boring corporate offsite. I never imagined that one day I would get paid to tie up a CEO and make a ransom video. I have Frayn to thank for that. It was incredibly successful, both teams were super impressed, and the main goal of having an incredibly fun bonding and Portland experience was most definitely reached far beyond expectations. We couldn't have pulled it off without Frayn and her motley crew.”