Transmedia



TRANSMEDIA, part 1  - Sohvi’s lecture 18th of March

Transmedia is open and complex phenomena, there is no consensus on what "transmedia" is, definition is open. It has multiple dimensions - cultural context, narrative, marketing, business models, legal framework.. It doesn't have any own methodology or methods of analysis, but for analysis there has been used methods from semiotics, narratology, sociology, ethnographics, economics, marketing, branding...

¡  Trans (latin) ≈ beyond, through, transverse, transcendence
¡  + media >> ”Transmedia = beyond, transcending a variety of media"

Question: How would you define term "Transmedia?"

Words and terms from history:
Transmedia = Multi Platform = Cross Media = 360 Media = All Media = Digital Media = New Media = Cross Platform = Multi Media = Distributed Media = Emergent Media = Transmedia Storytelling etc..
¡  2003 first named by Henry Jenkins: “ A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms, with each new media content asset making a distinct and valuable contribution to the whole.”
2006: Convergence culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins
¡  ””transmedia” – term should be considered an adjective, not a noun”
                      Geoffrey Long (2007)

Differences in "crossmedia" & "transmedia"
¡  CROSSMEDIA                                                   TRANSMEDIA
   (multi platform)
¡  Spectator                                                                Participant
¡  A message                                                              A story
¡  Fixed content                                                          Story evolves
¡  Repeating content                                                    Little repetition across media
¡  Limited depth                                                          Deep content
¡  Preplanned                                                              Real-time and responsive                     

Question: Do you agree with these differences?

Good to repeat the three aspects of Media Convergence:

  1. Economic: Media companies want to extend engagement across all content division, incentive to spread brands across every platform
    1. line between marketing and story/entertainment: comic books in advance before movie etc.
    2. and the other way: explore market with immersive story

  1. Technological: Smart devices allow seamless flow of content across all media platforms
    1. Production, delivery and receiving tools are the same

  1. Cultural: Audiences connected through sharing and collaborating of content experiences: “Always on” audience empowered by more tech advances (smarter phones, 4G network, cloud computing) allowing them to work cooperatively with creators to build out a transmedia storyverse... (Fred Fuchs, producer)

SO:
¡  Transmedia – evolved stories for evolved audiences
¡  Transmedia as a process
¡  Transmedia as a world
¡  Transmedia as a marketing tool
¡  Transmedia and production
¡  Transmedia and roles

Transmedia narratives - Definitions are flexible but most often narratives include
¡  Key story over variety of platforms, each used for what it is best
¡  Each medium makes it’s own contribution to the story >
            Context
            Rhythm
            Composition
            Media elements
            Level of interactivity and participation

Core Principles by Henry Jenkins:
-          Spreadability vs. Drillability ( ≈ possibility to explore, in-depth, the content of narrative extensions)
-          Continuity vs. Multiplicity
-          Immersion vs. Extractability ( ≈ possibility fans may have to take away with them aspects of the story, incorporating in their everyday lives (e.g. Memorabilia)
-          Worldbuilding
-          Seriality
-          Subjectivity (diversity of perspectives)
-          Performance (user-generated content)
NOTE: vs. does not mean either-or, but contrast and opposite sides of same issue

Most transmedia stories..
-          Include multiple entry points into the storyworld
o   Examples?
-          Opportunity for collective action, not passive consumption
And in stories there are different dimensions like
-          Narrative spaces (location, characters, time..)
-          Number and relative timing of the platforms (sequential, parallel, simultaneous, non-linear)
-          Type of audience involvement (passive, active, interactive, collaborative)
Robert Pratten (2011)




TRANSMEDIA, part 2  - Sohvi’s lecture 24th of March

Transmedia storytelling – how to start?

- To create the story and the world..:
Take time to evaluate the story you want to tell - always important part of the creative process is that you and your team ask yourself the hard questions like

Why will anyone care?
Is this the best way to tell the story?
Find the key question- simple can be a key for designing the transmedia experience
Lets go off the POV (Point Of View)!

Consider how you can show - not tell - this becomes important when the story has many touch points
-          Story is directly linked to someone experiencing and interacting with your story
-          Audience can be interested in things you didn’t consider

Important is that you make it easy for your audience and invite them to collaborate, clear call for action. Rmember the three C’s
CONTEXT
CONTENT
COMMUNITY
Understanding how they fit to the experience, remember rewards for their effort.

Analytical considerations for design process behind transmedia projects (based on Elizabeth Strickler’s 10 Questions (2012) and Geoffrey Long’s analysis (2007).

1.      Premise and purpose
-          Premise should and must be clear
-          Purpose is key to define how, where, to whom project is oriented – and also determine for what it serves
-          What is the project about?
-          What is the project’s core?
-          Is it a fictional, a non-fiction or a mixed project and story?
-          What is the fundamental purpose? Is it to entertain, to teach, to inform? Is it to market something?

2.      Narrative
-          Five sets of strategies for structure in transmedia by David Herman
-          Processes and participants – include particular roles to entities mentioned or implied in the narrative
-          States, events, actions (blends of interior states of participants, events and deliberated actions)
-          Temporal ordering, timeline
-          Spatial configuration (story entails configuring places and paths of motion in space)
-          Deictic reference (use of deictic expression (here, I, now) to place storyworlds

More about narrative:
  1. What are the narrative elements (plot, theme, characters, etc.)?
  2. What would be the summary of the storyline?
  3. What is the timeframe of the story?
  4. Major events or challenges offered by narrative?
  5. Are there gaming elements? Involving winning or losing?
  6. What are the strategies for expanding the narrative?
  7. Are negative capability and migratory cues included?
  8. Is it possible to identify intermedial texts in the story?

3.  Worldbuilding
-          Storyworld across media platforms – support expansions – from character-building approach toward a worldbuilding one
-          When the story occurs?
-          Which is the central world where the project is set?
-          Fictional world/ real world / mixture?
-          How presented geographically? How it looks?
-          What challenges, dangers, delights are inherent?
-          Is the storyworld big enough to support expansions?
-           
4.  Characters
-          ”Make your audience a character, too” (Andrea Phillips)
-          Who are the primary and and secondary characters?
-          Any spinn-offs? If, who are the protagonists in spin-offs?
-          Can the storyworld be considered as a primary character?
-          Can the audience be considered a character as well?
-          Are there non-player characters? If,who and what kind of role they play?

5.  Extensions
-          Storyworld will be unfolded and experienced – storyline will direct the audience from one medium to next – within the storyworld the maintenance of continuity / logic of the story shoud be observed throughout the extensions
-          How many extensions? Are they adaptations or expansions of the narrative through various media?
-          Is each extension canonical? Enrich the story?
-          Does each extension maintain the original characteristics of the world?
-          Does the extension answer questions left previously unanswered? Raise new questions?
-          Open up new possibilities? Have ability to spread the content, also provide possibility to explore in-depth?

6. Platforms and genres
-          More than one medium, maybe also more than one genre – selecting the platforms = ”art of matching the right content to right audience throughout the most appropriate way
-          What kind of platforms are involved? Which devices?
-          How each platform participates and contributes to the whole? Functions?
-          What are the distinctive characteristics of each platform?
-          Identify problems with each medium. Is each medium relevant?
-          Which genres are present?

7. Audience and market
-          Audience role is crucial, engagement is important – variety of ”multiple roles audience” to ”passive spectators” – VUP= Viewer/User/Player (by Stephen Dinehart, 2006) – different business models
-          Target audience? Whos is intended VUP?
-          What kind of ”viewers” are attracted (real-time, reflective, navigational)?
-          Entertainment they enjoy? What technologies/ devices? Why is your project appealing?
-          Are there other projects like yours? Succeed?
-          What is your business model? Revenue-wise, is it successful and how?

8.  Engagement
-          Point of view (PoV): first-second-third person? How people are experiencing?
-          First-person/second-person/ third-person / mixture?
-          What role does VUP play? What keeps VUP engaged?
-          The mechanics of interaction?
-          Participation? How?
-          Does the project work as cultural attractor/ activator?
-          How does the VUP affect to the outcome? User Generated Content? How and what?
-          Is there immersion for VUP? Offers possibility to take away elements and incorporate them into everyday life?
-          Important goal?
-          What adds tension to the experience?
-          Is there a system of rewards and penalties?

9.  Structure
-          Visual map or chart – detailed charts show how platforms, channels are interconnected and how content flows around –
-          When transmedia starts? Pro-active or retroactive?
-          Can each extension work as an independent entry point? What are the possible endpoints?
-          How is it structured? Organized?




10. Aesthetics
-          Visual & audio elements, atmosphere – design components (interfaces, colors, graphics, shapes, fonts, sounds….) characterize the storyworld > powerful tools to attract and maintain engagement
-          What kind of visuals?
-          Overall look: realistic/ fantasy?
-          How does audio work? Sound space, effects, music, speech…?

Analytical considerations by students of Master’s Program in Crossmedia production, Tallinn University Baltic Film and Media School, Estonia.
Article by Renira Rampazzo Gambarato.
















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