Wired's article on the transmedia possibilities of storyteling really grabbed my attention. I believe this may shepherd younger learners towards literacy and, indeed, the literacies of the future.
The naysayers' debate, of course, is whether they will actually "read" transmediain the traditional sense of the word. The rebuttal to that is which skill is more relevant today: "traditional", linear reading, or skimming and scanning multiple streams to synthesise? And while we're at it, how many more learners can be lured into reading if we engage transmedia?
While I value the feel and the smell and the escape of a good book in my hands, I have to wonder if transmedia skills are not more important today. I also see the glint of gold for language and literacy materials development here somewhere...
In today's interconnected world, young adults, teens and even kids have become so comfortable with media technology that they flow from one platform to the next. The problem is that their content is not flowing with them.
Report on 4 Alternate Reality Game cases by Hazel Grian and 3 CBBC interactive cases by Marc Goodchild at Cinekid, Amsterdam #ck09
Hazel Grian(Hazel on twitter) - 14.15 hrs Hazel talks about her evolutionary experience in creating Alternate Reality Games (ARG's) "A Rabbit Hole", "Star Trek ", The Last Work.
The Rabbit Hole By her own initiative she started Meigeist The Rabbit Hole, an ARG, detective style, with a Rabbit Hole about a missing person Eva McGill. Posters in the street leading to blog (not working link) about a missing Rabbit; leading to a beverage called Youkin she uses. Feeding suspicion about her disappearance related to the drink she uses. Produced footage to create the belief about a 'Shady Conglomerate' that might have abducted her. Users interacted and produced for instance on Yahoo Wake up eva we love you: Some supporters interacted heavily and engaged in Live Events Thrilling reactions received for real life post cards, sent to members of the audience.
Kate Modern The Last Work Continued writing and storytelling on Bebo, doing 1950 american television type model with Kate Modern The Last Work - An interactive soap opera. All characters have their own profile and storyline, combined with a joined show for the characters together.
Traces of Hope For British Red Cross she created Traces of Hope Their most succesfull online campaign until now. Tagline "He has aatellite phone; you have the web – together you’ll make a great team. Time is running out." Users guide Joseph through sickness, fire and violence as together and follow his traces of hope
Star Trek Created an ARG campaign for Star Trek the movie, including Facebook, twitter, the real world, involving audiences as far as Berlin and Madrid. Creating a feeling that Star Trek is real.(Funny note: Hazel describes it as on old skool ARG)
Update: In the post presentation discussions Hazel added: "To get people away from the screens and the wires. That is probably our biggest challenge in ARG."
Marc Goodchild - 15.00 hrs Head of Children's interactive, marc.goodchild@bbc.co.uk is talking about the "Game Mechanic"; How to bring gaming basics into linear, radio and TV storytelling.
Starting of with 4 reasons to create cross media properties at the BBC:
Audience expectiation- around channel defining brands
Products that offer something 'native' to the web
Interactive innovation matches a particular linear need (TV is still important)
True 360 properties where platforms are symbiotic
Explaining how the the interactive team works: Basically every linear show gets VOD support, and a standardised web-formula so the interactive team can focus on the real priorities: creating not 'A Website' but an experience.
Three cases by CBBC:
M.I. High. A so called Foe ARG. A universes inside CBBC, fewer and fewer people get to the next stage. Encouraging kids to work together to get to the next step. About 300.000 kids involved for several weeks.
Kerwhizz Kids do quiz questions, earn points. Instead of shouting at the TV after school, they inhabit the universe. Shows characters become sidekicks instead of protagonists.
Bamzooki A virtual robot wars. Not a lot of energy on expanding the original concept. The audience started taking ownership and pushed it further. On youtube all sorts of fansites around Bamzooki appeared. A school in Wales organised a tournament for 16 schools, initiated without any involvement of the producers, proving demand for further nourishment of the property. BBC decided to respond and now takes Bamzooki to another level by following up with an augmented reality show for coming season. Gaming on a real world platform. The Bamzooki robots are computer feeds filmed in real life decor, seen from the perspective of the builders. (Will Posted a rip of the preview for next season soon)
Tips on engaging audiences:
Ensure you can process contributions quickly.
Let them know the process and how long it may take.
Anticipate the scale of responses an build your site accordingly.
Consider the 1:9:90 rule. Are you super serving a vocal minority or are you just appealing to a silent majority who will never contribute. (1% will create content, 9% will comment or add in some way value to this content, 90% will just use and consume stuff)
.hack//Link takes a page from the other compilation games so popular in Japan right now (Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Tales of VS), by populating the game with many faces from the various .hack games, manga and anime series. Playable partners in the TGS demo included Haseo (from .hack//GU) and Tsukasa (from .hack//SIGN).
For the moment, there's a strong imperative to "protect the mother ship," as industry insiders put it, by treating the extensions into other media as non-essential and keeping primary focus on the television series. But, in Japan, we are seeing series which unfold simultaneously across comics, games, film, and television, without having a dominant medium. This may well be the future not only of television but entertainment more generally. As the content expands across media, when does it stop being television and become something else?
And we're well on our way to that something else. And in that social networking world, I think it's also worth asking, what is the future of a website?
Since the success of Cathy's Book - now followed by Cathy's Key and to be completed by Cathy's Ring - which proved to be a teenagers success in several countries, we can see more and more new ventures in blurring boundaries between literature and new media.
This year, Jordan Weisman known for his successful ARGs like I Love Bees or Year Zero partnered with JC Hutchkins and replicated its "extended entertainment" approach for a more mature audience. The result - Personal Effects : Dark Arts - is all about investigating the intriguing case of a blind serial killer. as in Cathy's Book series, the book includes a series of props besides the novel which may lead the reader to online additional content and puzzles to solve in order to get some new insights on the plot.
Without even discussing the novels, these two books are interesting takes on non linear writing and are worth experiencing.
However, readers often complain that the novels can be read completely overlooking the additional content layer. From an editorial point of view, one may see here some economical constraints as publishers may be nervous at restricting their audience to people geeky enough to follow obscure online trails triggered by tricky analog riddles. Even more, in terms of experience design, the truth is that most readers won't be able to know how to use these props as there are no clues on how they're linked to the story. Will I spoil the story if I study these documents ? When am i supposed to pick one and which one ? Lack of direction is often the flaw of such open storyworlds (including pure ARG) and will continue to restrict these experiences to new media savvy audiences (potentially including GenY aka. multitasking digital natives)... More recently, Anthony Zuicker - creator of the globally famous CSI TV series - released Level26, his first "digi-novel" (again about a particularly insane serial killer) which rewards the reader with high production value online videos to be unlocked by entering codes on the dedicated website. Anthony Zuicker's approach will maybe prove to be a more mainstream still consistent experience. Iphone and ITunes LP versions are in the pipe according the author and should be the best way to enjoy it as they will offer a seamless flow between reading and viewing. Can't wait for it :)) In the meantime, Jeff Kring - creator of Heroes TV series - will have released SHIFT the first installment of his novels trilogy (titled "Flag of Orpheus" and acquired for 3 million (!) dollars by Crown Publishers). And guess what ? It will be tied to an alternate reality game. Interesting times, for sure...
While most advertising agencies are paying lip service to transmedia storytelling, the majority don’t understand it. Intrinsic to this kind of approach are vast narratives—stories that are deep and compelling, that are set in worlds with rich histories. Ad agencies don’t have creatives with the training to build these narratives. But that’s going to change in the next few years.
breakfast platter: have a taste of transmedia storytelling. know of any other best practices/fail cases & resources? or any company in holland that specialises on this?
http://bit.ly/2H3Gty Looks quite promising and ambitious so far. The ARG related website doesn't seem to offer much beyond a bunch of teasing posters but it should be launched soon, maybe november if it's tied to the series premiere. Let's stick this one on the radar...
Henry Jenkins is the director, Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT. In this viral-info-snack he discusses the power of media in a 21 century trans-mediated world. A world where converging technologies and cultures give rise to a new media landscape.
Henry Jenkins of MIT is the first to coin and describe "Transmedia" and the "Transmedia Narrative." In his "Transmedia Storytelling 101" (http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html), his first of ten points is, "Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story. So, for example, in The Matrix franchise, key bits of information are conveyed through three live action films, a series of animated shorts, two collections of comic book stories, and several video games. There is no one single source or ur-text where one can turn to gain all of the information needed to comprehend the Matrix universe."
Apart from being a separate point of entry, each medium has it's own best practices that if thoroughly understood, can dimensionalize the central theme, or idea, making the whole story far more rich, interesting and powerful.
The slide show presented here, by Big Spaceship, is one of the better Transmedia presentations we've seen.
