The Revenge of the Origami Unicorn: Seven Principles of Transmedia Storytelling (Well, Two Actually. Five More on Friday) Across the next two weeks, we will be rolling out the webcast versions of the sessions we hosted during the recent Futures of Entertainment 4 conference held last month at MIT. (see Monday's post for the session on Grant McCracken's Chief Culture Officer). Many of the conference sessions were focused around the concept of transmedia entertainment. The team asked me to deliver some opening remarks at the conference which updated my own thinking about transmedia and introduced some basic vocabulary which might guide the discussion. My remarks were largely off the cuff in response to power point slides, but I am making an effort here to capture the key concepts in writing for the first time. Many of these ideas were informed by the discussions I've been having all semester long within my Transmedia Storytelling and Entertainment class at the University of Southern California. Revenge of the Oragami Unicorn: Seven Core Concepts of Transmedia Storytelling 1. 2.
The Who’s Who of Transmedia | Transmedia Storytelling (Fall 2010) The main characters in Doctor Who don't change every episode, but this isn't necessarily wrong. Just look at Star Trek for an example of a show that doesn't require character development to be good or engaging. While all of the Dr. Who storytelling outlets were appealing in their own way, I found the radio program to be the least engaging. The other forms of Dr. The comic book version didn’t catch my interest nearly as much as the stories that featured moving pictures. I certainly think it’s possible to stitch together a coherent narrative across multiple mediums; Doctor Who stands as a testament to this. The stories also feature similar structure in terms of characters. Doctor Who seems to consistently meet McKee’s requirement for a good scene: that a binary characteristic of a character is reversed. Like this: Like Loading... Junior at Trinity University.
What is Transmedia Storytelling? Transmedia storytelling uses multiple media platforms tell a narrative across time. Each media piece—whether it’s a comic, novels, video games, mobile apps, or a film—functions as a standalone story experience—complete and satisfying. Like a giant puzzle, each piece also contributes to a larger narrative. The process is cumulative and each piece adds richness and detail to the story world, such as character backstories and secondary plotlines. Transmedia storytelling is fully participatory. The audience becomes actively involved, elevated to social and creative collaborators. Smarter Creativity - Blog - The Futures of Entertainment, Narrative & Transmedia Storytelling is at the center of a massive convergence of technologies used for everything from advertising to arts and culture building or to simply entertain. This past November The Futures of Entertainment Conference, hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium, took place at MIT. The conference brings together scholars and key thinkers from television, advertising, marketing, and the entertainment industries to discuss the unfolding future of the media landscape. Here are all the sessions from the conference along with complementary presentations, blog summaries, tweets and other related materials all in one convenient location for easy study. If you work in these industries and storytelling is at the center of what you create you must watch, they are an intensive course in the things that you will be expected to know how to execute in the very near future. Keynote: Revenge of the Origami Unicorn: Five Key Principles of Transmedia Entertainment by Henry Jenkins Rachel Clarke’s notes.
25 Things You Should Know About Transmedia Storytelling Let’s get this out of the way, now — this, like many/most of my other lists, could easily be called “25 Things I Think About Transmedia.” It does not attempt to purport concrete truths but rather, the things I believe about the subject at hand. I am something of an acolyte and practitioner in the transmedia cult, and sometimes give talks on the subject (as I will be doing next week in Los Angeles). So, here I am, putting my transmedia ducks in a row. Please to enjoy. 1. The current and straightest-forwardest (not a word) definition of transmedia is when you take a single story or storyworld and break it apart like hard toffee so that each of its pieces can live across multiple formats. 2. Transmedia is, admittedly, kind of a buzz-word. 3. The rise of any new or altered media form sees an awkward transitional period where everyone wants to define it. 4. Good storytelling is still good storytelling. 5. Transmedia these days is strongly marketing-centric. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
Un nuevo camino para la narración multimedia * por Ivan Comas (realizador de vídeos y técnico de contenidos multimedia del departamento de Producción Propia en LaVanguardia.com) y Marta Franco (periodista, bloguera y comunicadora digital) narrativas transmedia Contar historias en internet es un mundo lleno de nuevas posibilidades. La linealidad se rompe. El relato ya no es finito. En periodismo también entra en juego la narrativa transmedia -las historias ya no están cerradas en un solo medio, sino que se extienden a otras plataformas usando diversas tecnologías digitales-. Así, el relato se entiende como una experiencia. Además, el espectador es más activo que nunca por lo que es imprescindible conseguir el entretenimiento y captar su atención. Paralelamente, en un momento en el que el Open Data está en su máximo esplendor, crece la fascinación por la visualización de los datos, una de las claves de futuro para el periodismo digital y sus nuevos profesionales. Relatos multimedia y ejemplos de storytelling Un manual de estilo abierto
Transmedia 202: Further Reflections The above video was shot by Scott Walker during one of my presentations at San Diego Comic-Con, during which I spoke about some of the controversy which has surrounded the definition of transmedia over the past six months or so. I’ve largely stayed out of these conversations, though you can find a very good summary of the debates here. I’ve been focusing on other projects and also I’ve been more interested in the shapes these discussions take than seeking to intervene in them directly, but over the summer, in a range of venues, I’ve been pushing and proding at my own definitions to see if I can capture some of my own shifting understandings of transmedia, especially as I am preparing to teach a revamped transmedia entertainment class at USC. Much of this is covered in the above video so if you process things better in audio-visual than in print, you have your options. So, consider what follows Transmedia 202, to compliment my earlier Transmedia 101 post. There is no transmedia formula.
Producing Transmedia Stories – 10 Reasons why Audiences do it Better… …than Agencies and Filmmakers. Why do transmedia professionals have a difficult time achieving authentic and fluid transmedia stories and why do ‘existing’ branded entertainment & digital agencies tend towards lowest common denominator, tried and tested formulaic cross media, more about PR, advertising and marketing than real ‘story’ focused engagement. Against this and rather paradoxically we have the ‘so-called’ audience/users actually telling their ‘life’ stories across platforms in a much more natural and engaging way. Having produced and studied cross media since 1997 (“What do Audiences Want” BBC pres) one very large and persistent problem has always been creating authentic transmedia stories – natural story arcs and bridges that lead you onward through a long format, multi platform experience. note: this is a personal/user POV condensed version of a longer chapter intro section in my wip book Networked Media Storytelling: Transmedia Design and Production. 2 Authenticity & Trust
Henry Jenkins: frictions emerge over trans-media and money-making American media scholar and pop culture expert Henry Jenkins, currently on a lecture tour of Europe, said that all content is heading in the direction of trans-media, shifting from its original state to new platforms. But he warned traditional media owners need to be ready to cede control of revenue in some cases to make it work for them. At a lecture earlier this week at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin, Jenkins spoke about how content is gaining media and value in the era of spreadable media. He pointed to the oxymoron contained in the word 'content' which actually means 'contained'. "Content is no longer contained. It has become unmoored. He added that when we think which is more important content or design, we should be thinking 'use'. As an example of how traditional mediums like the cinema are shifting content to new mediums he cited the recent release of The Hunger Games which saw fans unlock content city by city using Twitter. The people's editorial
Game Design Advance › Turn Me On, Dead Man: Why Urban Legends Make the Best ARGs In 1969, whispers of a strange rumor began spreading through college newspapers and radio stations across North America. Students in Iowa and Michigan had been tracking clues that pointed towards a sinister conspiracy dating back three years, that if true would suggest one of the most disturbing hoaxes ever staged. Though the mainstream media refused to take their claims seriously, they put their word out in broadcasts, reviews and books, in the hopes of spreading the news and letting everyone in the world know the terrible truth of an entire generation’s greatest heroes. Though that information is still widely written off, it is known in every corner of the earth today by three infamous words: “Paul is dead.” Was it true? See how Paul has his back turned on the back of the Sgt. However, more interesting than the mere narrative of the legend is the fact that it’s been actively perpetrated over the years.
How Did Howard Rheingold Get So “Net Smart”: An Interview Howard Rheingold has been one of the smartest, most forward thinking, most provocative writers about digital culture for the past several decades. He’s someone who always makes me think. Even a short hall way chat with Howard at a conference can lead to transformative insights about how we live within a networked culture. I have been lucky to know him for more than two decades now, and I treasure every interaction I’ve ever had with the guy. Howard embodies the transition which Fred Turner has documented between the counterculture of the 1960s and the cyberculture of today: he has a quirky personality which reminds me of Frank Zappa or Leon Redbone, and, as this interview suggests, he still carries with him some of the core values he first articulated working for the Whole Earth Catalog. So, it would be easy to see him as a voice from the past, but that would be a serious mistake, since he is still totally on top of the most recent developments in the field. Howard’s Story:
"Cenicienta 2.0": entiende el concepto de Narrativa Transmedia en unos minutos (vídeo) En mi último artículo os hablé del vídeo de Dani Calabuig de Draft FCB en #FOA2013. Lo mejor que he visto para explicar de forma clara y concisa cómo una marca puede beneficiarse de contar historias en un contexto transmedia. Pues aquí lo tenéis, cortesía de Pablo Muñoz, a quien le agradezco la generosidad de compartirlo con todos los lectores de este blog. Me parecen muy acertados: La visión de cómo se integran los consumidores en el proceso.El solapamiento de "ficción" y "realidad". La suma es un contenido que el consumidor sí quiere en sus vidas, hasta el punto de que participa activamente en él. Actualmente estamos trabajando en un contenido Transmedia parecidísimo a esto en Pop up Música. Próximamente más...
What Does Platform Agnostic Mean? We’ve been using the term “platform agnostic” for years. But our recent feature article about the future of magazine apps has given us pause to reflect on an uncomfortable truth: We’re not entirely sure what “platform agnostic” means anymore. Ask a web developer and she will invariably start waxing poetic about hardware architecture, software frameworks and programming languages. Speak to a film or television producer, writer or marketer and they might casually drop the term “transmedia,” a close cousin of platform agnosticism which is coming into its own as an industry. We like to think of Sparksheet as a platform agnostic magazine. It also means our content is available on whatever screens or device you want to consume it on, thanks to our website’s responsive design. Confused yet? Which is why we’re asking you to give us your take on the same question: What does platform agnostic mean to you? Henry Jenkins. Platform agnosticism isn’t just about telling good stories. Maurício Mota.