Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 1

ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA

2nd Edition

by Simon Staffans27 December 2011

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 2

INDEX————————————————————————————————

Introduction 4The Core of Transmedia 6

The Three Facets of TransmediaTransmedia - the Story of the StoryTwain on Transmedia The “Why” of Transmedia Interview - Jeff GomezInterview - Nick DeMartino

Developing Transmedia 23Musings on Transmedia DevelopmentCreating a Transmedia SymphonyThe NOT of TransmediaTransmedia, Time and ContextThe Value of Truth in TransmediaInterview - Andrea Phillips

The Transmedia Format 36What Makes Good Transmedia?The Mixing of Real and Not Real in TransmediaTransmedia Sans FictionThe Transmedia FormatInterview - Nicoletta Iacobacci

Transmedia and the Audience 48Transmedia - Story, Experience and NeedsWhat Motivates a Transmedia AudienceUsers, meet Story. Story, meet UsersInterview - Yomi Ayeni

Transmedia and the Market 58Pitching TransmediaFunding Transmedia - a commentOn Transmedia and FundingOn Funding Transmedia, part twoInterview - Brian ClarkInterview - Robert Pratten

Reports from Transmedia Gatherings 79Transmedia - it’s kind of everything; SXSWMIPTV 2011 Wrap UpTransmedia and Multiplatform Business

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 3

MIPCOM 2011 RoundupStoryworld - Five ThoughtsInterview - Alison NorringtonInterview - Karine Halpern

Other Transmedia Musings 98Ten Advice for Transmedia StorytellersDoing it the Transmedia Way

Transmedia - a Future 104Transmedia in 2020 ADInterview - Lina Srivastava

Resources 115About the Author 118

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 4

INTRODUCTION 27th of December 2011————————————————————————————————

UPDATE for 2nd edition - As I read this publication again some weeks ago, I suddenly felt there was something severely lacking - the voices of other people. I’ve learnt so much from so many people and have had so much inspiration and awesomeness thrown at me from all corners, it felt unfair not to include the thoughts of some of these great thinkers and practitioners. Said and done; I contacted a number of people and asked them some questions, each connected to one chapter or another in this publication. I’ve decided to include the interviews at the end of each chapter to put them into as much context as possible. Thank you to all who graciously agreed to answer my questions!

I’ve been in media for more years than I would ideally like to remember. Since the age of 13 I’ve been writing, producing, reporting and hosting everything from newspaper articles to tv reports to radio shows. In 2005 I left for the life of a format developer.

The past couple of years might have been the most exciting in my professional life. I love doing radio and writing articles and producing television, but utilizing the powers of a connected multiplatform media landscape, drawing on transmedia storytelling methods, learning from a lot of great people all around the world and taking part of so many brilliant projects… it’s a whole different and very enjoyable ballpark.

To come to grips with my thoughs and jot them down for further reference, I started blogging about my development work, my thoughts on transmedia, some of the talks I’d listened to and ideas that had been put to me. I also thought that if someone else could find something of essence in my writing or find something in my experiences that would help them in their work, it would be a truly beautiful thing. So, without (hopefully) breaching any NDAs, I’ve written some 70-odd posts on these subjects to date.

So, what’s this publication? Well, a couple of days ago I was reading something in an article and suddenly realized I had thought and written about the very same subject in a blog post myself. I went to look for it and had to search for ages (well, “Internet-ages”, I.e. more than 3 minutes) until I found the paragraph in a post from December last year. Then it struck me: why not curate my own writings on this subject so far into one single accessible and hopefully coherent document?

That’s what this is. I’ve divided the texts loosely into eight different subsections and start each subsection off by introducing it. I’ve also added the original publishing

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 5

date for each entry, as I think there is a bit of an evolution to be seen from how I think and write about transmedia and how it correlates with events and projects I come in touch with over the year. Also, the examples and links that are prevalent make more sense if related to a certain date.

As always, if you find something of interest or something useful, that’s great. And if you want to talk transmedia, formats or fishing, hit me up :). Contacts are included at the end of the document.

PS. I’ve included some of the comments on some of my posts. All of you, thank you. You’re linked and all, and I greatly value your input. May the discussions never end :). DS

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 6

THE CORE OF TRANSMEDIA————————————————————————————————

Key elements: philosophical, “deep thoughts”, “not sure I understand what I’m really saying either”, “but really I do” “I think”

In this subsection I’ve put the texts and posts that talk about transmedia and transmedia development on more of a meta-plane; some might be slightly philosophical, some perhaps less so. What the texts all have in common is that they try to look at the essence of transmedia and different transmedia genres, and examine bits and pieces of that essence, many times through things I was working on at the time of the posts. The posts are divided by their own headline and date of original publishing, but they do not necessarily appear in a chronological order.

I believe this might be the right place to jot down the expected “My Definition of Transmedia”. I’m pretty sure there are as many definitions as there are professionals and scholars in this field, something which became quite clear in the definitions debate in the spring and summer of 2011. In my book, transmedia is telling stories over a number of media platforms, stories that are connected to a higher or lesser degree, but always connected and rooted in a common story world. Simple as that, really; and as I usually need definitions of transmedia for only one purpose - to keep my mind straight when developing transmedia - it works well for me.

For a clear and concise post on what transmedia is NOT, I’d suggest you’d read Jenkins’ post on “Seven transmedia myths debunked”.

The Interviewees

The two people interviewed under this headline are Jeff Gomez and Nick DeMartino. Jeff is one of the foremost advocates of transmedia that I know, and Nick has a wealth of experience reaching back decades - I believe between them they’re covering most of the ground needed!

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 7

The Three Facets of Transmedia21st of February 2011

There has been an interesting discussion going on over at the Storyworld group on LinkedIn, about transmedia; what should be constituted as transmedia and what should be filed under ”flimsy cross media marketing”, to quote, and what should be taken into consideration when transmediating content. Deriving from that, I felt the need to expand on a couple of points, regarding the three different facets of a transmedia project:

The telling of a story

Transmedia storytelling is, at its core, simply that. By spreading out over different media and by creating a greater whole, we move deeper into the realms of transmedia. What it is, is basically the art and technique of telling a story, or rather multiple stories, connected directly or indirectly inside a larger story world and/or narrative superstructure and/or mythology.

As we all know, this can be done in many ways; through characters in blogs, through exciting and engaging television drama series, through sms, Twitter, Facebook, apps… The key is create the stories and the world, and use the platforms that comes naturally to the different parts of the story

Engaging an audience

The second facet is also crucial, that of embracing the audience and bringing them into the story/stories, to sandboxes or cheese-holes or perhaps even to less structured, more open areas in the structure of the stories and the story world.

This, of course, as many have discussed, profoundly changes the notion of an audience. Your audience is your audience, but at the same time they are your co-creators, investing themselves in your story and inevitably bringing change with them. It is then up to you, the creator, to choose just how much change you want. But generally, the more people invest, the closer they will feel to your content. Best case scenario, you not only have an audience and a horde of co-creators, you also have advocates that bring your stories to people in a fashion you yourself never could.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 8

Financing your creations

The third facet is that of building sustainable financial structures, which have to be re-developed for each case, just as the stories and the worlds are re-developed for each new project. Transmedia projects have so many variables in play, that they inevitably become different from each other – more different than, say, television series or feature films. This leads to the creators needing to re-think the financing for every project; for sure there is a measure of recycling financing models from previous transmedia projects, but there will always be new possibilities in the context of a new project. This – sustainable financial structures – can take many shapes; from brands financing the lot to crowd sourced funding via IndieGoGo or a similar service.

Win-win-win

I firmly believe that to transmediate content opens up a whole lot of new possibilities to turn a project into a win-win-win situation, where you as a content creator win since you can tell more stories to more people in more ways, and get more and better (as in more fitting with your project) money in when you can play with a number of platforms and a number of stories. The brands or financiers win since you can target their message better, and since there is room for more financiers to partake - tv, online, books, mobile - the cost is less per participant with more bang for the buck as the end result. Finally the audience wins, as you have more money to make better content and make it available on more platforms to be even easier to obtain, engage and participate with and advocate for the audience.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 9

Transmedia - the story of the story10th of November, 2010.

I find it exhilarating and exciting to follow the current flow of interesting discussions and even more interesting projects and examples of transmedia bouncing around the Internet these past few weeks. Suddenly it seems like everyone is talking transmedia, from a great number of angles.

So, having read some tweets and comments on current transmedia projects today, I found myself sitting staring vacantly into space, my mind trying to grasp some thought that just did not want to be grasped. Irritating in the extreme, as I'm sure you all agree.

The glimpses I could see of the thought implied that it had something to do with the core and underlying premises of transmedia. I finally gave up and decided to start writing instead, hoping it’d show up.

After a while, it did. And with it, and in the sentences before this one that gave the setting and the background of it’s arrival, it brought the meaning of transmedia. It’s not the story you’re telling. It’s the story about the story, that gives your story meaning - that’s transmedia.

In that sense, we actually don’t need media. So, in the most simplified sense, there’s nothing for the transmedia to trans- around from and to.

OK, so we have no trans- and we have no –media. What’s up with that? I found myself thinking. Wasn’t it namely transmedia that I’ve been happily embracing for the past year or so?

Actually, I don’t think it’s transmedia I’ve been embracing. I have not, for instance, been embracing the production of storylines on three different media, stemming from the same storyworld but adding to each other rather than copying or duplicating each other. Or rather, I have, but that has rather been a by-product.

What I’ve been embracing is the thought process and the development process of creating more than you need, just in case (and there is always the case). The process of not saying ”this is enough, we don’t need more than this” but rather ”hey hang on, let’s elaborate on that for a bit”. The process of building the story, and at the

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 10

same time the story of the story, to enable new stories and explain and expand on old ones.

It’s like you’re planting a sapling and nurse it to be a massive tree, trunk and all – even if audiences just pick the fruit, i.e. your stories, the stories would not be there to be enjoyed without the work before.

At this point, the elusive thought let out a sigh and went away, mission fulfilled. I will continue to grow the tree tomorrow, and at lot of other trees as well. See, the telling of the story, that tells of the story, that's work that's never done.

Comment: Paul Burke said...Agreed. If you come at a project from a tech perspective things fall apart very quickly. Story and narrative can **lead** to undiscovered narrative structures and journeys for the audience. You probably could have a go at doing it the other way around but you will surely come back to story / narrative in the end.

There is something about story and experience which are subtly different though. Need to think on that a bit!

To extend your analogy: I really like that you can grow different and super tasty fruit on the well crafted branches of one transmedia tree;)

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 11

Twain on Transmedia17th of February 2011

Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.

- Mark Twain

Through the wonderful world of Twitter, I was pointed in the direction of a post on Mark Twain and social media from last summer. Twain had, some 120-odd years ago, written a piece on how to tell a story. It’s a good and true read, and in many ways instantly transferrable to any transmedia project being considered or developed today. In his text Twain refers to the two ways to tell a story – the humorous way and the witty way. Says Twain –

The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter.The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the comic and witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous story bubbles gently along, the others burst.

The humorous story, Twain argues, needs an artist to tell it right. The witty story, on the other hand, is a story that could be told by a machine.

This is, I feel, a kind of crossroads where transmedia is today, as more and more people are beginning to see the uses of a transmedia approach to telling a story, as producers and companies can point to increasing revenues from transmedia projects and as technical and sociological means and practices open up newer, quicker and deeper ways of telling stories over different media.

Some will be – are, already, actually – going the ”comic/witty” way of developing and creating transmedia. To, again, quote Twain:

[…] the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at you--every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whooping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 12

I see that as a great pointer to what NOT to do with a transmedia story. There is no magic and no fun – and most of all, nothing to discover – in a story that someone is banging you over the head with, no matter how the story unfolds over different media platforms and/or turns out hundreds of different merchandize possibilities. On the other hand, as the quote on top says, an ideal transmedia story could also have ”no order to it, and the reader (user) would have to discover his own.” …which is an approach that tickles the imagination a lot more vigorously.

As Bill Wren, who wrote the post on Twain and social media, translates Twain’s musings, there are two ways to tell a story; the right way and the wrong way. It all depends on your ulterior motives:

As Twain describes it, telling stories is manipulative. However, the reason for the manipulation is what makes it a good or bad thing. Doing it to delight your audience is good; doing it to bamboozle them into doing something that profits you, is bad.

So, with the possibility of transmedia as a term being connected to a lot of not-so-beautiful projects in the near future – and with Steve Peters’ tweet from yesterday, which I believe was a reaction to the massive transmedia hype at the NY Toys Fair (which actually was mostly franchising in the traditional sense), in mind – we might be wanting to take care of the term transmedia a bit more. For me, transmedia has been - and still is - a term that tells of possibilities and excitement, not necessarily revenue streams and franchising. If too many projects labels "transmedia" are told in Twains comic/witty way, we might be looking for a new term in the not so distant future.

On the other hand, terms are terms, and should not be taken too seriously. It’s what we create, why we create it, how we create it and how we execute it that matters. However, to round off with a final quote from the great Mark Twain, I think transmedia, in all of it’s momentum forward, might want to rein in a bit and reassess:

Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation. - Mark Twain

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 13

The ”Why” of Transmedia21st of June 2011

I’m thrilled to see a great many transmedia projects springing up all around the world, in different settings; from marketing campaigns for blockbusters and tv series to crowdsourced international mystery-stories, from web based crime fiction projects to socially engaged documentaries – the powers of transmedia storytelling are being grasped and acted upon my a steadily increasing number of practitioners. The like-button is firmly pressed for my part.

One thing I myself have found to be of great importance to keep in mind when developing stories and content for a transmedia project is the simple question ”why”? It might sound naive, but believe me, it can at times be a hard question to answer, at least in a way that would satisfy yourself, let alone anyone you would like to invest in your project.

A simple ”because I (or we) can” just does not cut it. That’s a sure-fire way of developing something that doesn’t fit together in the seamless and logical way that’s crucial for any transmedia project. There are just too many pitfalls along the way; there is no need to go digging them yourself.

”Because it’s cool” or "because it's what everyone is doing nowadays" are hardly better reasons. Yes, it will be cool, providing you get it right. Chances are you won’t, and it will not, therefore, be particularly cool. Yes, many others are doing it. This does not mean that you, necessarily, should be doing it as well.

If it’s a transmedia marketing campaign for a release of some kind, that makes it infinitely easier. It’s”to raise awareness of this particular property” or ”to make people engage in the content and get more viewers in through word-of-mouth”. In this sense you know what you’re aiming for and your results are possible to observe, analyze and draw conclusions from.

Another reason, especially if we are talking about a transmedia campaign connected to an existing property (the new Pottermore instalment might be an example) can be ”to extend the storyworld and offer more content to an engaged audience”. This is a reason that probably could be adapted to most transmedia projects, and in that sense needs more clarification – is it ”to offer alternative or complementary stories set in the original storyworld”? Or is it ”to give the audience a playing field, a

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 14

sandbox, intended for user generated content”? Is it something else?

It can also be ”to explain the background and the history of the main property in the story” or ”to expand on the mythology through new stories” or even ”to act as a behind-the-scenes view of the main property” (especially in the case of transmedia documentaries).

Whatever reason you have for developing transmedia content (and the answers to the ”why?” above are probably as many and as diverse as the number of transmedia projects in existence), ”Why?” remains a good question to ask, at any point of the development, production and execution phase.

PS. It was swiftly pointed out to me that one - perhaps one of the most central - reason for transmedia would be "to generate revenue" and in the long run "to increase the value of the IP". I will concur, although I will add that at the moment I think most of the transmedia projects we are seeing are pretty happy just to break even. Thanks Simon Pulman for pointing it out. DS

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 15

Interview - Jeff Gomez

Jeff Gomez is the world’s leading producer of transmedia entertainment properties. He is an expert at incubating new entertainment franchises, strategic planning and production for cross-platform implementation. As CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Jeff leverages intellectual properties into global franchises that successfully navigate an array of media channels. Jeff has worked on such blockbuster universes as Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, Microsoft's Halo and James Cameron's Avatar. He sits on the board of the Producers Guild of America East, as well as on the PGA New Media Council. Jeff has also recently joined the Advisory Council to Power to the Pixel. Follow him on Twitter at @Jeff_Gomez.

There’s been an at times fairly heated debate on “what is transmedia?”. You’ve kept a fairly low profile, not arguing for or against any notion. How come?

Not my job, man. I've been working for a very long time to get a lot of people to understand the basic concept of transmedia narrative, the bits that most of us can agree on. That task is pretty much done, at least in the entertainment industry, so Starlight Runner is moving on to joining with our partners and clients do this better and better.

Many of your projects constitute marketing to some extent; is this a future for transmedia? In the post of Mark Twain on Transmedia he talks about the witty story (marketing, shouting from rooftops) in contrast to the humorous story (which needs an artist to tell it right). Where do you feel transmedia has its’ home and why?

Good transmedia storytelling involves marketing on two fronts:

1. The infrastructure of marketing can actually be leveraged to help tell the story. It can be used to familiarize people with the story world, and familiarity helps to draw people in. I so wish that the pre-release marketing of Martin Scorcese's "Hugo" did more to familiarize young people with that story world, so that the audience held a stronger stake in seeing how the movie turns out, because it is such a great and important film and it's underperforming in the United States. Instead the movie was just sprung on its audience, and odd-looking period fantasy dramas simply haven't done well without an indoctrination process. Transmedia marketing could have helped introduce Scorcese's story and direct connect with the audience well in

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 16

advance. And,

2. But the true role of marketing in good transmedia storytelling is that it becomes a flourish of brushstrokes on a much larger canvas. Marketers need to be empowered by the studio to extend the voice of the storyteller. They need to use their talent to engage a mass audience, but with the firepower of being able to build upon the narrative or further explore the story world. But the same holds true for licensees, social media campaigns, everything.

Above is a post I wrote on the “Why” of transmedia; do you stop and ask “why?” Is it something you do for every project or not at all? And what is most often the answer?

Well, first I appreciate that you ask such questions. "Why?" is everything to me. Asking "why" things need to be the way they are is what got me as far as I've come in life. Any good storyteller, whether they are communicating through music, through television or through prose, needs to understand (intuitively or through experience) what techniques are going to be most effective in their chosen medium. The same works if you are mixing or combining media. Starlight Runner has turned down work not because the project was too large or too small, but because the project didn't lend itself, in our opinion, to transmedia narrative. Sometimes a violin concerto simply doesn't necessitate the composition of a symphony around it.

You’re probably the best speaker on transmedia I know. One of your cornerstones is authenticity; there needs to be authentic content, based on real feelings, real pain, real longing… so, what would your ideal transmedia project look like?

You just described it. My ideal transmedia project tells a story that is striking and resonant with its audience, fostering their participation and creative expression within the context of the story world, but also sparking dialog between us all outside of the story world. The power of this technique is that it triggers action, whether that is the action of "liking" something on Facebook or the action of taking an insight from the story and your dialog with the story world and applying it toward improving your life in the real world. Think of all the scientists and computer experts inspired to their careers by Star Trek and Tron; all kids moved to become environmentalists because of Avatar; the Harry Potter Alliance committed to acts of social good around the world. Amazing!

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 17

I’ve heard several voices arguing that transmedia isn’t quite “there” yet and doesn’t have the ability to evoke the same deep feelings as more traditional media forms. At the same time, transmedia can encompass all these types of media forms if they fit the context of the property. Is this a concern for you on any level? If transmedia is to be an own artistic expression, what steps are needed to get there?

I look at the things you're talking about here from a completely different perspective. What ever the entry point to the story world might be—movie, television show, YouTube video—if the narrative resonates with me and I want more, I'm going to go after it. So the content has to be evocative and compelling in the first place.

Whether the transmedia implementation was created purposefully or not, Star Wars, Doctor Who and Star Trek have been generating exciting, emotionally enthralling stories for years, as have any number of rich fictional worlds from Japanese pop culture. So what's relatively new here, and what we are doing at Starlight Runner, is to bring a true and meaningful design sensibility to the unfolding of these story worlds across these platforms.

By thinking about the best way to tell different aspects of the story in different media forms in such a way as to increase the level of intimacy and emotional intensity of the experience, and then to play these aspects out in concert—that's what will make for transmedia as artistic expression.

Finally, how do you envisage the future of transmedia in, say, 2015?

By 2015, transmedia narrative will have taken root as a form of artistic expression unto itself.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 18

Interview - Nick DeMartino

Nick DeMartino has a background as Senior VP for Media & Technology at the American Film Institute for over two decades, creating a range of innovative programs at the intersection of technology and creativity, leading the AFI into innovative developments and creating opportunities for thousands of creative professionals. A visionary pioneer in the development of breakthrough media, DeMartino provides strategic consulting services for creative businesses, producers, nonprofits, philanthropists and educators. He is @nickdemartino on Twitter.

How have you seen the transmedia industry evolve during the past couple of years? Where do you think it will end up? An accepted part swallowed by the rest of the media industry or something else?

It's interesting that you set "two years" as your marker. In March or April it will be two years since the formalization of a "transmedia" credit by the Producers Guild, the specifics of which drew fire from some practitioners, and gained a good deal of attention from all parts of the industry, as I have written in my series in June, 2011. I have to confess that until I dug deeply into the issue, I did not understand the various tribal strands within the transmedia community, even though I knew a lot of the practitioners and had been championing multi-platform media for nearly 20 years as the chief digital guy at the American Film Institute.

So, from that I would have to conclude that the emergence of the concept of "transmedia" and the struggle over its definition has given much greater visibility to the field than ever before, certainly within mainstream media companies. We see evidence all around: the emergence of new divisions and partnerships within mainstream companies, the de rigeur commissioning by many movie, game and television properties of "transmedia" extensions, the increase (though not enormous) of investment capital behind various transmedia studios, the experimentation in multi-platform release of properties by "name" talent, and increased credibility of independents who aspire to create breakthroughs in transmedia storytelling.

I have also experienced first hand in the last six month a palpable surge of activity within the "movement" of transmedia activists, by which I mean practitioners who are true believers in aspects of the storytelling form which are fundamental and not simply extensions of existing media. Among the most interesting areas, to me at least, are new platforms for story creation and audience co-creation, new

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 19

organizations (like StoryCode.org and the t-m meet-ups overall), the Story World Conference, and increased attention from academia.

You’ve seen hypes come and go, methods and technical innovations likewise; is transmedia different? What earlier phase would you most liken it too?

This feels to me like the early 90s independent film community, in terms of organization-building, in terms of the search for business models, in terms of the uneasy alliance with mainstream distribution, in terms of the fluidity of the story forms themselves, and in terms of the openness for access to the means of production. What is different, of course, is the collapse of many of the existing indie film models (business, distribution), and the rise of a much more media-savvy audience that is willing to experiment on a small scale without permission from the mainstream culture.

Does anyone actually care about "transmedia", except for part of the practicioners? Is the audience just reaching for great experiences no matter what label they have?

I have no answer yet for this question. There is a sense, as there was in the early 90s indie film world, that everything is changing and it's an amazing time to be creative. At the end of the day, of course, this will only be true if the work reaches and touches audiences. I have written more than once that I've yet to cry from a transmedia production. Film makers and other artists working with forms that are decades or hundreds of years old have conventions to rely upon (and react agains) which generate emotional connection with audiences. If transmedia storytellers are inventing both the form and the story, they have a harder time making the connection truly emotional, which is all that really matters in story. I personally don't think that "faux" stories, genre stories, scavenger hunts, and other examples of transmedia elements we have seen to date are very significant in the history of storytelling. I'm not yet sure what is.

What, for you, have been amongst the most exciting transmedia-related things to happen over the past year? Why?

From the perspective of community-building, I really do think Story World was important, as are other conclaves that bring the practitioners together. In my world, I did not encounter a work of art that touched me especially, certainly not like dozens

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 20

of movies and television programs and books have. I'm still waiting.

Do you feel confident that there actually WILL be a transmedia project that will touch you like the television programs, books etc you mentioned? Or are we looking at a long and winding road to build the same conventions as other art forms?

I'm not sure that "transmedia" per se is a new art form in itself. Right now, as I see it, we have an emerging style of story telling that utilizes a series of techniques and attitudes which are largely enabled by new media capabilities. That sounds like the definition of a format more than a full blown media form, if the distinction matters. One might look at "reality television" as an analogous form, as I have written. I began making videotaped documentaries back in the early 80s that were able to capture reality in a new way, largely because small-format portable video technology production and low-cost videotape allowed it to happen. We called it documentary, not reality TV. Arguably the first mainstream "reality TV" show was Alan and Susan Raymond's AN AMERICAN FAMILY on PBS, immortalized this year by HBO in "Cinema Verite". That show was shot on 16mm film, but was influenced by a "let the camera roll" sensibility of the video movement, certainly as much as the "verite" pioneers from 16mm filmmaking (Leacock, Pennebaker, Wiseman). It was also influenced by the emergence of PBS, an outlet that was willing to run many hours over weeks to the story, unlike earlier films, which hewed to the 90-120minute limit of theatrical exhibition. I would say that the first "reality television" series was Bunim-Murray's "Real World" on MTV, which debuted in 1992, just shy of 20 years after "An American Family." The show was made possible by continuing advances in low-cost video tools (not just cameras, but desktop video editing) and again, the willingness of a network to support the concept. In addition, there was a noticeable shift in ethics, with regards to how much content was "real" and how much was coached. As the HBO movie brought out, there was a LOT of tension around how much "reality" was warped by the presence of cameras, as if somehow anyone imagined it wouldn't be. By the time of REAL WORLD, the whole thing was created artificially FOR the cameras, and shaped for entertainment value, not as a journalistic or sociological deep dive into an existing world. 

In the intervening period there were certainly many many programs that used verite documentary techniques in multi-part series. (Scared Straight, etc.). But they didn't get pegged as "reality television." 

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 21

I'd say that the '00s have been a decade in which masters of the form have emerged, people who have stories to tell and have experimented with tools and techniques as well as assembling resources to do so well. The best examples of what is possible seem to have come from organizations with resources, LOST, HEROES, TRUTH ABOUT MARIKA, CONSPIRACY FOR GOOD are examples. In every case there has been a key visionary (or team) who manage to assemble resources from a patron (broadcaster, sponsor, public authority). I think some of the best of the lot have track records in transmedia that can become the basis for wholly original work. I look forward to seeing that happen. Chances are, the stories that will be told will take aim at the genre market that seems most willing to be adventurous.

I'm probably not a good arbiter of success in this realm, as I'm so tied to old media forms and I'm not that keen on some of the genres in question. But I'm certainly teachable. But the audience will follow the visionaries, of this I'm quite certain. Just as with indie film, or mainstream film or television, show-runners or auteurs or visionaries earn a reputation and a larger and larger fan base with each effort. I think we'll see this happen with the folks whose keep trying and working. I'm not sure how many at the indie level will make it, as the resource issue remains considerable. This is not a solo enterprise, or at least not on a sustainable basis. And that means people, and money. 

Where do you think transmedia as a whole will be in 2015?

Historically, movements are effective when they move the people who matter. Political movements change major parties and candidates and create public support for policy changes. In the media, we've seen (and I've been part of) many movements that sprang up in opposition to a mainstream which has limited participation, has marginalized voices and forms of content, or which have centralized control. We are in an era in which technology and consumer tastes favor decentralization and open access. The problem is not the ability to make stuff. It's the ability for the stuff to be any good, and to matter.

To the extent that the story forms and engagement modes have value, they will have certainly been assimilated into mainstream media by 2015. Television and digital distribution of cinema will almost certainly include as a matter of course various alternate story scenarios, engagement opportunities, and even co-creation opportunities for audiences. If audiences tire of this stuff, it will go away, to me the real question remains: will there be breakthroughs in content and form from the

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 22

outliers that capture attention and allegiance, not just from audiences, but as a flash in the zeitgeist. Today's zeitgeist seems almost entirely dominated by rapid turnover of functions and fads. Even huge digital incumbents like Facebook and Twitter are constantly innovating. This takes resources, which clearly the indies don't have.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 23

DEVELOPING TRANSMEDIA————————————————————————————————

Key elements: development, design, “hey, I didn’t think of that!”-moments

Developing transmedia takes on so many shapes and forms that it’s near impossible to cover them all. You can be appointed by a big studio with millions to burn on marketing or you could be chipping away at a transmedia art project all on your own in a university somewhere, or just about anything in between. Still, there are a number of things these all have in common; the use of multiple platforms and the challenges that come with such an approach, the need to tell a story (or several stories) that are branched out but still connect logically and effectively and engaging, the urge to reach an audience (and perhaps foster co-creation), the need to pay for it all… Developing transmedia - it’s the best headache you’ll ever have :).

In this chapter I’ve compiled some texts that I’ve written while heavily engaged in developing content, formats, stories, characters, audience engagement etc and so on. Sometimes I feel I just think to many thoughts and need to write them down to get the train of though straightened out, or I will never be able to remember how I ended up where you ended up in the first place…

The IntervieweeThe interview is with Andrea Phillips, as I believe she, with her diverse track record of developing transmedia projects of many different varieties, is the right person to voice an opinion on the subject.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 24

Musings on transmedia development26th of October 2010

We (i.e. I and my colleagues at MediaCity Finland) started out as developers of interactive television-formats some five-six years ago. These were based on television as the core of the content, with interactivity included either via mobile phones or via digital set-top-boxes. We realized very early on that if you want to develop something that should accompany a traditional piece of content - like a tv show - you needed to develop the two (or more) together from the start. Thus you avoided the awkward feeling of added content being slapped onto existing content, without any form of seamless and enjoyable experience.

As time has gone by, we have thankfully been able to let go of the limited MHP interactivity for set-top-boxes and have happily embraced the cross media / transmedia approach to telling stories, be they music shows, kids shows, game shows or just about any kind of content. Now, some things are always good to keep in mind while starting up or being in the development phase of a transmedia project:

First off, make sure you're developing and creating compelling content - you need a great story to function as the framework, with enough holes in it for the audience to be able to fill in stuff themselves and become engaged in the story (Jeff Gomez's "Swiss Cheese-model"). Don't forget the narrative superstructure - build it solid enough to serve as a vehicle for this particular story, but also as a bed for future stories (from past, present and future in the story universe) to spring from.

Secondly (but developed at the same time so it all fits together nicely without any last-minute panic solutions, thank you very much) - logical ways for the audience/users to connect to the story, from platforms that are themselves logical ways into the story. I.e., do not make an iPad app just 'cause everyone else has one. If it's not essential for how you experience the story, leave it out.

Thirdly, get out there and get some traction for your content. Lots of stuff gets developed and produced and perhaps gets a blog mention or three, topping out at 452 users over a three month period. Don't do that. Get those people interested that can tip your little thing over the edge and into the abyss of a global phenomena. Get everyone to step over that invisible "WTF"-threshold (the threshold where you KNOW you should be doing something else but you're seeing thousands of people (who also should be doing something else) involving themselves in the story and

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 25

having the time of their lives, so you think "Oh hell, WTF" and you jump right in). How? Read up on Propagation Planning. As they say - plan not for the people you reach, but the people they reach. Find your spokespersons. Be inclusive, not exclusive. Which nicely builds over to...

Be interactive. Listen. Communicate. You're probably not right every time, and others may have better ideas for your story and it's development. Face it - it is no longer yours only. Embrace that fact and take it onwards - it's all a good thing.

Lastly, don't leave people hanging. There's nothing worse than getting peoples expectations up and then letting them down. They have invested in your creation. Make sure they get full value for their investment. If you do, they'll be back.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 26

Creating a Transmedia Symphony16th of November 2010

I re-read the article in Wired on transmedia today, and found it as good a read as the first time. Coming to the last paragraph I read Jeff Gomez’s comment about transmedia and the birth of a new Mozart, ”We are going to see visionaries who understand the value of each media platform as if it’s a separate musical instrument, who’ll create symphonic narratives which leverage each of these multimedia platforms in a way that will create something we haven’t encountered yet.”

This rings true for me as an analogy of what many of us are trying to create. The question that popped up in my head was, however, “but hey, how do you create a “normal” symphony?”. Lo and behold, a Google search later I found this wikihow on, yes, how to create a symphony. After reading it, the analogy rings truer still. So, to translate the creation of a “normal” symphony to the creation of a transmedia symphony, these would/could be the steps to take:

1. Before considering creating a transmedia symphony, you most know a lot of the theory behind the storytelling and the structure, as well as the analysis of audiences and the different media platforms. If you have done this, follow the next steps.

2. Be inspired. Take some time, relax, bring som inspirational material with you somewhere and create. Wherever you are, when the ideas suddenly pop up in your mind, write them down, no matter how small. Keep letting life inspire you until you have a bunch of these ideas. Try to make your ideas connect with people on an emotional level.

3. You’re going to need some good writing and scheduling software. Set up your project thoroughly, with all the different elements in place from the beginning. In this way you can see how they fit together, and where strengthening is needed. The base of the project is the story and a couple of platforms. Unless you’re taking on a massive Hollywood project you shouldn’t need to worry about every possible platform and outlet. It’s all up to you, what you want your project to look like and how you want it to be perceived.

4. When you’ve selected the platforms you want to work on, go back to your ideas. Expand on them, build the world around them, put them in the middle of some

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 27

context and think about how you would like to introduce them, and how you will digress from them as the narrative rolls on. Which ideas would be best at the beginning, or in the middle of the narrative? What should be the grand finale? Slowly add onto these ideas and interlink them. Make sure to stay within logical boundaries and watch for errors that would throw an audience off. This is of course unless you really feel you want some of these. Many creators throughout history have sought out theoretical guidelines, but if you encounter an opportunity to do something which breaks the rules but really feels right to you in the context of the piece, you might want to leave it in.

5. Eventually you will have a number of different, fleshed-out ideas going on. Try to get them all work in the same context, yet have their own unique style. You will use this to develop the different movements of your work. Keep expanding on these ideas, adding subplots, side characters, and so on. Watch and study other great transmedia projects to hear, see and feel how they progress, to help give you ideas of your own.

6. Eventually each idea will become a decently long plot. Do a walkthrough of all the different parts of your project. Does it flow right? Change and fix anything that does not feel right. Remember the interlinking of the different parts and how they should exist in the same story world and fit logically in the same context. Keep refining your project until it is complete.

7. This creative process may take a while, but by this step you should have a fully developed transmedia project down on paper. Take it to a group of people you know closely, or perhaps a group of students, and narrate the project to them, or ask them to partake of any material you have produced so far, like written text, graphic novels, online portals etc. Observe them partake of your idea. Did they experience it like you expected? Were their reactions the desired ones? Make sure you have the possibility to write down comments and reactions on the spot.

8. Go back to your transmedia mess and make a second draft with the comments and reactions taken in. Repeat these two steps until you are satisfied.

9. Take it to someone in the industry. It depends on your idea, but could be anything from a broadcaster to a production company, from a publisher to a telecom operator, depending on your idea and the platforms you’re concentrating on. Rehearse your pitch well, and reel them in with your great story and magnificent

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 28

execution.

10. If you get traction and commissioning (or at least adequate funding) - Voila! Time to unleash your transmedia symphony on the world!

...and after writing this down, the analogy still rings true. Granted, there might be a lot more involvement from different sources from the beginning - brands, partners, tech etc - but if I start developing a new transmedia idea, this could work pretty well! There is also other aspects, like the need for a viable business plan etc, but we're talking symphonies now, so I omitted those :)

(Credits go to the Wikihow users who wrote the original post: BoldStepFixer, Gewg, Johnny, Nicole Willson, Maluniu, BR, Sarah Eliza and KP, wikiHow user(s) Isabelle C, Getmoreatp, Geena04, J424, Tryme2 and Anonymous.)

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 29

The NOT of Transmedia9th of November 2011

Late yesterday evening, as I sat writing on a transmedia mystery/horror novel I like to keep at hand as my own personal pet project – a combination of jet lag and a full moon helps no end when you want to work nights, see – I had a small revelation.

I had written a couple of pages and felt pretty good about myself, so I started looking over the mindmap of all extensions from and to the novel and from and to the story world the novel is based in (and trust me, as with all transmedia projects, these are legio) and a pattern suddenly emerged before me. It had a big fat headline as well, that pattern – a headline that said ”NOT!”.

You see, as I gazed at the arrows and the dots and the squares and the texts, I realized that transmedia is as much about what you decide NOT to use, as what you eventually end up actually USING. As was stated at the Storyworld conference – all stories can be developed in a transmedia direction; not nearly all need or deserve it. If your project does need and deserve to have transmedia methods applied to them, it is very important to evaluate your project from the angle of ”what makes sense”. I.e., even though you’ve already registered the YouTube channel and you really want to produce them awesome webisodes and put them out there – if all your project needs is a blog, an automated e-mail response system and a novel, then that’s what your project should use.

The same goes for interaction with the audience. I know many who argue that an inherent trait of transmedia storytelling is the activating and incorporating of the audience, inviting them to take an active part in the storytelling. I would disagree, as I believe you can deliver fullfledged transmedia content without the audience doing much more than choosing what to consume on which platform. I.e., use UGC or user interaction when it makes sense, NOT when it doesn’t!

The list goes on, but I’m sure you get my point. Your transmedia project will be defined as much by what you did NOT utilize within the scope of it as by what you DID utilize.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 30

Transmedia, Time and Context3rd of June, 2011

A couple of posts have gotten my mind working overtime these past couple of days. Andrea Phillips wrote an excellent post on Time and Transmedia, highlighting the challenges facing anyone working in different time periods within a story, in a real world where viewers can start experiencing that story from just about any point possible. In the comments, Scott Walker pointed me to a post of his that I’d missed last year, on the challenges and possibilities of collaborative transmedia storytelling. Many good points, and with so many people moving into the field of transmedia from numerous different angles, these posts are simply required reading.

My point of view on these matters come from the field of creating a transmedia experience from scratch, without any previous brand or franchise to fall back on. It is an experience that is unfolding in real time, which at the same time will live and prosper drawing on the power of the long tail. In this context, context is, as we have found, crucial. There will be many people entering the story from many different angles, and the story might have unfolded to just about any point. As I see it, there are some points that need to be taken into consideration:

- The foundation needs to be solid. In order to attain this, you must have a grasp of the time line of the project, and a general notion of the story archs and the schedules involved. At the same time, you cannot lock everything into place (at least not with a project like ours, that is expected to run and run) or you will be stifled.

- The foundation needs to be communicated clearly and without any discrepancies. This goes for communicating outside the team producing the content as well as within the team. In this matter, the task of simplifying is crucial. Test and try and test again; if the story world and the basis for the stories you are about to create and tell people is blurry, press the ”sharpen” button immediately. This is not to say that everything needs to be told from the start – quite the contrary – but everyone involved, be it a viewer, a user, a programmer, a writer… everyone needs to see the same thing when they look at your story world and your story.

- Once this is achieved, you need to drop the reins, but give some clear options on how to interact, how to create within your world etc. This goes when it comes to letting an audience interact and create, but also when it comes to not locking down people on the project, but instead give them the right tools and the motivation to,

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 31

themselves, create and interact within your project. It is nigh impossible to put all this on one person’s shoulders – much better (and much more true!) to give key people the mandate to interact with each other and with the audience, within the context of your story and story world. You’d be amazed at what springs up.

- Finally – don’t panic! With most projects you’ll be involved in that are of a more documentary type – like ours – there will be humans involved. Everyone will also know that there are humans involved. Everyone also knows that humans make mistakes. Mistakes can even be beneficial, as long as you handle them in a way that makes sense within the context of your story and your story world. In a life-affirming, warm story and world, you laugh it off and the audience laughs with you. In a dark and brooding and violent story arc, you behead someone on the team with a vicious snarl towards the audience, and the audience winces in terror but nods knowingly (and this is purely fictional then, of course. If you really behead someone on your team and refers to this post in your defense, I will not be held responsible).

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 32

The Value of Truth in Transmedia31st of December, 2010

There are many important aspects to consider when starting out creating a transmedia property. There is creating the mythology, the narrative superstructure, as deep and rich as possible. There is timing all different releases, and making sure the right things get released on the right platforms. There is securing a sound financial basis to stand on – i.e., where’s the money going to come from?

Every aspect is vital, some to the core of the story being told, some to the framework around the story that lets it find its’ audience and gives its’ creators and producers funds to work with to take the story in the direction it is supposed to go. But since everything about a transmedia project, in my opinion, goes back to the need to engage an audience and give them the best experience possible, I’ve found truth to be the most important aspect.

”Truth” in transmedia, as I see it, is the simple fact that everything needs to fit. The things that do not fit must also fit, as non-fitting parts (carefully planned, naturally) or be re-developed or omitted. We as human beings can tell when things are not as they should be, when they are not true. We might have been conditioned to set aside our beliefs, or willingly believe in certain things, but if we just let our instincts guide us, we mostly have the gut feeling of what’s wrong and what’s right, what’s ”True” and what’s false.

”Truth” in transmedia is keeping in mind that platforms do not matter, OS or programming languages do not matter. What matters is the story and that the users experience it the way you as the creator/producer planned for it to be experienced.

”Truth” in transmedia is a fragile thing. It can be shattered by a wrongly worded tweet from a character in a series. It contains a lot of pitfalls – and I know from my own experience that you, as a developer, will fall into many of them. The trick is to recognize when you’re in a pit and quickly get your ass out of there before anyone notices. You might need help to climb out of the pit. You might experience resistance, in the form of partners, sponsors, financiers, directors. But you know what ”truth” means in your creation. Stick to that.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 33

Interview - Andrea Phillips

Andrea Phillips is an award-winning transmedia writer, game designer and author. Her work includes a variety of educational and commercial projects, including Floating City with Thomas Dolby, The Maester's Path for HBO's Game of Thrones, America 2049 with human rights nonprofit Breakthrough, Routes Game for Channel 4 Education, the independent commercial ARGPerplex City, and The 2012 Experience for Sony Pictures. She is also working on Balance of Powers, an independent, crowdfunded experiment in serial storytelling using a freemium business model. Her book, A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling, will be published by McGraw-Hill in the spring of 2012. Find her on Twitter - @andrhia.

Or, alternatively, her description could read “She was raised by witches and invented the paper clip. She lives in a hovel on chicken legs in the woods."

You choose.

How do you ideally approach a transmedia project?

When I start a project, the first thing I try to figure out is what my goal is. Sometimes, as in a marketing project, it's something like "get people to subscribe to an email list," or "persuade people to seethis film." Sometimes it's "Let's see what kind of a story you can tell using this weird tool." And sometimes it starts from a more narrative point of view; in that case, the goal is "How do I explore this theme?" or "How can I best convey this piece of story?"

No one of these goals is superior -- they're all valid purposes for building a transmedia story. But the first and most important step is acknowledging what you're after, because it has a ripple effect on every other decision you make.

Can you identify rookie mistakes to be avoided when starting out developing transmedia?

So many! One of the biggest mistakes is being ignorant of prior art. There is so much great work out there, going back years and years, and a lot of creators come into transmedia thinking they've invented it. Everyone would benefit if we could just stop reinventing the wheel, and if we could just learn from one another's mistakes.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 34

There's no shame in not being the first person to have an idea.

It's also common not to promote your work. There's a myth that cream rises to the top, that a really great project will get attention even if you don't actively send out press releases and Tweets telling everyone it's there. But it is a myth, and unfortunately the internet is not an attention meritocracy. You have to promote a transmedia property precisely the same way you'd promote a single-medium story.

In the context of promoting a transmedia property, is there any way you have found especially effective? Social media? Approaching bloggers (as with Game of Thrones)? Billboards?

The methods that work are going to depend on the project, basically, and what resources you have available. There's nothing about a transmedia narrative that renders it unfit for traditional marketing and publicity techniques -- trailers, billboards, posters, reaching out to journalists and to your natural fan communities. And as with other entertainment marketing, the more you have to spend, the more people you can reach. The place where transmedia has a leg-up is in making each of those contacts a rabbithole into the fictional experience -- a call to action to participate.

But you shouldn't try to get too cute and provide that rabbithole with no context regarding who you are and what they should expect if they follow through. It's nice to try to evoke an air of mystery, but if you can't establish credibility and a reason for your audience to care, hardly anyone is going to pay half a second's attention to your lovingly crafted and utterly non-informational item or website or email.

What single part of your transmedia developer career makes you the most proud to have achieved?

Gosh, I'm just proud to still be alive, you know? There are precious few people who get to make a full-time living doing this stuff. The fact that I'm still working and blogging after all these years -- that I haven't had to give it up and get a real job at an office in the city -- that's a bigger victory for me than any one project or award or talk.

If you’d be playing an instrument in the transmedia symphony orchestra, which and why?

Oh, a tricky one! I assume you're comparing a transmedia project to a symphony, and not the whole transmedia community -- that would be quite a bit different.

For the symphony of my projects, though, I'd fancy myself the composer who wrote

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 35

the music. Failing that, I'd say percussion. I'm the inexorable drumbeat that keeps each section on time and coordinated as the symphony plays out. With no beat, the rest of it kind of falls apart, doesn't it? And even in places where there is no drumming, the section is still an invisible presence as the rhythm keeping time inyour head. That's me!

Above is a post on “Truth in Transmedia” - what does “Truth” mean to you in the context of transmedia?

From your post, I think you're talking about 'truth' in the way that I talk about 'authenticity.' You want your story to feel genuine to your audience. Anything that isn't true to your characters and motivations, or true to your theme and vision, will pull an audience out of your story and injure the experience they're having.

That's not to say that everything should be completely realistic -- that's another rookie mistake, thinking realism is worthwhile for its own sake. And sometimes there are good reasons for not being realistic, if there is an ethical question, for example, or even if it's just more boring that way.

Finally, if you’d gaze into a crystal ball - where will transmedia be in 2015?

A prediction! I think we're going to see tremendous shifts happening in television. It's the medium best-suited to anchor an interactive transmedia narrative right now. It's episodic, very often entire communities consume the work at the same time, and it's fairly nimble compared to feature films and print publishing. I think we'll see -- not even innovation over the next few years, but such a volume of work that the transmedia element of a TV show will become a no-brainer. It won't be special; it'll be expected, and a show that doesn't do anything will feel like it's missing a beat.

But I also foresee the rise of more tightly integrated Star Wars-style transmedia franchises -- stories where something seeded in one platform has a payoff in another. Stories where each medium plays out a different subplot, and sheds new light on the whole. So far we've seen a lot of sequential franchising, but I think the guys with the big bucks are going to see the value in intertwining the stories so that each subsequent piece drives traffic to everything that's gone before. Transmedia isn't just good art, it's good business, too.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 36

THE TRANSMEDIA FORMAT————————————————————————————————

Key elements: formats, development, television, multiplatform

Developing formats is what I’ve been doing for the past six-seven years, along with selling them, negotiating etc. I.e., I know quite a bit about formats. I want to bring transmedia storytelling methods to the niche of entertainment that is formats… this, however, is easier said than done. In this chapter you’ll find some posts on precisely that - the challenges of integrating transmedia and formats.

The Interviewee

For this chapter I’ve talked to Nicoletta Iacobacci, as she is a person who knows the television industry intimately. She is also the head of cross media and multiplatform at the EBU and is right now overseeing the development of a very interesting multinational transmedia project, with more projects in the pipeline.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 37

What makes good transmedia?19th of December 2010

It is very encouraging to see how quickly transmedia has become a trend that not only is a buzzword or a hype, but rather a phenomenon that seems to grab peoples’ attention and imagination and spur them on to think in new ways, create new things and talk to new people.

There are still probably as many definitions of transmedia as there are people talking about transmedia. These are not necessarily differing all that much from each other, but rather in a nuance here or a nuance there. It’s all good though; we should all fear the day when we have the definite definition of what transmedia is. That’s the day when it’s time to start doing something else.

It’s not just talk either. A growing number of people are starting to venture into the field of transmedia to tell their stories. These range from major multi-million dollar ventures to small dramas or documentaries with next to no financial power behind them. Some will fail, even amongst the colossal ones, but some will succeed magnificently, even amongst the small ones – such is the way of the storytelling business.

As more and more projects are being developed, there seems to be a need to look beyond the ”what is transmedia?” or ”why transmedia?” to the much harder ”should I and this project go into transmedia?”.

From my personal point of view, I know that some of the projects I work on lend themselves nicely to transmedia development. Building the mythology, developing a canon, working on different storylines to be told via different platforms – even if it is a documentary, a music show or even a game show, it is quite possible. On the other hand, I know that some other projects – good projects, in and of themselves! – would not benefit from a transmedia treatment. They are stories that either would not be enhanced by expanding the universe they exist in, or stories that would carry a much too hefty price tag, should a transmedia development and implementation take place.

Some people in the transmedia field were kind enough to give me their opinion on the matter, and there is a pattern, at least so far. Tyler Weaver – do check out Whiz!Bam!Pow!, a project I’m looking forward to seeing more of – was of the opinion that

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 38

the story was the most important feature. As he said:

- The most important thing - a good story. I just want a good story well told. If I want to welcome the characters into my home (good or bad), it's a good story that I want to revisit.

We all probably agree with this. It has to be a good story, for there to be anything to build around. It also needs to be a story that can have a mythology, a universe of its own (even if it is our own, real universe we’re talking about). If it’s a thin story, or unengaging, or linear withour the possibility of other storylines touching it, there’s just no way it would ever make a good transmedia entity. (I do, btw, love that definition of a character in a story – ”if I would want to welcome them into my home” – and will happily start using it to gauge the characters in my stories).

Sparrow Hall, of Nightworks and Two Blue Wolves fame, shared his beliefs:

- What attracts me to transmedia: the ability to inhabit the environment/vibe of a story, to see deeper into characters. What engages me with transmedia: seeing how consistent art direction and tonality is achieved over multiple mediums. Subtlety. High production value even with little to no budget. Authenticity of feeling/language. Also the multiplatform aspect needs to feel compelling/enriching, not just a device to continue.

Many things to agree with. Also, naturally, the possibility to offer many entrypoints, as well as exit points, to and from your story universe, to let the users/viewers/audience participate, either freely or via the Swiss cheese model and to, through all these actions, find new stories where you thought there were no more stories to be told.

So, to apply this on what one should do when assessing a development project; if there is a reason for there to be more than one platform involved, and the content on these platforms are unique but can be and is being developed together, that is a good sign for a transmedia property. If you can see how the audience can participate, and to what degree, and if you can see this ”spread” of the story happening even without big bucks behind it, you’re even further on the road to a transmedia winner (or at least a doable project :-)

I’ll leave the last word of this post to Stephen Dinehart, who commented on the current hype around transmedia:

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 39

- I think perhaps the best way to see through the hype is not to listen to it. Just create.

So, let’s go out there (or, stay in here for that matter) and create. I'm really looking forward to the next few years.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 40

The mixing of Real and Not Real in Transmedia29th of October, 2010

Transmedia formats always have been and always will be a bit of a different kind of beast. One particular challenge that I face while developing transmedia, is the thin line between being just about enough fictional, but not too fictional. I don’t work – or, should I say, I do not at the moment work – with drama-based transmedia projects; instead, the ones we’re working on now are music projects, game shows, kids formats, etc.

As I see it, one key element of any transmedia venture is the classical ”willful suspension of disbelief” (love the phrase, btw). You know that you have your narrative superstructure in place, it’s solid and will be a fine, nurturing growth bed. You have some – three, then, to go by PGA’s rules for a transmedia producer – different media platforms utilized. The different pieces of content support each other, either directly or indirectly, but are not duplicates of each other. What you need now is for the consumer / participant (the ”consupant”? sounds a bit constipated...) to go into your story, your narrative superstructure, and embrace the willful suspension of disbelief and engage him-/herself.

This is a bit easier when building a drama-based transmedia setting, as anyone connecting to the mythology of the story knows and has accepted that it is a story. When blending ”real” stuff with a narrative that contains fictional elements, the cracks are a lot easier to spot.

What I’ve found out so far is one fairly simple thing, yet hard to stick to while developing, writing and scripting. Simply – be as true as possible. If you embark on the mission to include real stuff – be it persons, objects, physical landmarks or whatever – in your transmedia project, these different kinds of stuff will be a lot more credible if they, to as large an extent as possible, base themselves and present themselves as their real selves. What you don't want is for these characters and stuff to show any light shining through them. They need to be as solid as possible - which is only possible if they are, for the main part, grounded in who or what they really actually are. The only thing you need to add are the small fictional things that lets these real persons and real places function within your transmedia venture.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 41

Transmedia sans fiction2nd of November, 2010

One aspect that I'm struggling with at the moment is when a development project strays from the path of fiction, or never originated as fiction to start with. As with the examples Jeff talks about in the links above, well executed transmedia projects in the vein of Avatar or Pirates of the Caribbean have a rich story world to build on, to create stories in, just as it should be. At the same time, this is almost a prerequisite for creating these types of transmedia projects; you need that fictional world, well built and stable, to be able to tell your fictional stories that complement each other and build the world onwards.

The challenge, as I see it, is to figure out what happens when you base these in the real world, omitting or at least limiting the fictional elements. Is it still transmedia? Or are we then reverting back to cross media (if that indeed can be considered reverting?). If it is still transmedia, is it possible to base it in the real world and still create a good transmedia narrative?

My opinion is that this is more than possible. What you need to do is to create the narrative superstructure in as great a detail as when you create your fictional world. Just because what you're creating is based on the real world, doesn't mean you can take it for granted that everyone perceives this world the same way as you do - not even your collaborators on the project. When writing this narrative superstructure, the mythology of your project, you need to explain the essence of, say, London, as represented in your project (if London is a part of your story of course) in as great a detail as the essence of Pandora is explained in the Avatar mythology.

You also need to be able to explain this essence, via the descriptions and the mythology, to each and everyone involved in the development and the production. I believe this is the only way to avoid mishaps in the production (such as people not realizing what you want to get out of the narrative, what feelings you want to convey, how you want people to interact etc). One hour spent on the mythology will save you five hours in execution; production and editing.

This will also assist you a lot when bringing new people into the development and/or production team. Finally, I agree with Jeff on one point he has been making; if you feel the need to make some material to explain your project, a graphic novel is a great way to go. And if you base it in the real world, so what? Who wouldn't want to

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 42

be in a graphic novel?

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 43

The Transmedia Format8th of September 2011

I recently stumbled (again) upon this good post by Jason from The Connected Set on why television is an integral part of a transmedia format. Coming from a television background much as Jason, I guess it is no surprise that I agree with him on most of his points.

Television is still very much a powerful player with it comes to getting viewers and audiences engaged in your content. That engagement in turn will generate traction for other parts of your transmedia property – or the other way around, as, for instance, HBO’s Game of Thrones showed this last spring. I wrote a piece for MIPBlog at around the same time, wondering if there was going to exist such a thing as a transmedia format. I wrote at the time:”The one thing that will be sure to stem the rise of the transmedia format at this year’s MIPFormats and MIPTV is simply the fact that very few formats are transmedia at this point. As more and more projects are initiated, more and more tools are made available and more and more success stories unearthed, however, expect this to change, as transmedia simply offers so many logical and compelling ways to engage consumers more fully into your content.”Since then I have become more and more acutely aware of the need that transmedia can have of television. TV still boasts impressive revenue. TV has tried and tested (and admittedly sometimes a bit outdated) business models. TV knows (again, a bit outdatedly) how to calculate success. TV has a broad reach.

Now, show me the transmedia project that would say no to impressive revenue stemming from tried and tested business models, with calculateable success founded on a broad reach.

So, as much as television needs to be looking in the direction of transmedia to be able to offer an audience the multiplatform approach many take for granted today (”if this show doesn’t invite me to do something on a 2nd screen (that ties logically and seamlessly into the show itself or the world the show depicts) I’ll just use that 2nd screen to bitch about it on Twitter. Or play Empires & Allies on Facebook”) transmedia needs to be looking at television as an integral part of many transmedia projects. And not as an add-on either, like a reversal of the state of affairs when tv shows should have interactivity at all cost, leading to slap-on, underdeveloped and seriously underwhelming interactive content being published regularly. Nope; just as

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 44

much as multiplatform or transmedia content need to be developed at the same time as a television show, so must a television show be developed at the same time as the multiplatform and transmedia content.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 45

Interview - Nicoletta Iacobacci

Nicoletta is a PhD candidate & researcher and responsible for Crossmedia and Multiplatform activities at the European Broadcasting Union. She coordinates and supports the most interesting and innovative TV professionals of European Public Service Media. Her background is as a producer and reporter for television, computer graphics and digital television. She initiated the RAI TV interactive/digital content factory in Italy and has been teaching Interactive storytelling. She is @nicoletta_iaco on Twitter.

I think we agree that transmedia can play an important role when it comes to the evolution of television. How about the other way around – do you see that television can impact the way we view, create and produce transmedia?

First we should ask, what is “television” today? Is it a genre, is it a medium, or is it only a size? We have small, medium, large and extra large screens. Transmedia should be a method that is able to spread a story seamlessly on all these screens in order to reach more, if not all users. We are in a transitional phase where TV is increasingly considered to be just a bigger screen. Those able to use space and lay-out (and by space I mean the “living room” and the power of family aggregation, and for layout, the user experience of Smart TV) will win the game in the coming months. I agree that Transmedia is impacting TV, but TV needs to become one of the screens in a multiplatform ecosystem. Today TV is still mainstream and is the aggregator that allows you, at the production level, to involve the broadcasters, who do not risk to involve funding in “just” online/mobile experiences. In my opinion though, TV had its day and its predominance won’t last for long.

How do you see that television can make that impact?

I can give you an example: I am currently facilitating and coordinating the first international transmedial co-production, which involves, in its development phase at least 3 broadcasters. In its original plan the project focused on the web as the main distribution platform, and TV was considered one of the narrative’s entry point. At the beginning has not been easy to involve broadcasters, since they are not yet ready to risk on a project that doesn’t come with all the proper monitoring methods (like in a television environment.) or on a project that it may fail. The, we changed strategy and gave TV the predominant role and the reaction was very positive for the same, identical project. If we want to seamlessly leverage Transmedia from being a trend to

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 46

become a normal narrative method, we still have to give TV the leading role.

How about non-fiction transmedia, as a lot of television is reality or documentary or game shows etc... and fiction and transmedia have a pretty tight bond. Is there room for non-fiction transmedia, what does it and will it look like?

I believe in transmedia applied to non-fiction projects. Borders are fading, genres are fading, rules are changing. Transmedia gives you the opportunity to face the challenge of audience fragmentation, creating content that can please many. It is still difficult to apply it to news broadcasts but Transmedia has infected the narrative of documentaries and soon will do the same with current affairs and investigative reporting projects.

I am working on enforcing a pure entertainment Saturday-prime time TV program with some transmedia elements and we will see if we will be able to do it.

Transmedia is a switch of mind-set that can be applied to everyday life, not only entertainment. Focus on your daily routines: don’t you apply some transmedia methods in telling your stories or proposing your new project? For example, from my point of view, if I need to engage a broadcaster in a new production, and the story involves more than a platform, I build the proposal specifically for each stakeholder, with a different entry point for each partner. Therefore Transmedia is not only the narrative strategy, it’s also the selling one.

You’re with the EBU and hence on the public service broadcaster side of affairs. Still, with so much talk going on about how to finance transmedia; what's your view on this? Will transmedia in itself become a viable business model, or is it already? Or will the marketing budget be a transmedia producer's best friend?

It’s very difficult to predict because in my role of Head of multiplatform at the European Broadcasting Union, which is the organization of a the majority of PSM in Europe and worldwide, I currently struggle to facilitate transmedia co-productions.There is a big discussion going on regarding “financing multiplatform projects” where of course transmedia is one of them. Pay-by-the-audience, pre rolls, product placement, sponsorships; but most of these opportunities are not viable for public service broadcasters therefore we should be creative, think-out-of-the-box.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 47

Media, besides strengthening relationships and transforming working habits, can boost the entertainment experience and specifically, for the public service broadcasters, can re-invent the audience experience. Television is still the most-used media device although enjoyed differently than before. The VUP today (viewer/user/player, a term invented by Stephen Dinehart) mainly consume content digitally, in a non-linear environment; content that can be fragmented, shared, or played back starting at any point.

Yet the PSMs face a demographic threat. I read that around half of their viewers are over 65 years old, while only 5 percent are under 30. If the PSBs are to safeguard their future, they must attract younger audiences and it’s a big challenge because the youth market is demanding and quite elusive.

Having at their disposal a multitude of media choices, young people, if the TV content is not integrated in a well conceived multiplatform strategy, prefer the Internet, mobile and game console over TV.

But again, in my opinion we can’t predict. We have to try, make mistakes and keep going in experimenting. As I said think creatively, out-of-the-box and the business model will define along the way.

Where do you see transmedia in, say, the year 2015?

I think in 2015 we won’t talk much about transmedia; it will be a current method of communication, and we already use it. If you know how to manage all the available communication tools, it’s common to tell a story that is enhanced, and deployed in a multiplatform environment. Different angles of your tale designed for your personal audience, from your grandmother to your children, in circumstances where you can’t use the same medium for everyone any longer. In 2015 transmedia will be a norm, a necessity. In order to make it happen, we should probably make more and maybe talk less.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 48

TRANSMEDIA AND THE AUDIENCE————————————————————————————————

Key elements: audiences, engagement, research, implementation

There are several reasons for people to dive into the world of transmedia storytelling. Some are passionate storytellers with an affection for tech and new ways of communicating, some want to better the world through their message, while some others simply want to make money. All are good reasons in my book, but they’re all dependent on one thing - having and audience. In this chapters I’ve collected some of my posts and some interesting links regarding how to relate to and communicate with the audience in the context of transmedia storytelling.

The Interviewee

Interviewed for this chapter is Yomi Ayeni. He has a very diverse background, always connected to the audience. With his latest project - Clockwork Watch - he successfully crowdfunded the first installment via IndieGoGo and has a bunch of exciting stuff in the pipeline for 2012.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 49

Transmedia - Story, Experience and Needs 18th of November 2010

When Paul Burke commented on a post of mine a week ago he mentioned that there is a subtle difference between the story and the experience. That thought has been nagging away at the back of my head for a bit, so I decided to elaborate slightly on the matter.

At MediaCity, we have a number of very competent people working at our UX laboratory, doing research into user experience. Looking at stuff they put out is always enlightening, even when it doesn’t touch on your project directly. They’ve been talking a lot about the Needs of people and these Needs connection to User Experience. In my mind it feels very true, that taking these Needs into account while developing transmedia will result in a better User Experience in the end.

The Needs in question are six different ones (out of ten, developed by Sheldon et al); Autonomy, Relatedness, Competence, Stimulation, Influence and Security. My colleagues did a study last year,available here, that looks into these different Needs with regards to using interactive products and media. It’s a good read!

So, to look at these Needs and how to apply them to a transmedia development process,:

- Autonomy. This is a Need closely related to ”being real”, being oneself. Also to the flexibility of the product – can I use it anywhere, as it suits me? One good example right now is the as-of-yet only available in Finland iPhone social game Shadow Cities; I can play it anywhere at anytime over my iPhone, connected to the real world via OpenMaps, and it really enhances my Autonomy IMHO.

- Relatedness. The Need to feel connected to a bigger whole, a group of friends, the place where you grew up… basically, your place in the world and in the story (and in the story world, of course!)

- Competence. The Need to master stuff, to feel that you can handle what’s thrown at you. No matter if it’s cracking a code on a website or just finding the website in the first place; it’s the feeling of being competent and up to the task. (I.e. don’t make it too hard for people to master your challenges!)

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 50

- Stimulation. The Need that is most closely connected to creativity – the interaction with others or with media (or with the challenges you pose them in your transmedia narrative) spurs people on and stimulates them. Given the opportunity to express oneself brings out the creativity in people. (Leave sandboxes for people to express themselves in!)

- Influence. The Need that is about reaching out to others, to communicate, to feel connected. Your users will want to be part of a whole, but also be able to influence that whole in some way.

- Security. This last Need is closely connected with experiencing that things work the way they should. A coffeemaker fills this Need, as it always works. It also fills the need in a different way, as it is a familiar machine, thereby strengthening the feeling of Security. The feeling that everything is as it should be. Conclusion: you might very well include things that don’t work, or hoax people, or make things be NOT as they should be – but plan for that and be aware of this need, Perhaps your users need a sanctuary somewhere?

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 51

What Motivates a Transmedia Audience28th of February 2011

This must be one of the things that creators of just about anything wonder about the most – will people, my intended audience, feel motivated enough to partake of what I have to offer? Will they participate like I would want them to participate? Will they stick around? Will they advocate my content to their friends? Or will they just turn their back and go do something else that they think is better?

This goes for blockbuster movies, for television series, for indie graphic novels and yes, for transmedia projects as well. To try to get to grips with this challenge, big-enough companies do target group research, polls etc, while smaller producers and creators poll their friends and family but mostly trust their gut feeling.

I struggle with this as well, naturally. I am in the quite luxurious position of having access to a laboratory and researchers focused on media and user experience, with whom we at the format development department work closely to get to know as much as possible about the experiences people derive from what we have to offer. Granted, many times the bulk of work goes to getting the testing itself focused to such a degree that it actually helps us in the development work. But as we work on it, we refine it and become better, naturally.

Something I’ll be bringing to the development work, and to the testing, is something I just saw. This very interesting video from RSA.org, featuring a talk by Dan Pink, is about what motivates people in the workplace. Do have a look, it’s (as all RSA-videos are) very good indeed. Basically what is said is that research shows that motivating people to work better with more money as the sole reward works fine as long as we’re talking only about manual labor. As soon as we go into any kind of task that would call for creative work, the people who received more money worked worse and failed more often. On the other hand, ventures like Wikipedia, Linux and Apache show that people – highly educated, motivated people at that – will work and give of their knowledge and skill, for free. So, what is the reward? Autonomy, mastery and purpose, according to Dan Pink.

We’re big on doing stuff that we want to do ourselves, not things that someone tells us to do. We’re also big on the feeling of mastering something, knowing that we know this thing and we are competent in precisely this regard. Finally, we’re big on having a purpose; of knowing that today is a step along the way towards a goal,

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 52

whatever that might be – from ”making the world a better place” to ”teaching people”, for instance.

This was the workplace, mind you. I am quite convinced that this goes for a transmedia project as well, where you would want people to interact, to participate, to become a part of your story world. To put it into the categories of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose, if you want the audience to immerse, engage and participate:

- You must not guide them too much, or the feeling of autonomy will be lost. It's a tricky task, to leave enough openness for everyone to find something "new", and to be able to make their own way through your story and your world, and make their own stuff there; too much and you have no control (which might be what you desire), too little and you will have obedient people following your instructions (if there are any people left for you to instruct, that is)- You must not make mysterious content that no one will ever master, or they will never get the feeling of being competent in your story world. Instead, perhaps, leave areas where audience members can become masters; masters of what they themselves have created within the ramifications of your story, or masters at guiding other audience members in understanding the intricate fabric of the story and the world.- Finally, you must not build a story where the participation of the audience has no meaning for anything, where their actions or lack of actions has no impact and it simply does not matter what they do or not. Neither can you build a story world that has no purpose in itself, or there will be no reason for anyone to engage in it.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 53

Users, meet Story. Story, meet Users.2nd of December 2010

(Disclaimer: some of my posts are down-to-earth stuff from a developers point of view. Others, like this one, are more of the rambling-philosophically-late-at-night kind of stuff.)

There are two levels to it. On one level the stories are made up. But they're made up for a reason, and the reason has to do with a different kind of truth. It has to do with emotional and spiritual truths. It is a way of trying to use a lie, which is the story, to approach some deeper, more spiritual sense of truth. I don't mean truth with a capital T; I just mean small kinds of truth.

-Tim O'Brien

When creating a transmedia property, no matter what kind – be it drama, be it a documentary, be it a music property or just about anything else – producers (me included) tend to think of their target group. What will they like? What will excite them? What will turn them on, engage them and make them jump into the story? We perhaps even conduct research into the target groups to glean more information on what they really really think, what they’d like and which solution they’d prefer over all other solutions.

Then we tweak our stories, our worlds, our properties, so that they fit, thus creating a transmedia property in the same way as people in the industry have been doing traditional media for decades.

What strikes me as a transmedia truth of sorts, is that we are not only talking of the Users meeting the Story. In a transmedia setting, it’s as much, or more, about the Story meeting the Users.

Now, this can be very stressful for a newly–launched, young and insecure Story. As I think we all know from school, Stories don’t reach their full size until well into the third season. Until then, they easily fall prey to larger Stories or succumb to over-hyping, low ratings or the No-Hit Syndrome that has been plaguing many of the latest herds of Story-younglings.

Attenboroughisms aside, and again as in so many of my posts relating back to what I’m working on myself, I feel many transmedia projects forget this. The Story needs

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 54

to be influenced by the Users, and the Users must feel that they have influenced the Story on a fundamental level, for there to be genuine trust and commitment.

Re: the quote at the beginning – I believe that we can use the lies (or the creative stuff) that all good stories are made up of to approach our audience, our users. I believe that in a transmedia setting, the small truths Tim O’Brien talks about are all the more apparent, allowing an audience to see or sense the truths embedded in the content and engaging them more. That’s also how I view the need for a Story to be able to change after meeting the Users. The truths at the core should stay the same, but the story, the lies, around – they can change.

Some good posts that made me think of these things - Andrea Phillip's post on ARGs and dancing with audiences, and Robert Prattens slides on Transmedia audience engagement and content strategy. Good reads!

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 55

Interview - Yomi Ayeni

Yomi Ayeni is an award-winning transmedia producer and digital strategist of a variety of promotional and self-funded interactive arts projects, such as the collaborative short film series Breathe, the ARG Violette’s Dream, the first fully interactive reality TV programme “e-trippers” and Global E-Missions for ITV, winner of the Best Use of New Media Broadcast Award in 2002. He has a background as a journalist for the BBC and a record label founder. Yomi also works as Associate Lecturer in Expanded Cinema at the University of Arts London, and spends his spare time managing international media requests for the Burning Man Festival. His latest project is called Clockwork Watch and was recently successfully crowdfunded via IndieGoGo.

Transmedia with its often participatory nature is changing the way we approach and think about the audience. Do you agree? Why or why not?

I believe that the audience has had a major impact on the adoption and development of transmedia. Many of the tools and platforms have been in place for a while, but producers just didn't know how to join the dots. The logical early adopters should have been broadcasters, they had content and delivery mechanics in place, but many couldn't see the difference between creating a participatory narrative and something they all called "360º" programme making. In order to find more engaging and exciting entertainment, the audience started to explore ways of having an  untethered experience, some ported their adventures online, and into the real world.

I started playing with interactive storytelling as far back as 2000, while producing a TV format. The audience tasked contestants to live-out dreams and adventures as part of a reality show. The  content was fed back as SMS updates, web clips, a blog and a 13-week TV show. It became four international adventures played out 24-hours a day, engaging and entertaining across multiple delivery platforms - each controlled by the audience.

We are now at a place where producers adapt stories to make them relevant to the target audience. This means different platforms, alternate levels of engagement, audience participation and much more. In some cases the roles are reversed and the producer becomes a member of the audience, while the audience takes centre stage. It's something brand owners, broadcasters have to embrace, it's the only way to really assess the success of transmedia.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 56

I agree that brands and broadcasters have to accept the fact that at times they will have to become the audience as the audience gets into the driving seat. This is, however, quite a big step and a huge change of mindset for many - have you seen anyone really manage it as of yet?

Indeed - no one has managed that as yet. It's one of those things broadcasters / brands will always sit on the sidelines and watch - then copy or find a way of botching up something similar.

Clockwork Watch is set to try this delicate balancing act. We're courting brands to get them to sign up, in the knowledge that there are parts of the narrative that will be in the hands of the public.

Can the audience in some cases transform into creators and in turn transform us creators into an audience? Do you believe this is a viable way to go?

I seem to have touched on this in my previous answer, but it's something I believe in and have hardwired this into almost all my projects. At a point in Breathe (my last transmedia project), a member of the audience drove the story, fortunately he led the narrative exactly where we expected. He was the only person to experience a pivotal part of the narrative - though it was filmed, we chose not to include it in the final edit. To find out what happened people had to interact with him via his Facebook profile and within our universe - he even got a credit in the film.

We are now taking audience participation to a new level in my current project, Clockwork Watch. The first phase was crowdfunding and anyone that donated above $40 is being sketched into one of the two graphic novels, but that's just the start of the process - their early adoption will be rewarded by a fully immersive adventure within the story universe. This will break new ground, the story has been set-up to incorporate contributions from our audience. Let's call it participatory storytelling 101.

The key to paying or funding Transmedia is to show potential partners that you've found new ways of assessing KPI, ROI, eyeballs or bums on seats - if the audience is engaged in helping tell the story, they become ambassadors of the narrative, storytellers creating and contributing. All you need do is sit back and watch them interact with your well planned story structure.  I believe it is the only way to go, the audience are 'done' with passive entertainment, they want to interact with your content - let them.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 57

Above is a post on the Needs of an audience and how they can be filled by transmedia storytelling methods; which need would you think is the most crucial one in a transmedia context and why?

Stimulation is paramount. Developers and producers must offer a platform or experience that encourages involvement, interaction, and contribution. While the other elements are important, if you can't provide a convincing narrative that stimulates the interest of the audience, they will not engage. transmedia is more than delivering a story across multiple platforms in bite-sized chunks. Stimulate properly and all the the Needs are catered for. People will seek out other likeminded people within an experience, within each group you will have varying levels of competence, some people will take charge and influence others, and well laid out strategies will give a sense of security even when things don't go to plan. 

We all start from a point of autonomy, and decide whether we're going to engage with a narrative or not, which almost always leads to joining a bigger whole. Stimulate, and your job is almost done.

If you look ahead, where do you think transmedia will be in 2015?

Hopefully by 2015, we will see more adventurous engagement, and narratives constructed by the audience forming part of an on-going story. Imagine, asking the audience to fill a 10-year gap in a story - give them a start point and a series of signposts to guide them along the way. I also see the development of co-production arrangements between the creator and the audience, which should lead to a two-tier structure with some content commodified or branded, while the rest created by the audience under a structure like Creative Commons. There are parts of Clockwork Watch that will remain the property of the contributors - our audience. These will be protected from any commercial arrangement we have with potential partners. We hope this guarantees we have an audience beyond the commercial life of our story. 

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 58

TRANSMEDIA AND THE MARKET————————————————————————————————

Key elements: selling, money, marketing, pitching

Transmedia is in a pretty interesting phase. Everywhere I look I talk to people who are waiting for that first example of a successful transmedia project in it’s own right, that would carry with it a sustainable business model that can be ported to other projects as well. I will readily admit I belong to this faction too. I’ve admired a number of transmedia projects and properties this last year, but I’ve yet to encounter one that I could point to while pitching my own projects and say “that’s what it’ll be like!”.

It’s all well and good to develop and design and create transmedia content. It’s another thing to create financially viable transmedia content. It is yet a third thing to create financially viable transmedia content and sell it or get it commissioned somewhere. In this chapter I’ve collected some of my posts on precisely this aspect of being a developer of transmedia and multiplatform content, and especially formats. Included are some interesting comments from the blog.

The IntervieweesThe two people I’ve talked to for this chapter are Brian Clark and Rob Pratten. Brian thinks very sound thought when it comes to financing transmedia. Rob is a true entrepreneur in the field with their tool Conducttr. Together, they have quite a lot to share :).

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 59

Pitching transmedia15th of November, 2010

(disclaimer: there are as many pitches as there are ideas, and as many ways to pitch them as there are people to pitch them to. With that in mind, I hope you get something out of this post.)

I’ve met a number of people who subscribe to the notion that what people do for a big part in their life is pitch ideas. It doesn’t matter what you’re thinking of – marriage proposals, what to cook for dinner, where to go on your next trip, when your kids should be doing their homework, what club to go to on a Saturday night – it’s all about how you pitch it.

Part of my job description (well, actually not part of my job description, but anyway) is to pitch; i.e. the ideas and the projects we work on have to be pitched successfully to get the necessary funding in for development work, the developed ideas must be pitched to participants, partners etc to go into successful pilot production, and the finished format must be successfully pitched to get a commission in the end. Lots of pitches, lots of different targets and goals.

What I have found challenging is pitching transmedia concepts. There is the issue that transmedia is a relatively new concept and hard to grasp. The people I mostly pitch to are executives and commissioners from more traditional media, television predominantly. Many of our projects have a strong TV connection still, as there is a still a lot of funding to be had from that area, and also, of course, because it's still a powerful media to tell stories in. These people know their line of work very well; they can ”see” the idea executed in their mind, they have an innate feeling for revenue streams, they know what would make a good show and what would require work, sometimes too much work. But ”seeing” transmedia is different, and I believe it needs a different approach to pitching the ideas as well.

The challenge is to tell just enough of the brilliant transmedia project for everyone to feel that they're hearing something unique and thrilling, that they simply have to be a part of and take part in. As transmedia projects often are complex workings, dependent on careful planning and execution, the full explanation is a lot to pitch and a lot to grasp. Personally I am a big fan of the elevator pitch - getting the idea down to a 30 second pitch that'll explain it to anyone. If I can't manage that, my idea needs working on.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 60

This post is an attempt to gather some thoughts on the subject. Better pitching leads to more great ideas being commissioned, which we all want, methinks.

(There are a great number of other aspects as well, like for instance how to get in touch with the right people to pitch to, how to follow up on pitches etc. For some run-downs on pitching in general, have a look here, or here. I'll stick to the transmedia part for this post though.)

I’ve polled some people on their thoughts with regards to pitching transmedia, people from slightly different corners of the transmedia field. I asked about what they regard as the most important aspect when pitching a cross media/transmedia property. The thing they, and I, all agree on is the importance of getting the story through in a compelling and exciting way. Mike Monello, of Blairwitch Project and Campfire fame, told me that for him, it’s ”always the story through user experience. Technology only in the context of a specific tactic, and only if necessary. The storytelling that interests me the most isn’t complete without the audience/user, therefore it’s their experience that brings it to life.” (Q:s and A:s were done over Twitter, which explains some omitted words ☺ )

I will most definitely agree on the story being the thing that should hook the audience to your pitch. When I started out, I pitched badly. Really really badly. We were so proud of the tech we had included in our formats that we skipped a large part of the story, in order to explain how nicely all Java-interactivity and set-top-box-interactivity, along with the mechanics of the show fit together. After a dozen pitches during one hectic MIPTV day, I grew tired of the blank look on people’s faces and decided I needed to change my approach. So, yes, the story!

One drawback when pitching transmedia is that there are not that many comparisons you can make. When pitching a script for a movie, you could go for "It's like Godzilla meets Titanic, in space!" which sort of gives everyone an idea of what it's about (hmm, I'd like to see that movie btw :). In transmedia, possible comparisons are fewer, which leads to you having to stress the points that are easy to get and that hooks the audience immediately - so if you do not have those points and hooks, you really need to think about developing them!

The guys over at http://www.willyouhelp.co.uk and their interesting and potentially brilliant project Resonance are on the same track. ”[It’s the] story x 3. Must be good

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 61

enough to engage & sustain across the platforms. [The] story hooks the reader. Tech … reels them in. ;)”

I like the notion of using tech to reel in audiences; using tech as a means to an end is what the content creation business is / should be all about. There quite a few instances where tech takes the more important role; this in turn leads to great examples of how to implement tech, but more seldom to content that engages an audience.

Thirdly, Dr Christy Dena, one of the pioneers in the field and the author of ”Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environments.”listed the following points (which may change depending on the client, and are based on the project being unreleased as of yet, as Christy pointed out):

1) Start with story - theme, logline, synopsis, characters2) A walkthrough of the experience (or part of it - the beginning & perhaps end) from the perspective of the audience3) Aspects of innovation - the design principles, audience strategies etcthat sets this project apart as being well conceived (which includes a bitof context)4) The team - who are the awesome people involved5) Timeline - what stage are we at, how much longer to go, what themilestones are, when marketing will happen, when revenue intends to happen6) Business strategy - including measurement7) What we want/their role

Again, I’m definitely inclined to agree. These points make sense, especially if you are pitching the idea to a possible partner or financier that you belive has the potential of having a large impact on your project. In my opinion, the points also apply all the more if the person you are pitching to has at least a basic knowledge of the workings of transmedia and the benefits of a transmedia approach to a project. These points should naturally be a part of anyone's development work as well. It's a good way to test your idea, to try to do a walkthrough from a users perspective. Also, it's very easy to forget the last point - to have a firm grasp of what you see your role together with the ones you are pitching to. If you don't know, who will?

If you however have a 10 minute slot with an acquisition executive of a global

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 62

production house, I would suggest you stick to the story, the hooks and the grand finale. Hook them and reel them in, make sure you get the go-ahead to approach them for a longer meeting with more executive staff involved in the near future. It’s always easier to say no than to say yes, if you are being sold something (like a transmedia project). But with a good enough story to hook them, you know they will not want to let it go easily. Make sure you’re interesting and exciting, avoid spaced-out and technological.

Finally, a couple of things: as Jeff Gomez suggested, always bring something tangible. A flyer is OK, a graphic novel or a comic is even better. Something to give your idea, your format, more of a physical presence. Just make sure it is up-to-date and repesents your idea properly. I don't think you need to have a drama-based idea to make a graphic novel either; make an episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire into a graphic novel, from the view of a participant, spice it up a bit and you have a great piece of fiction, which explains your game show.

And, when the questions about ”but how do we make any money on this transmedia stuff then?” start piling in, make sure you’ve read up on Robert Prattens slides on Measuring RoI for Transmedia.

I feel there is a lot more to say on this subject, but I'll stop here (for now :). I'd welcome comments, as there are a lot of people better at pitching than I am, and with a better track record of interesting projects. Hopefully we can make the task of pitching transmedia a slightly easier one :).

Comments

Zen Films said...Great post Simon. I'll agree strongly with the importance of pitching the story because if that's not interesting then nobody is interested in what follows... unless of course you're pitching to a tech-head and then pitch the gizmos first :)

If you're allowed a few slides, I'd recommend using my transmedia radar diagram because I think it very quick (at a glance?) conveys the type of experience that's being created. This is important because most worry about "control" and type of interactivity/participation you're proposing.

(http://www.transmediastoryteller.com/community/content/5/80/transmedia-radar)

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 63

Gunther Sonnenfeld said...

This is timely as we've been looking to approach pitches at the agency (brand side) in two main ways:

1. Developing and pitching any form or communications initiative under the lens of a validated story or "meta narrative"; this allows us (hopefully) to avoid media bias or a reliance on channels or even disciplines. A validated story would be one in which there is a definitive signal trail across conversational environments, all tracking back to a legit source.

2. Doing what I call "audience delivery", which is essentially the ability to offer up an engaged group of participants, fans and/or enthusiasts around a particular, theme, story or idea (Mike and I discussed this the last time I was in NYC). This way, we can remove most of the assumptions around adoption or engagement and again focus on the narrative(s) instead of"what media delivers the most eyeballs" kind of thing.

More on this here:

http://goonth.posterous.com/brand-integration-and-multi-platform-narrativ

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 64

Funding transmedia - a comment2nd of December 2010

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the debate in the comments on Simon Pulman’s post commenting on the presentation of the ARG Perplex City at the NYC Transmedia meetup a couple of days ago.Andrea Phillips presented the work they had been doing on the ARG, which in itself is an impressive and inspiring talk. The live stream is still up here.

Now, if you read the discussion, you can see two slightly conflicting points – the need to create great content and thus gain a loyal following that will interact, and the need to have someone stump up the money to pay for all that great content and the work you put into it. I think this is more and more the case now; back in the days a tv show could be bought straight up by a television channel, who paid what it cost to produce it. Nowadays you can’t make much of anything without a sound business plan as the foundation.

This is how it should be, I think. Yes, there should be creative freedom. Yes, there should NOT be intrusive ads that interfere with the story being told. But creating a viable business plan is as challenging creatively as creating the content itself, in many cases. It just juggles other parts of your brain, which can only be a good thing.

I also find that there is a shift going on in how people experience brands connecting to content they are attracted to. It is not about making people realize that they have to pay for great content, it’s simply about making people realize that great content can’t be made for free. The currency that your audience is paying you with for access to the great content (be it tv, ARGs, comics, webisodes, whatever) is not €€ or $$, it’s their time. This time of theirs, willingly given to you as the creator as payment for your work (strangely enough, even though their time is the only currency they can’t get more of in any way. Your content must be great!) is something that you can then sell onwards, to get the necessary funding in to make your project a financially viable one.

The trick is, of course, to do it with taste. I find for instance the writings on Propagation Planningquite interesting in this aspect, resonating well on a number of points with the workings of a transmedia producer. I also think a near-brutal honesty will work in many cases. Openly state that ”hey, we’re doing this, but we’ve only got funds up until three weeks from now. We’re working to bring in a brand, so don’t be

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 65

startled if you see everyone changing to Toyotas all of a sudden, ok?”. If they like what you make – and they will, right? – then they’ll like you making more of it as well.

Comments

Simon Pulman said...To shift the discussion slightly: my understanding is that in much of Europe there is virtually no stigma attached to illegally downloading content. People don't see it as morally or legally wrong, and there's nothing you can do to convince them.

That's fine. What I think we're on the same page on is that the audience has to realize that they are going to pay for that content somehow - either by higher broadband fees or by extremely intense product placement and targeted marketing. Both of those "solutions" raise certain equality and privacy concerns, however, that could conceivably cause certain content providers to pull out of European markets altogether.

It baffles me when I see this "content is less valuable; experience is everything" argument that many in Transmedia make. That's great, as long as you can find a way to monetize - and preferably replicate and resell - that experience.

The other thing I don't think that Transmedia artists necessarily grasp is the concept of opportunity cost. Something like Perplex City might break even or make a mild profit. To the creative, that's a great deal - we got paid, we made a little money for the investor, and we created something amazing. And for some benevolent investors, it might be. But if that profit doesn't match even putting your money into an index fund, many investors will go elsewhere. Entertainment is traditionally high-risk, high-reward. If you're going global with a Transmedia project, you need to show the potential for that huge upside - otherwise, I'll give my money to that kid in the Bay developing some app for the iPhone instead.

Simon said...Agree 100%. I stand by my opinion in the post above - creating viable business plans for transmedia projects is as much of a creative challenge as creating the content for the projects themselves.

Still, transmedia is in its early days, and the more projects do get financed, one way

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 66

or another, the better understanding everyone - including the people with the money - will get about how to be able to give a great experience through good content while still making a buck at the end of the line.

One of the projects we're working on right now, The Mill Sessions, is just about that - making the financial patchwork for a transmedia project, where there is a win-win-situation for everyone involved. It needs to be well designed, it needs to be able to convince all partners and it needs to deliver in the end. Interesting days ahead :)

Simon said...Also, re: illegal downloading of content, I guess there might be a difference in how different territories view the issue.

Still, say that Nokia sponsor my feature film and insist on heavy product placement. If it has 10.000 people coming to the opening weekend, while 150.000 download the torrent from The Pirate Bay, shouldn't Nokia be well happy about that?

Simon Pulman said...Precisely. They should be delighted, and that is the model towards which we are moving.

However, I want to play amateur economist/sociologist for a second and speculate on the knock-on effects of branded entertainment and product placement.

Under the traditional model, a US production company sells a show to foreign markets including, for argument's sake, Spain. The Spanish broadcaster pays a license fee for the content and supports its costs with advertising breaks. The adverts featured are a mix of international, regional and strong national brands. Spanish companies can reach Spanish audiences.

Now the piracy/product placement route. My understanding is that piracy is ubiquitous in Spain. Since half the target audience (13-30) steals the show well before it airs in Spain, the Spanish channel sees declining profits and can't pay as much for the show. In reaction, the US production company shifts slightly towards a product placement model.

So the show has become "branded entertainment." But which brands can afford this kind of placement, and are suitable for a show with global reach (assuming

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 67

localization is impossible)? The massive pan-European and worldwide ones - Coca-Cola, McDonalds and, yes, Toyota and Nokia. Certainly not Spanish businesses. So Spanish businesses receive less exposure, cannot compete, jobs leave Spain, and the Spanish people march through the street in protest at the unemployment that they contributed towards.

Amateur analysis, yes, but I suspect there's some weight to it. Ultimately as a content provider, my goal is to create something that resonates extremely strongly with China's youth. I don't care if every single person in China pirates my content. I don't care in the slightest. Because if 500 million young Chinese people steal and watch my show religiously, I'm providing an incredible marketing platform for Coke and McDonalds to target China's rising youth.

Simon Pulman said...And, I should add, the strength of Transmedia is that it allows young people - wherever they are - to carry that experience (and brand) with them across platforms, experiences and physical locations.

Simon said...I like your vision. Well, not the unemployment-in-Spain part, but rather the Chinese-youth-vision.

What I would like to see is a show - if we're continuing on your model with traditional tv vs new branded entertainment - where the integrated product placement was done in such a way that it could be replaced according to territory. I'm not talking about a 2 second shot of a wine bottle, which is a Turning Leaf Chardonnay in the US and a Torres Merlot in Spain, but rather something much more ingenious than that.

Shoot a scene with Kiefer Sutherland picking up a Samsung phone. Now re-shoot it, and have him pick up a Telefonica-branded Blackberry. Or just work with graphics.

Might be naive, but that could be one way of doing it...

Simon Pulman said...Yes, precisely. That is the goal - not merely with products but with entire scenes if possible. This is what we are working towards - specialized, localized content that is tailored to markets. Look at the success of Lost - a multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-lingual cast placed in a neutral location. People want to see their identity and

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 68

values reflected on screen.

To expand that in a Transmedia context, my goal is to create content that enables this kind of cultural spinoff in a natural, logical way in the narrative. But we should probably continue this discussion in private because I'm getting into the realm of proprietary thinking here.

Kimberly said...Forgive my coming late to the party, but I'm just now discovering the Transmedia blogs that are out here in the ether :)

The integrated content you guys are thinking of can be done in a variety of ways. It's certainly not beyond the pale, it just requires forethought, and possibly additional budgeting (for some media it works better than others). If you're working with game content, it can be as relatively simple a matter as designing shaders that can use a variety of different brand images (so you key it to use image A if the game detects the user is using Spanish subtitles or image B if the game detects the Mandarin localization). It's trickier for video, simpler for web or text.

What I am not sure of is *why* it's not being done as of yet (or perhaps it is and we just havent seen it). Are there already clear business reasons in place (i.e. it just doesn't pay out) or is it resistance to change?

Simon said...Hi Kimberly, welcome to the party - it is actually just getting started :)

A brief comment - I think it has a lot to do with having to fork out a bit more money for something that does not necessary give any proven return. Right now everything (or most things at least) need to be made as cheap as possible, so anything that'd add an extra cost would need to find extra funding somewhere else. This in turn would mean that the producers of the content would need to have all this thought out and figured out well in advance. Truth is, we're not really there yet.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 69

On transmedia and funding28th of January 2011

Andrea Phillips wrote a passionate and very good post some days ago on why transmedia is not marketing. I can’t but agree with the points she makes in her post, as I am not a marketing person by trade, nor a born seller (although I’m getting better at it). On the other hand, I do believe that I will look at a couple of the points Andrea makes from a slightly different angle. She wrote:

For one thing, [marketing transmedia projects] are a lot more likely to be able to pay the team a living wage, which means the creators can afford to spend more time and care instead of working on it in off hours and weekends. And more money means a higher production value; dollars spent translates pretty well into better-looking video, better-sounding audio, and sleeker, glossier websites. Audiences like that.And even more important than improved production values, money lets you promote the story. This is crucial -- you need to pull people into your project.

Now, in my book this is not a bad thing (and no, I don’t believe Andrea thinks it’s bad either, in itself). In fact, I feel it is a necessary thing, for any project, transmedia or not. Yes, I am a storyteller. Yes, I create transmedia projects. Yes, I want to get a living wage and pay the ones I work with a living wage as well. And yes, I want it to look as good as possible, give the best experience possible and attract as large an audience as possible.

To do this (unless you happen to film your kid getting his finger bitten by his brother and generate a gazillion views off of that), the project needs funding. To get funding, you need someone willing to pay for the project. To find those willing to pay for the project, you need to make it worthwhile for them. Therefore, as I’ve mentioned before, the crafting of a viable business plan that fits your transmedia narrative superstructure, but at the same time give sponsors and advertisers value for their money, is in many ways as great a challenge as creating the transmedia content itself. And these things are interconnected – your content, with your stories, your mythology, your theme, will point you in the right direction when it comes to finding possible sponsors and partners that will fit into your story and your storyworld without disturbing them and taking away from the experience of them. This in turn will give both you and your sponsors better value for the money.

The reason I started writing this post was an article from A Think Lab, written by

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 70

Bonnie Buckner and Dr Pamela Rutledge about “The Power of Transmedia Storytelling – using the technique for effective marketing campaigns”. It has a number of good points that any transmedia producer, no matter how small-key or artsy, can take to heart and use to good advantage. No matter how small a producer you are, you still want a great number of people to take part of your content. Says A Think Lab re: the great possibilities a transmedia approach gives anyone who is in the marketing business:

A story invites rather than sells. […] Today’s consumer lives in a world where a genuine brand dialogue, not “marketing message,” is expected. I feel we have an obligation, as early-wave transmedia producers and creators, to create not only great projects but financially viable projects that can be used when explaining the term transmedia to a business and media world that hasn’t really opened their eyes to the possibilities a transmedia approach provides yet. I would dearly like to point to a dozen great transmedia projects with a stable financial plan as a part of the project structure the next time I go pitch a new project to potential financiers :)

Comments:

ZenFilms said...I don't think that being able to make money from a transmedia project gives it any more or less merit. I've played guitar and recorded by own compositions for years without any expectation of earning a living from it and yet it has greatly enriched my life. I also don't feel that being paid to create something for a purpose other than self-satisfaction in anyway denigrates the art.So, my view is just to be clear what the objectives are from the beginning - self-expression or work-for-hire? commercial work or R&D?

I don't think that we'll just stumble on a business model without some applied thought to the problem but I also feel that with a wider range of creative expression in this area possible ways forward will become clearer.

Simon said...Robert,

thanks for your comment. I am not suggesting that a project that does not have a

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 71

clear cut financial viability should not be produced, far from it. A lot of stunningly great content will always be made for the love of making and for love of the subject or the method at hand, which is as it should be.

I do stand by my point though - I believe we need to look at the financial part of the project with care, the same care we give the content itself. As I have found, I learn a whole lot of new things I hadn't thought of before, things that impact -in a good way! - how I approach a project.

Also, regarding the "obligation" I spoke of; most people I try to pitch transmedia to are not at all familiar with the term or the concept. To be able to show good transmedia projects with a clear model of - if not revenue, then at least financial viability - helps no end.

Agree fully on being clear with the objectives. This is true whatever you decide to do in life, right? Even if it's not always the case...

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 72

On funding transmedia, part two5th of February 2011

Yesterday I read a post by David Wilson over at Transmediator, which raised a number of legitimate concerns with regards to how everything is becoming content creation, commodifying storytelling and wrapping everything in a thick layer of ”how-can-we-make-money-out-of-this-then”. To quote:

Finance is terribly fragmented. Independent producers get money any which way they can: sales agents, brand owners, vanity angels, arms dealers… and they often have to give any equity away to get the thing made.

[…] Independent producers must now present business plans, franchise opportunities, enterprise investment schemes, marketing plans… no wonder everything has turned into ‘content creation’. We are forced to juggle lots of pieces and do this predominantly on our own and without any money in our pockets. And this is damaging to the end product, because too much time is spent fundraising and not enough on development.

As anyone who has had a great idea but no means to get adequate funding to get that idea developed and into production can testify, it’s not a good position to be in. On the other hand, there is the question of marking your idea to market; if you can’t get anyone to cough up the dough to make it, perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to start with? Then we could go into the debate about how to pitch your project, how to meet the right people and so on… But that is sort of a different ballpark.

I a couple of previous posts I’ve been banging on about the need for transmedia projects to have a sound financial footing. I have a hard time believing that all the creative people into transmedia storytelling at the moment will have the energy to keep creating content if there is no financial windfalls at any point. That’s why I think – contrary to David’s post – this dilemma should be viewed as an opportunity, not an obstacle.

See, if you work together with people who can get you sponsors, who can get you funding, who can sell your project, AND you can integrate that which they bring to you into your story world, making it a natural part of the mythology you are building, you will at the same time create a stronger story world that will be more attractive for future sponsors to hook into – especially as they can compare your world with the

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 73

values they themselves stand for, and see that they match. (And if they don’t match, you might want to look for another sponsor ☺ ).

No, there are no clear-cut models yet, and I do not believe there will be a one-approach-fixes-all-solution to the problem. For instance, getting modern-day companies to sponsor your medieval history drama and make them fit naturally into the story world might be a bit difficult. But get a brewery in and you might come up with a solution. Ultimately, it is down to the content you create, the story world and mythology you build. As I said, if it is truly impossible to fund, perhaps it needs a bit of re-working?

David starts his post with the legendary quote: “Build it and they will come”. Thing is, they’re already there. We just need to build it. For that, we need funding, and for that, we need to look at how we develop and produce transmedia.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 74

Interview - Brian Clark

Brian is, amongst other things, the founder of experimental media lab GMD Studios, which mixes brand building with commercial clients looking for media innovation related to community, narrative, entertainment and publishing. He’s an “experimental media producer with an independent bent, with an emphasis on community building across media platforms. Experience includes publishing, motion picture production, alternate reality game development, buzz & viral marketing techniques, and sustainable media business models.”. Find him on Twitter - @gmdclark

What’s your approach when pitching transmedia? Do you go by any general guidelines or is everything down to the project and the client?

I'm rarely ever pitching something as transmedia (even when it is), but let's separate pitching commercial clients versus pitching entertainment projects. When you're pitching a client, what you actually have to convince people of is that the design process you use to solve problems could solve one of their problems. My approach is experience design: human experience can be designed to be more meaningful and, since human experiences aren’t limited to any one platform or channel, neither are the design choices that can be made to enhance the meaning of those experiences. So with brands, I'm usually first pitching them on an approach to problem solving and then, sometime later, pitching them a solution to their particular problem using that design approach. Conversely, when you're pitching an entertainment project you're in a very different position -- people are less concerned about how you got to the work than they are in what the potential is of the project. That means if you're going to try to sell your fruit salad to apple addicts, if should feel like a really great apple salad with some exciting extras.

When it comes to funding transmedia projects, which would be your top three ways to achieve financial sustainability?

1. Go to the source: fans. Every other entity you might talk to will have to bank on the fact that your fans will spend some of their money (whether that's a book publisher or a television network or a film financier). So why aren't you already evaluating how to build your work by going directly to the source, your fans? Don't have (enough) fans? Aha! Now you're asking the right question -- how do I build more fans? Fans are the ultimate renewable resource of any artist's career.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 75

2. Create opportunities to general revenue from day one: a trickle can lead to a flow. There's no reason to utilize the old models of financing for some kinds of work, especially those can count on some additional revenue for each new fan that gets recruited. You realize you'll never escape seeking out new fans, right?

3. Don't be afraid to learn to think like a business: most of the people you'll want to pitch your project to won't be other storytellers or creators. You're unlikely to ever convince them to stop thinking their way, so you might as well learn to think like them -- not only will you pick up new tricks, you'll write better pitches and business plans (that take into account things like how you will recruit fans and how you'll generate revenue from that).

Do you feel that the market on a whole – both the media and the advertisement market – are prepared for transmedia content and have a firm grasp of the concept? If not, how can that be rectified?

These are two entirely different animals, the advertising and media industries, even though they pass money back and forth between them. In defense of my cohorts in advertising, they've been transmedia long before anyone thought transmedia was cool -- because the brands they do work for want to be in multiple media channels in all kinds of different ways. As an industry, though, it has historically taken them 20-30 years after a new platform appears before they invent something like the soap opera just for it. Media companies, on the other hand, are essentially monomedia in nature as businesses, even in a gigantic company (where the television and film arms are essentially different companies). What the two industries share in common is that they are both modern examples of patronage models where transmedia content is required to serve some kind of tactical usefulness, like marketing a product or enhancing a Neilson rating. Of course there will be transmedia tactics useful to those industries, and the market has a demand for those ... but that shouldn't be all that transmedia creators aspire to, anymore than it is all filmmakers or authors should aspire to. New kinds of markets will also emerge beyond just tactical usefulness.

If you look into the future just a bit, where do you see transmedia in the year 2015?

As a term, I think "transmedia" is likely to become a central adjective that describes work, but it is just an umbrella term -- in the same way "interactive" doesn't really tell

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 76

you what the work is (both a pop-up book and World of Warcraft are interactive), neither does "transmedia". Which means by 2015, we're going to see real genres emerge under that umbrella that are far more meaningful to the movement than the general term of transmedia.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 77

Interview - Robert Pratten

Robert is an experienced marketing & transmedia storytelling consultant. He’s the CEO and Founder of Transmedia Storyteller, an audience engagement company, as well as the Creator of Conducttr, an interactive marketing and entertainment platform. He’s the author of the book "Getting Started in Transmedia Storytelling: A Practical Guide for Beginners”, and has produced the transmedia project Lowlifes.tv. He’s also an award-winning feature film director of “London Voodoo” and “Mindflesh”. On Twitter - @robpratten.

What’s your approach when pitching transmedia? Do you go by any general guidelines or is everything down to the project and the client?

I don't use the word "transmedia" unless I know the prospect understands the word and is positive towards it. I try to stay with the headlines and stay out of the details... yet without sounding generic. I research the prospect to gain an understanding as to whether they understand the term or not and if I'm still in the dark then play it safe. The word is so emotive to those who don't like it, best to stay clear of it :)The most important thing is communicating that we understand the prospect's business problem and that we have the solution. That's quite different from just selling a cool idea.I know it's popular with agencies to create a little pitch video but with Conducttr we can go further and create a bespoke demo to illustrate the consumer interaction and storytelling.

When it comes to funding transmedia projects, which would be your top three ways to achieve financial sustainability?

Assuming we're talking about indies here...a. Sell what you know people already buy. Don't try to sell a concept before you can sell a product.b. Start small, learn, iterate and build bigger or scrap. Don't waste time with ideas that don't spread - find out what your audience/consumer tells you has legs and run with it.c. Create experiences that solve business problems and get the "problem owner" to fund your work.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 78

Do you feel that the market on a whole – both the media and the advertisement market – are prepared for transmedia content and have a firm grasp of the concept? If not, how can that be rectified?

I think the industry has a firm grasp on the buzzword "transmedia" but it's meaning is rather muddy from person to person. It's now clearly a bandwagon to jump on but I think that will just work itself out. I don't think anyone can change a market except by creating examples of what they call transmedia and then calling it a transmedia example! I don't actually worry about the meaning of the term to be honest except when I'm using it and then I explain what I mean by it.

If you take a peek into the future, where do you see transmedia in the year 2015?

It'll be the way things are done and they'll be doing it with our platform Conducttr. Transmedia will be like the word multimedia or new media - no longer the buzzword it once was - but the typical way that experiences are built.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 79

REPORTS FROM TRANSMEDIA GATHERINGS————————————————————————————————

Key elements: diary, people, thoughts, comments, international

The transmedia tribe is a diverse and at times fairly loud one. It’s a beautiful tribe though, filled with energetic, active, intelligent, creative, verbal, kind and interesting people. It’s a tribe still small enough to reach around the globe in a true way; it’s a tribe already large enough to make an impact. I can think of no tribe I’d rather belong to.

In this chapter I’ve compiled some of the reports I’ve written over the year from different media conferences and fairs I’ve had the opportunity to attend. I usually tweet a lot from these, but I always strive to sum up what I’ve encountered in a way that someone else could make use of as well. Below, then, reports from places like Austin, Cannes, Ronda and San Francisco.

The IntervieweesThe two people interviewed in this chapter are Alison Norrington and Karine Halpern. Alison was the instrumental part of getting the Storyworld Conference realized in San Francisco over Halloween. Karine is an amazing networker, right now focused on initiating the network-of-networks, Transmedia Europe.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 80

Transmedia – it’s kind of everything; SXSW20th of March 2011

This weekend has been about recouperating from SXSWi, physically as well as mentally. Time zones are still playing havoc with my sleeping patterns, but slowly but surely things are settling into place again. Which is good, as there is much to be done.

In hindsight, SXSWi took the field of transmedia at least a couple of steps forward. I read this well written article in The Guardian, by Oliver Burkeman, on takings from this year’s SXSW festival, and one thing in particular resonates strongly with transmedia today, as I see it. Burkeman writes:

” It was the end of day two of South by Southwest Interactive, the world's highest-profile gathering of geeks and the venture capitalists who love them, and I'd been pursuing a policy of asking those I met, perhaps a little too aggressively, what it was exactly that they did. What is "user experience", really? What the hell is "the gamification of healthcare"? Or "geofencing"? Or "design thinking"? Or "open source government"? What is "content strategy"? No, I mean, like, specifically?

The content strategist across the table took a sip of his orange-coloured cocktail. He looked slightly exasperated. "Well, from one perspective, I guess," he said, "it's kind of everything."

The many requirements

That’s what transmedia is evolving into as well, in my opinion. No longer is it good enough to know one field well, like television, or film, or online portals, or how to write a good story, although all these are still important. It’s just that it’s not enough anymore. When writing a story, you need to have a notion of the possibilities that story can give to an online entry into your world, or as an ARG, or as a graphic novel. It's like a CEO of a trucking company; today he needs to know the basics about SEO as well, to keep himself in business. Or the florist who needs to get savvy in the ways of Facebook, just to pick up on all weddings being planned.

When in pre-production for your tv series, you need to have an understanding for how the interaction with viewers can take place on Twitter, Facebook and so on. Most people – great people at what they do – really do not have that inkling yet. This

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 81

again leads to examples of bulky, unwieldy transmedia that does not connect logically and seamlessly, as it has been assembled from the same set of pieces but with everyone involved looking at their own blueprint that they themselves have drawn up, without talking to each other overly much.

TAG

Here is where I think the Transmedia Artists Guild has made a timely entrance onto the transmedia arena. Because we have to learn, each and everyone of us. And the best way to learn is by doing, and talking to people who have been there, done that and got a number of t-shirts. Whether it’s about best practises or how to engage an audience, about how to connect an ARG in the best way or how to use characters Twitter accounts for best effect, I see the TAG forums as a great place to interact with other creators and developers and get their invaluable insights. If you haven’t yet, do sign up – it’s a place to talk and a place to find other people to discuss with that you do not first have to spend 30 minutes explaining the concept ”transmedia” to.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 82

MIPTV 2011 Wrap Up8th of April 2011

So, Friday and writing this while flying back from six days of MIPFormats, MIPTV and Connected Creativity. I see no real point in going throught the proceedings in too great a detail in this post, as you can find all live blogs, links to videos and pretty great insighty stuff at the MIP Blog pages here. Kudos to James, Angela, Stuart and anyone else involved, they did an absolutely marvellous job of keeping people – including me – up to date with what was happening. I’m going to try – as was suggested to me – to Storify my tweets from the past week. I’ll let you know when I’m up to scratch on that.

Gavin McGarry asked me during his wrap up session what had been the key things I’d seen or experienced during these past days… and in a way, there wasn’t anything really new to get me excited and up-in-arms, not directly. In a way, the Palais was still filled with people selling or buying animated series, drama or documentaries, much as it has been for the past six years I’ve been attending.

A new deal on the horizon

But still, something is clearly afoot. You hear about Netflix commissioning series from major producers, Facebook teaming up with Warner Brothers to offer tier one movies for Facebook Credits, Google earmarking 100 million dollars for low-cost content for re-branded YouTube channels… TV is under pressure. Yet, in my book, it’s a good pressure, as the aforementioned ventures are great examples of cost-effective ways to get content to people via services they use daily anyway. When thinking of combining content with FB and YouTube there are also a lot of possibilities from a storytelling and transmedia angle – challenges, yes, but first and foremost possibilities.

One possibility I for one will be looking into is the possibility to combine content distribution with the very well working platform that BitTorrent can offer. Now, as CEO Erik Klinker pointed out, they offer a distribution platform and over 100 million active users, but they are not going into commissioning or producing. Again, I don’t believe this is the only or ultimate solution, but is is A solution, and one that could work very well in combination with others.

Such a lot of people are touching on the convergence between mobile and televison

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 83

and online and what have you. Still, these days gave me the feeling that – as I tweeted during the week, with regards to SXSW vs MIPTV – you have social media and location based services people on one side, trying to figure out how to reach the massive audience and the massive revenue streams that television still has to offer, while on the other side are the television people, scratching their heads while trying to figure our how to integrate social media and other new servicese with their shows and online content. What is needed is some sort of translation service and/or facilitating service that would just put the right people together with each other and explain one’s viewpoint to the other . (Need something like that, give me call ☺ ).

Mind over matter

This was what Connected Creativity along with their Experience Hub was about, at least as far as I understood it. To a point it worked well; the talks at MIPCC differed quite a bit from the ones in the Palais. Many of them gave great insights into areas I had been lacking in. Especially Tomi Ahonen’s talk (where the way he delivered it was half of the experience), the talk from Fjord on the future of augmentation and AR, Facebook’s visions… I heard so much good things said about Tiffay Shlain’s presentation, which I unfortunately missed, but will try to catch up on later.

On the other hand with regards to Connected Creativity, so many of the people who would’ve needed to hear those talks were in meetings at the Palais or elsewhere during the sessions – not to mention that there being an extra and pretty substantial fee for registering to MIPCC had deterred a number of people from even registering.

The Experience Hub was a nice feature – a big tent quite close to Lionsgate by the beach, essentially straight ahead if one decended the stairs from Riviera Seaview – showcasing a lot of new technology to, with luck, be part of the entertainment and media toolbox in the future. For example,Emotiv’s helmet with it’s almost magical use-this-to-control-anything-on-the-screen-in-front-of-you-with-only–your-brain powers was pretty amazing. We’re getting one for research purposes – as we have a state-of-the-art User Experience and Media laboratory – so I’ll let you know my verdict when I’ve had the chance to play around with it for a while.

IMHO one of the best speakers at the MIPTV panels was Kevin Slavin of Starling.tv (see more about his talk here). Many others touched on the same subject, but he was the clearest and most to-the-point; what the industry has been thinking of as the ”audience” or the ”consumer” or the ”target group” or the ”ratings” are actually human

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 84

beings, and they set the agenda. They can be as much a part of your story as any scripted character (or show host, or contestant) that you as a producer choose to show as part of the content. If there is a vacuum – as in there not being any Mad Men characters on Twitter – the audience will fill that vacuum for you (there are over 20 Mad Men characters on Twitter to date, registered and managed by fans). If they like (or even better, love) your content, they will also take extremely good care of these characters.

So, a much frowned-upon term....

This then is where the magic of transmedia would enter. Only that transmedia, in the setting of MIPTV, still is more of a hindrance than a help when trying to get something commissioned. As we all know, it is a lot easier to say NO than YES, if you are in acquisitions, and making people unsure about what they actually are buying is a sure-fire way of making the likelihood of a NO reach 99,5%. And, unfortunately, ”transmedia” is still a term that often makes people at least a little bit unsure of what they exactly are being pitched. As Nuno Bernardo said, many a good sales pitch has been ruined by not stopping in time and instead continuing with the fatal words ”…this is also multi-platform, integrating the web and mobile solutions…”. What we need are a lot more great transmedia tv examples to point to – ”hey, like that one, but a little bit different, yeah!”.

Will try my best to do my part on that account.

So, a mix between the old and the new, this week’s MIP – now more so than ever, in my book. Thanks again to all the great people I met – both old friends and new – and hope to see you all again in the not too distant future!

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 85

Transmedia and multiplatform business13th of August 2011

I am currently attending the Multiplatform Business School in Ronda, Spain, a five day workshop on, well, how to do business in an age of multiplatform content. It’s been some highly instructive five days, with something like 9-10 projects participants brought to the workshop being constructively criticized and developed further in a timely fashion. An NDA prevents me from going into these projects in any greater detail, but there could quite possibly be some really interesting projects appearing from this group in the coming year.

I usually keep my transmedia goggles as necessary, which it was, for the most part, this week. Looking at transmedia from the business angle is, for me, one of the most interesting ones. As I see it, unless you either have got the backing of a) a governmental fund for an educational transmedia project or one that helps the society in some way or b) a chunk of money from the marketing budget of a film or a tv series or a brand, you will want to be able to create something that can generate revenue in the future, revenue enough for you to be able to keep your transmedia project going, develop it further and/or have money to make the next project you want to do.

It’s basically just like any other business; you wouldn’t be manufacturing shoes unless you were pretty sure you can sell them for a profit. Likewise, I don’t think it makes sense to develop and produce an elaborate transmedia project unless you can see it generating enough revenue for it to be worth it for you (artistic efforts aside, as I can see that happening to an extent).

The five days here in Ronda have given me some thoughts on precisely this matter, some of which I though it prudent to share here (and perhaps initiate a discussion that will let everyone learn more regarding this area):

- Partnerships are important. I could probably rephrase that – partnerships are crucial (unless you’re a mega-huge company, which precious few of us are). When you’ve developed your transmedia idea or project to a level where you can clearly see how it would play out, and once you have material to show and a selling pitch and feel comfortable enough to talk about your project with possible partners, make a real effort to identify the right ones. You might want to partner with a marketing or media agency to find the right brands to work with, you might want to partner with a

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 86

production company to gain more muscle behind your project, you might want to hook up with an app developer to create the app that is crucial for your project… the possibilities are many. You can find these through Google, through industry contacts and so on; the crucial thing would be to pinpoint WHAT you need and WHOM you’d want to partner with to do it (yeah, and IN WHAT ORDER). Basically: all the areas that you feel you do not master, consider a partner (and take these in the right order; you’re in a more advantageous position when you deal with a brand, for instance, if you have a strong distribution partner lined up already).

- The fragmented media world is a familiar concept for everyone. The challenges are many; how to stand out from the crowd and get noticed, how to keep the audience engaged and immersed, how to communicate in a way that does not clash with the tone and feel of the other parts of the project and so on. But to this comes the challenge on how to make money off of all of this. Getting sponsors in is a way (but make sure your value proposition is an attractive one when dealing with them or you won’t hook them), while other possible ways include app purchases, extra types of content accessible in exchange for FB credits… Something as simple as a Paypal button or perhaps even a Kickstarter campaign for some certain aspect of the project could also be effective. But still, all of these need to serve the needs of your story and your mythology, not just your wallet; consider carefully what will be the right solution for you.

- ”Transmedia” as a term is still – unsurprisingly – something that people, also the ones in the industry, have widely different views on. On every aspect for that matter – what it is, why it is, how it should be done, what the advantages are… So, my advice would be – do, by all means, name your project a transmedia one, but make sure your pitch and presentation is clear and without glitches. It’s just so much easier for buyers to say ”No” than ”Yes”, and ”transmedia” is a term that possibly can make people feel unsure about what they’re actually being pitched.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 87

MIPCOM 2011 roundup7th of October 2011

Packing my bags, ready to leave MIPCOM behind for yet another year. Cannes surprised us all with a weather more like mid-July than early October, although as I look out to sea now, some sort of autumn storm is churning up waves and whipping the palms around quite mercilessly.

I don’t know if it was the weather or something else, but this market lacked a lot of the doom and gloom that had been prevalent at most of the MIPs since 2008. Back then we were heading into the unknown of a recession and everyone had their wallets in a tight grip; this year people were a lot more upbeat, seeing possibilities and doling out money in a steady flow. Which is a bit strange, as we’re heading into yet another recession… but on the other hand, TV viewing figures are up, brands are obviously spending, it wasn’t as bad as feared last time around, so psychologically speaking it makes sense, I guess.

To highlight some of the stuff over the week I managed to catch over the week – and we had so many meetings over the week that I missed most of the sessions, (un?)fortunately – the most obvious one is that the term ’2nd screen’ is exciting to most people. It is quite possible that the fact that people are on a mobile device of some sort – be it smartphone, tablet or laptop – while watching tv, is a fact that has finally penetrated the mind of most people in the business. Perhaps they’ve watched their own kids while they watch tv? The only thing I know is, ’2nd screen’ was the buzzword of MIPCOM 2011.

To this I might add that our lab did studies on interactivity during a tv show – we did the first interactive quiz show in Finland, with set top box interactivity and Javabased interactivity for smartphones, back in 2004 – studies that clearly showed that people felt more engaged with a tv show if they were interactive via a set top box. They felt more personal, but also more detached, if they did the exact same interaction on a smartphone. That says something for connected TVs, I guess, but at the same time you need to factor in the value of having a personal experience in a group, like a family.

I saw some funky stuff being presented by Ex Machina, the people behind PlayToTV, for interaction via iPhone / iPad etc. They use HTML5 which helps it run on anything (and I think HTML5 is going to change the game plan for many companies over the

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 88

next year or so. Imagine creating something that doesn’t need to be ported to 1000 different devices, something that just works, the way you intended it? Nice.). I spoke to a company from Wales, Little Lamb, who are doing tv shows paired with watermarked iPad apps for 3-5 year olds, for them to interact with a tv show on iPads together with their parents. It’s all going more and more 2nd screen, more and more interactive…. And let’s not forget ’social’!

The talks at MIP showed that more and more people ’get it’; where ’it’ is the fact that most of our audiences have already moved into a very social space. We – and most importantly our content, what we’re offering – need to find out logical and natural place in the same social space. Not intruding, as you wouldn’t like someone bursting into your house while your there with your friends, promoting some tv series that’ll premiere in a week. Just being there might be enough, so that the step to engage or interact is as short as possible for any possible member of the audience. There is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to create word-of-mouth for your stuff; it’s only a matter of doing in the right way. Here, again, honesty is key. Tell what you can tell. Be open with what you can not tell. And have a plan for how to harness the audience you do engage.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 89

Storyworld - Five Thoughts7th of November 2011

So, an almost overwhelming week at Storyworld in San Francisco is over, jet lag is slowly fading, the heaps of work await and it’s time to take stock of what was learned during the conference. From my POV, as a creator and developer of tv formats – multiplatform, cross media, transmedia ones – here are a couple of points:

The transmedia crowd is a fine one

I’ve been involved in enough startups of different kinds to know what it’s like; the feeling of unity, the stage that Michel Reilhac called the ”Rebel Stage” of ”Us vs Them” (that in all fairness is now giving way to the Pioneering Stage where we’ll see more acceptance of the movement, best practices being carved out, and a route set to finally enter the Business Stage). It’s a good stage to be in, no matter that everyone’s definition of ”transmedia” differs somewhat from everyone else’s. What I like the most, however, is that most people involved in transmedia readily acknowledge that we’re better off thinking about ”Us AND Them” from the outset, a realization that can take other types of movement ages to achieve. Not to mention the fact that all the people I met at Storyworld were quite brilliant in their own way and a genuine pleasure to meet and talk to.

Non-fiction transmedia is on few radars

Most of the examples and most of the talks at the conference centered around transmedia based in fiction. Of the examples that were presented during the speed pitches at lunch on Monday and Tuesday, only Storm Surfers could be described as non-fiction – OTOH, the background story on that show was more fleshed out that most of the fictional ones. Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy good fiction as much as anyone, both when it comes to creating and to consuming or experiencing. Still, I would have liked some more talks on and examples of non-fiction transmedia;documentaries, television formats, non-fiction art etc. Creating transmedia formats for television, for instance, is a process that brings with it a bunch of demands not encountered when dealing with transmedia fiction; the need to be able to repeat for season upon season, the need for financial sustainability, the need to find a background story to hook the transmediated content on…. Perhaps at

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 90

SWC12?

Howzabout the audience?

I was extremely thankful to many of the people on different panels – Liz Rosenthal for instance – for insisting that we do not forget the audience at any time. I totally agree; having worked in traditional media for 10-odd years, in radio for many of them and developing 50-odd shows during those years; keeping close tabs on your audience and involving them as often as possible is very much key. Acknowledging this, I would have thought it’d be interesting to invite someone representing the audience, or someone doing audience / UX research to the conference? Again, perhaps next year we’ll see a panel of two-three avid ARG-players/ transmedia audience members paired with one or two researchers in the field, that could talk on transmedia from ”the other side”? As I stated above, the transmedia crowd is a fabulous one, but we might be a bit environmentally damaged…

The art of getting lawyered up

The collective gloom that set in during the panel on the importance of getting lawyers in would have been funny if it hadn’t been such a serious subject. Now, the panel members might have been banging their own drum – I’ll not get into that debate – but the truth is, you can’t cover all your bases while producing and distributing transmedia content without legal advice. Still, there is absolutely no need to pay thousands of dollars to an established Hollywood lawyer, unless that is exactly what you need. I would argue that anyone doing transmedia projects – or any kind of creative work – would be better off starting out with a project that is not of uttermost importance to them, i.e. not the work of their lives, the one project that they burn utterly for. With a less important project, it is possible to make all the mistakes, take note of them and make a better effort the second time around. Simon Pulman wrote a good post on this matter, from a US point-of-view, but most of the points are viable for transmedia people in other territories as well.

Network of networks

The meetup of meetups was interesting, as there are quite a few meetups happening in the name of transmedia around the world. I know there are a lot of efforts being made at the moment to get all these in touch – which many of them already are –

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 91

and create new ones where there is a void to be filled. For my own part I’d be looking to help create a Transmedia Nordic meetup, as we have quite a few practicioners, researchers and students active in the field. On another level, I’d be looking to see if a Transmedia Europe meetup could be organized, perhaps as a annual event. And, naturally, people from other territories would be more than welcome. Perhaps in the context of some other happening, such as the Pixel Market or TedxTransmedia? Let’s talk, Liz, Nicoletta, Karine and everyone else who's interested!

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 92

Interview - Alison Norrington

Alison is a transmedia & cross-platform consultant, strategist, producer, story architect, novelist, journalist and playwrite. She is Conference Chair for StoryWorld Conference & Expo. She teaches Transmedia Development Workshops and Transmedia Storytelling Masterclasses at European Broadcast Union, Digital BookWorld and CAMON Madrid Transmedia Living Lab and is the Writer/Creator of internationally acclaimed blog novel - Staying Single -www.sophie-stayingsingle.blogspot.com - a multi-platform, fragmented story, delivered through email, blog entries, YouTube mini documentaries, machinima quiz games, Second Life. Follow her on Twitter - @storycentral.

How have you seen the transmedia industry evolve during the past few years? Where do you think it will end up? An accepted part swallowed by the rest of the media industry or something else?

I've seen a passionate, engaged and sharing community build around transmedia in the past few years - a community that is diverse and represents a wide spectrum of entertainment industries and creative thinkers. The community, however, is only one component of the evolution of the transmedia industry. I've seen audience behaviors shift as they seek out additional content and participation through red-button voting, 2-screen TV consumption, Choose Your Own Adventure mindsets, storytelling as gameplay coupled with a disregard for any kind of loyalty towards specific platforms. I believe that audiences seek out their stories in the most convenient and accessible forms and that the transmedia industry is waiting to deliver fragmented, key content.I suspect that the current focus and emphasis on 'transmedia' as a title that defines a property might dissolve and 'transmedia' as enhancements, extensions, expansions to a fabulous story world will seamlessly integrate into future entertainment properties. However, continuing research and analysis on audience behaviors is critical to inform and support a transmedia approach to storytelling. I think that transmedia storytelling will possibly evolve to a point where this bubble bursts and immersion, participation, accessibility, immediacy, gameplay and mashups are an integral part of, not only the media industry and entertainment, but hopefully education too.

Do you see differences when it comes to approaching transmedia if you look at regions? Do the Americans do it differently than the Scandinavians etc?

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 93

I don't see so much that it is 'done' differently from the perspective of approaching transmedia - the underlying themes, touch points and triggers that determine a property suitable for a transmedia approach are the same, but there are certainly regional differences after that. I think that these are, rightly so, underpinned and informed by cultural attitudes and audience behaviors/reactions. I've worked with many broadcasters, publishers and filmmakers both in US and EU and find that if the core story is one that considers their own regional audiences from initial concept then the approach is the same (or at least similar) but the rollout, when done right, is a pacy, rhythmic beat that sets the pace for audience participation and immersion.

What has been the most thrilling transmedia event(s) you’ve experienced to date?

StoryWorld Conference & Expo 2011 was the first time that the global transmedia community was brought together on such a large scale. As Conference Chair and organizer it's clear that I'm going to say that this was the most thrilling transmedia event to date, however from an unbiased perspective would like to say that I think it's crucial that we continue to showcase, share and learn with and from each other in the way that I witnessed at StoryWorld Conference.

What event(s) should people attend in 2012 to be able to get the most comprehensive outlook on the transmedia industry?

StoryWorld Conference & Expo in Los Angeles in October 2012 is a 3-day event and will be one of the most comprehensive outlooks on the transmedia industry, bringing together story architects and practitioners, case studies from the spectrum of entertainment industries and the opportunity to connect and network with transmedia professionals and new, upcoming talent.Power to the Pixel in London brings together innovative transmedia thinkers, fabulous case studies and experts from across the globe.TEDx Transmedia is a one-day event in September based in Rome that highlights and showcases top-level transmedia speakers and practitioners.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 94

Interview - Karine Halpern

Karine Halpern is a digital and cultural communications consultant who has recently been creating cross-media content in international cooperation for governmental agencies. She has been conducting independent experimental work since the 1990s, has made creative content through public grants, and has produced the 7 Transmedia Families, a card game to use for creative thinking and transmedia development. She began her career in the international film and TV markets, working in production, sales and marketing. She has founded and managed nonprofit associations dedicated to cultural content, film and multimedia. She is currently advocating the network Transmedia Europe, the “Network of Networks”. Follow her on Twitter - @KHEnthuZiasm

How have you seen the transmedia industry evolve during the past few years? Where do you think it will end up? An accepted part swallowed by the rest of the media industry or something else?

I have observed the transmedia community, not the industry per say. Since I do follow dedicated groups and I know the industry since more than 20 years I can forge my own opinion. This should not, however, be confused with real research. My focus lies on "The Rise of the Transmedia Community" (a title I would like to use for a film) and the meanings behind these words. I look at the accent on the arts and culture, rather than looking at the more obvious, the big and unavoidable move into a new industry era. This in turn is related to a general change in the markets and industries. It is related to the changes in the global politics and the behavioral systems of the global creative industries, changes that have come about through the increased access to Internet and 3G networks. A crude example is Africa and cell phones. People in Africa are able to better organize themselves, as they now can share information on their crops in a quick and efficient way through text messages.

This is a conversation I believe will be going on forever. In 2010 and 2011 we have been able to observe a real movement of people around the world, struggling to define and accept some fundamental principles on transmedia storytelling. It was a movement that was very interesting to watch and follow, but even more interesting to participate in! It was a transmedia “battle” in its own might. The battle was about the “Human Convergence”, the need to get together, the need to stop communicating via 140 characters and instead get things done, the need to avoid the mistakes with regards to the marketing aspects of transmedia, and the need to claim the status of

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 95

transmedia as an art form and not merely a tool for big companies with full time marketing staff (there was a great discussion earlier this year on Facebook, instigated by Brian Clark and aimed at “Reclaiming the Transmedia Storyteller”).

The need of transmedia storytelling is to give a voice to the need for culture in a global world. That is what is at stake. It is a matter of self-organization for a new artistic and cultural ecosystem with human values in relation to the issues of today's world. That is a reason why there have been so many groups and conversations emerging related to social innovation, transmedia for good and human sciences. Other media or tools related to multi-platform or simply the Internet, must now take into consideration storytelling, as the human mind is in tuned into storytelling.

And as usually happens, the companies and the organizations with size and money will move faster and swallow the small participants. The difference this time is that these smaller participants are very well organized and equipped when it comes to self publishing, and they even make their own tools. It is related to the change of the societies in general. Therefore the smart transmedia storytellers will continue to move forward and reinvent their own business models. Even if the real transmedia crowd is not able to survive in the economy, it will survive for its cultural power. And then, as with all artistic movements, the results and the knowledge will be shared with future generations. Transmedia is an emerging art form, a Mediaform. Media is the channel of communication and not the technological tool. Here, I’m referring to Marshall McLuhan. I was looking for a word and found Mediaform and will start to use it more often!

Do you see differences when it comes to approaching transmedia if you look at regions? Do the Americans do it differently than the Scandinavians etc?

Yes! Lots of differences. I was lucky enough to work in the field of international cooperation after a career in the film industry. I found out that the globalization is driving citizens to reconsider their local and regional cultures. This is all very positive and progressive, and can also happen in the field of transmedia creation. First of all we have different ways of funding and this fact does have an impact on the content, the terminology and the processes. Secondly, we produce or curate content according to cultural habits, not only because of languages but because of social life and personal taste. Therefore we understand things differently, even if we make the effort to read and speak in English. And, finally, the Americans are very much into a cultural environment that is still heavily influenced by the American one of the twentieth century. It will take another 10 years at least for them to take into

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 96

consideration all other cultures and integrate them on their own screens! But I think that Americans are still at the top of the implementation of innovation. They are faster and more social when it comes to everyday creation and business because it is in their cultural habits. I have advocated for avoiding the typical separation between the “Arc” made of USA – UK – Australia (the English speaking arc), and the “Rest of the World”. I advocate for avoiding the traditional battle between the USA and Europe in terms of reaching out for audiences and screens. Transmedia is global. It needs to reach users and therefore we need as least 2 languages for any creation and a large social media campaign to reach out the people who can enjoy and participate. Because transmedia is very demanding in terms of creation, you want to reach out for more people, you want to speak several languages, you want to optimize what you already have or make.

What has been the most thrilling transmedia event(s) you’ve experienced to date?

The StoryWorld experience with some improvisation and its own ARG? The workshop with the museums in the South of France? Or the workshop with the documentary filmmakers in Germany… No, the best is still Transmedia Next because it is dedicated to Media Professionals and takes you deep into a transmedia experience through the work of Lance Weiler. I must add, however, that I really liked attending Power to the Pixel for the first time. Then, of course I have a lot of respect for TedX Transmedia and Nicoletta Iacobacci, because it is very hard to do a real Tedx event with a theme such as transmedia! Well, finally, I must say that the best moment I had was a breakfast with one transmedia Fairy (Rosie Allimonos) and a transmedia Alchemist (Andrew Craig Slack), where we were joined by the awesome writer Frank Rose. Then, naturally, you have all those crazy moments when you meet your friends from Skype and Twitter in real life, friends who are sharing the same ideas and goals. This historical time is the “Human Convergence” and it is related to the work from Pierre Levy about “Collective Intelligence”. Henry Jenkins mentions Professor Pierre Levy in his book “Convergence Culture”. One of my best moments was to be in touch via Twitter with Professor Pierre Levy. Another was to see the prediction from Steve Goldner (@SocialSteve) realized - about the fact that relationships are becoming the most important part of Social Media.

What event(s) should people attend in 2012 to be able to get the most comprehensive outlook on the transmedia industry?

Power to the Pixel for Europe, and StoryWorld for the USA. And watch the TedX

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 97

talks and read the blogs!

Finally, where do you think transmedia will be in, say, 2015?

In 2015 we will have our own Transmedia Living Labs, aimed at “Free Culture” and collaboration. One part will be on the ground (physical), one part off the ground (online). We will invite artists, creators and coders to develop complex projects in an incubator that will gather complementary expertise and skills. And we will use, hopefully, more Open Source tools. The business models will be ad-hoc for each project and we will work more in co-creation. Brands will kill to work with us (hopefully). We have no other choices, in my humble point of view. If I am wrong, I will remain faithful to my ideas and values because what counts in the creative industries is what path you take to reach the art form that people then can share.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 98

OTHER TRANSMEDIA MUSINGS————————————————————————————————

Key elements: advice, other, “I can’t file this under that category, can I? No, no I can’t…”

There’s always those “other” things, the things that cannot be filed under anything else, the ones that don't really fit any set description. Often, however, these things might touch on many other, more categorizable subjects. That's the case with the posts below; they really don't fit anywhere in particular, but at the same time I'm reluctant to omit them. Hence, the use of "Other".

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 99

Ten Advice for Transmedia Storytellers10th of November 2011

Disclosure – the following post is based on a brilliant list about creative photography that Chase Jarvis put up in October, which in turn was inspired by a post by Guy Kawasaki entitled ”What I learned from Steve Jobs”. What I’ve done is port the ten points Chase made to the field of transmedia, as I think they are all pretty crucial points for any creative industry – not least transmedia.

Experts aren’t the answer

Well, at least not all of the time. No one will hold you by the hand and guide you to stardom, infusing you with sublime knowledge and making you a shed-hot transmedia creator. By all means, do hear the experts out; many of them have been there and done that. But there’s no need to blindly heed their advice; it’s you who’re creating your stuff, not they. One good example is the row this week over the so-called ”Transmedia Manifest”, a manifesto which IMHO would make for limited transmedia development, if it was a guide that had to be followed.

Clients cannot tell you what they need

This is true in many creative fields; none more so than transmedia. Nevermind that many clients don’t even have viable social media strategies in place yet; dumping transmedia storytelling methods in their lap and expecting them to make the correct calls all through the development and production process is to be inviting a major headache. Your clients hire you to provide them with something. Do listen to them – it’s their money and their property – but in the end, it’s you who have been hired to create kick-ass transmedia content. And if you’re good enough to have been hired, you’re probably good enough to do the job.

Don’t aim for ”better”, aim for ”different”

(here I’ll just quote Chase straight off, as his point is brilliantly made)"It’s funny how related “better” and “different” are. If you aim for ‘better’ that usually means you’re walking in the footsteps of someone else. There will often be someone better than you, someone making those footsteps you’re following… But if you target being different–thinking in new ways, creating new things–then you are blazing your own trail. And in blazing your own trail, making your own footprints, you are far more

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 100

likely to find yourself being ‘better’ without even trying. Better becomes easy because it’s really just different. You can’t stand out from the crowd by just being better. You have to be different."

Big challenges create the best work

Strive to get challenges that push you to your limits. That’s the only way to become better at what you are doing. If, for some reason, you don’t get such challenges, the only solution is to give yourself such challenges. Implement new platforms, try out new ways of telling your stories, work on character creation if that’s something you feel you are lacking in, and so on. You want to be on the edge. It's the best place to discover something new.

The aestethics matter

Chase makes his point with regards to photography, but the same goes for transmedia storytelling. You need to work on your understanding of storytelling, of platform implementation, of graphics, of producing video content, of interacting with an audience in a logical and engaging manner, of handling social media challenges, of composing music, basically everything that is needed in the development and production of transmedia content. It is crucial to know why one method or one solution is superior to another; not only to explain to clients, but to yourself and your development and production partners as well.

Strive for simplicity

I touched upon this in a previous post – the NOT of transmedia – and Scott Walker talks about the same thing in a post fromlast year regarding the ”gutter”. It’s as much about what you choose NOT to do as about what you actually DO. Just because you can do something, does not mean you actually should. Simple is beautiful.

Fail fast and learn

There is no point in trying to avoid failure at all cost. If you want to be different, if you want to be great, if you want to push your limits, you will fail from time to time. What matters is that you learn from your mistakes and are able to implement the lessons learned in the future. This goes for design and development of content as well as for business and distribution plans, and so on. If you do something and it works, do

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 101

more of it. If you do something and it doesn’t work, stop doing it. Re-design. Do something else. To quote Einstein on the definition of ”insanity”: ”to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.”

Know the difference between price and value

You might be tempted to go cheap to get assignments and deals in place. This might get you those assignments, but it’ll be devastating in the long run. You create valuable content, valuable strategies, and you should price yourself accordingly. Also, value comes in many forms – not least in the transmedia field. The value you create will get you the price that you deserve.

If you want to be the best, work with the best

This is simple but true. If you feel you are at the top of your game, you want to partner with people and companies who are top-notch as well. This is of extreme importance when it comes to transmedia, as partnerships are a crucial part of almost any endeavour, to get all parts developed in sync and produced and distributed accordingly. Ideally, to become better at what you are doing, you’d work with people who are better than yourself. Only people who aren’t THAT good seek to work with people less gifted than themselves; in that way they get to shine in comparison. Don’t belong to that group of people.

Create, and create more

It’s all good to sit around and contemplate different projects, ideas, terms and philosophies. But this will get you nowhere if you do not implement this in real projects that have a real, tangible output. Whenever you can create, create. Maybe it won’t be the perfect thing, but it’s the best way to learn and move to new levels of competence. Strive to get your stuff out there.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 102

Doing it the Transmedia Way24th of January 2011

Working with transmedia is one thing. Working transmedially, that’s something else, at least in my book. The two thing do go hand in hand, in a way – if you ARE working with transmedia, starting to think in a transmedia fashion about the way you work opens up possibilites.

In his book ”The rules of work” Richard Templar talks about roles in a working environment. He statest that:

“Basically your Role is how you fit into the team – and yes, we are all team players. We have to be, in this day and age.”

Looking at how many transmedia producers approach their work, this is very true. You need a transmedia producer to work with the other producers and the creator(s) of a certain property, especially if you are looking at developing and producing something a bit bigger. It goes without saying that defining the roles of these different team members is a crucial part of any project; who is responsible for what, who has clout when it comes to the development of a certain content and who needs to know what and when.

Working ”transmedially”

Transmedia, however much a buzzword it has become in the past few months, is a very powerful instrument when you get it right. So why not use it to make your teamwork better? If you build the storyworld, the mythology, of your project with the same careful and precise devotion as you build the storyworld that will be the content of your project, you will – according to my/our experience – receive a number of benefits:

- Everyone involved in the project will know their role intimately, and can naturally interact to change their role to fit themselves as persons even better – as long as it does not break the transmedia principles of theme and tone- Integrating new co-workers or external partners in the project is easier when you have a story to connect to. This is not saying that you should start explaining transmedia principles or dive deep into storyworlds when talking to potential partners, but it will give you the means to explain the gist of the project in a coherent,

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 103

logical and always similar way.- Pitching your project suddenly becomes much easier. Not only do you know your content, you know your project and everyone’s role in it, and you know your own role as well.- Defining a transmedia setting for your project also gives ideas on how to implement the project on different platforms, and how to use different platforms to the greatest advantage- By defining the transmedia setting, the storyworld, for your project, you will by default also (at least partly) define the role of your company (and affiliated companies) in that setting. This can lead to new aspects on your company and possible future projects and cooperations.- If you want to make additional material available, which in a transmedia project is almost a given, approaching the way you work transmedially will help you no end when it comes to amassing "behind-the-scenes"-material, making-of-documentaries etc

The roles

As for how to define different roles, it might not be the most productive way to go down the drama route, as there is less call on archetypes like ”Hero”, ”Sage” or ”Villain” when you sit around a table brainstorming stuff. I think the best way is to define roles according to the people connected to a certain project, but there are places to start looking if inspiration is needed.

For instance, Dr Meredith Belbin, who has been researching into team work roles for over 40 years, is one place to start with the definitions of nine distinct team roles at the core; the Plant, the Resource Investigator, the Co-ordinator, the Shaper, the Monitor Evaluator, the Team Worker, the Implementer, the Completer and the Specialist. Have a read at the Team Role Theory site for more information.

Conclusion

Taking the opportunity to apply transmedia principles not only to the content you are working on but also to the work processes themselves, has the potential to add a surprising amount of value to not only your work, but to the way you work as well. Try it – you might just like it.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 104

TRANSMEDIA - A FUTURE————————————————————————————————

Key elements: crystal balls, palm reading… the future.

Predicting the future is always a hazardous thing to do. You always stand the risk of either looking like a fool or like a prophet, both of which are probably as bad. What is clear, at least to me and the contributors in this publication, is that transmedia has a bright future. Perhaps not necessarily under the banner of the term transmedia, but the use of transmedia storytelling methods simply makes too much sense not to use them when they fit a given context.

The IntervieweeI asked Lina Srivastava to contribute under this headline as she is very much involved in transmedia activism, and I strongly believe we will see transmedia storytelling methods come to the fore in many areas beside the media and entertainment ones. If transmedia can be used for activism and for good, it’s a marvellous thing indeed.

But before that, to recap, here are the predictions from the contributors, on the question “Where do you see transmedia in 2015?”

Jeff Gomez

By 2015, transmedia narrative will have taken root as a form of artistic expression unto itself.

Nick DeMartino

Historically, movements are effective when they move the people who matter. Political movements change major parties and candidates and create public support for policy changes. In the media, we've seen (and I've been part of) many movements that sprang up in opposition to a mainstream which has limited participation, has marginalized voices and forms of content, or which have centralized control. We are in an era in which technology and consumer tastes favor decentralization and open access. The problem is not the ability to make stuff. It's the ability for the stuff to be any good, and to matter.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 105

To the extent that the story forms and engagement modes have value, they will have certainly been assimilated into mainstream media by 2015. Television and digital distribution of cinema will almost certainly include as a matter of course various alternate story scenarios, engagement opportunities, and even co-creation opportunities for audiences. If audiences tire of this stuff, it will go away, to me the real question remains: will there be breakthroughs in content and form from the outliers that capture attention and allegiance, not just from audiences, but as a flash in the zeitgeist. Today's zeitgeist seems almost entirely dominated by rapid turnover of functions and fads. Even huge digital incumbents like Facebook and Twitter are constantly innovating. This takes resources, which clearly the indies don't have.

Andrea Phillips

I think we're going to see tremendous shifts happening in television. It's the medium best-suited to anchor an interactive transmedia narrative right now. It's episodic, very often entire communities consume the work at the same time, and it's fairly nimble compared to feature films and print publishing. I think we'll see -- not even innovation over the next few years, but such a volume of work that the transmedia element of a TV show will become a no-brainer. It won't be special; it'll be expected, and a show that doesn't do anything will feel like it's missing a beat.

But I also foresee the rise of more tightly integrated Star Wars-style transmedia franchises -- stories where something seeded in one platform has a payoff in another. Stories where each medium plays out a different subplot, and sheds new light on the whole. So far we've seen a lot of sequential franchising, but I think the guys with the big bucks are going to see the value in intertwining the stories so that each subsequent piece drives traffic to everything that's gone before. Transmedia isn't just good art, it's good business, too.

Nicoletta Iacobacci

I think in 2015 we won’t talk much about transmedia; it will be a current method of communication, and we already use it. If you know how to manage all the available communication tools, it’s common to tell a story that is enhanced, and deployed in a multiplatform environment. Different angles of your tale designed for your personal audience, from your grandmother to your children, in circumstances where you can’t use the same medium for everyone any longer. In 2015 transmedia will be a norm,

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 106

a necessity. In order to make it happen, we should probably make more and maybe talk less.

Yomi Ayeni

Hopefully by 2015, we will see more adventurous engagement, and narratives constructed by the audience forming part of an on-going story. Imagine, asking the audience to fill a 10-year gap in a story - give them a start point and a series of signposts to guide them along the way. I also see the development of co-production arrangements between the creator and the audience, which should lead to a two-tier structure with some content commodified or branded, while the rest created by the audience under a structure like Creative Commons. There are parts of Clockwork Watch that will remain the property of the contributors - our audience. These will be protected from any commercial arrangement we have with potential partners. We hope this guarantees we have an audience beyond the commercial life of our story. 

Brian Clark

As a term, I think "transmedia" is likely to become a central adjective that describes work, but it is just an umbrella term -- in the same way "interactive" doesn't really tell you what the work is (both a pop-up book and World of Warcraft are interactive), neither does "transmedia". Which means by 2015, we're going to see real genres emerge under that umbrella that are far more meaningful to the movement than the general term of transmedia.

Rob Pratten

[Transmedia] will be the way things are done and they'll be doing it with our platform Conducttr. Transmedia will be like the word multimedia or new media - no longer the buzzword it once was - but the typical way that experiences are built.

Karine Halpern

In 2015 we will have our own Transmedia Living Labs, aimed at “Free Culture” and collaboration. One part will be on the ground (physical), one part off the ground (online). We will invite artists, creators and coders to develop complex projects in an incubator that will gather complementary expertise and skills. And we will use, hopefully, more Open Source tools. The business models will be ad-hoc for each

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 107

project and we will work more in co-creation. Brands will kill to work with us (hopefully). We have no other choices, in my humble point of view. If I am wrong, I will remain faithful to my ideas and values because what counts in the creative industries is what path you take to reach the art form that people then can share.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 108

Transmedia in 2020 AD 26th of December, 2010

(The background: our third child, a baby girl, was born on the 15th of December 2010. Now, I’ve watched my other kids, born in 2000 and 2004 respectively, take to the new media landscape as if they’ve never done anything else before (which they haven’t, come to think of it ☺ ), mastering iPhones and iPads within minutes, watching VOD as naturally as any tv series and so on. As I watch that little infant live her first days on this Earth, I start to wonder what her world will look like, when she’s of the age of our older daughter. That’s where this post comes from, playing the part of Nostradamus for a brief while. And, yeah, take it all with a pinch of salt (although I WILL take credit for anything that turns out to be accurate :) )

AP / Reuters - News Bulletin

As the year 2020 comes to an end, the eyes and ears of the world once again turn to the Annual Transmedia Academy Awards (ATAA). This year the host city of choice was Auckland, New Zealand. In their motivation for the, in many industry people’s eyes, strange choice of venue, The Transmedia Academy had previosly stated that

”… we wish to embrace the principles of transmedia also in our arrangements, showing that the powers of transmedia storytelling can bring the farthest corners of the world together at once, even in connection with a live awards event like this. Auckland, New Zealand, is therefore a natural choice and we are thrilled to meet you all there, live or virtually in late December!”

The award categories include ”Best ARG”, where the innovative LARP / mobile gaming / online adventure ”Natives”, where people around the world take on the roles of their native ancestors in a Sid Meyers ”Civilization” type of world domination game, is the overwhelming favorite.

A new category this year is the ”Collective Creation” Award. The description for the category states that ”for a long time, ever since transmedia became a widely acknowledged term in the late ’00s, the collective effort has been taken almost for granted. Creators have counted on the audience involvement, producers have relied on input and UGC from devoted fans and so on. At the Transmedia Academy we feel it is time to acknowledge the importance of creating transmedia storytelling collectively, with other professionals as well as with the public, and have therefore

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 109

included this category in the proceedings for this years awards.”

The Awards ceremony will be held on the 27th of December 2020, at 20.00 Pacific Time.

Background: Transmedia became a household term in the early 2010s. Since then, the transmedia storytelling principles have intergrated themselves into all aspects of society, from education to business, from pre-school to university, from entertainment to industry. Although there had been a number of relatively successful transmedia ventures prior to 2011, it was the multi-billion dollar generating transmedia campaign ”Spy Game” that let loose the full powers of transmedia on the general audience in late 2011. ”Spy Game” began as a graphic novel, a book trilogy and a high-profile tv series from HBO, letting the audience take part of the storyline by adding themselves as characters and participating online or via mobile phones. With a 10 million dollar global cash prize up for grabs and a program to support and promote collective efforts over national boundaries, it was the first transmedia project to generate over 200 million dollar in revenue and has up until today grossed more than 400 million. The Transmedia Academy was founded in 2012, and funded partly by donated money from the ”Spy Game” project. The Annual Transmedia Academy Awards have been held since 2012. (Source: Wikipedia)

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 110

Interview - Lina Srivastava

Lina is the Principal of Lina Srivastava Consulting LLC, a social innovation strategy consultancy.  She works to leverage cultural expression and cultural identity for social transformation, employing strategy, planning, engagement, and transmedia design.  An attorney by training from New York University School of Law, Lina is heavily involved in transmedia for social change, having created the "Transmedia Activism" framework and been involved in successful cross-media campaigns for several documentaries, including Oscar-winning Born into Brothels and the Emmy-nominated The Devil Came on Horseback. The former Executive Director of Kids with Cameras, and the past Interim Executive Director of the Association of Video and Filmmakers, she is currently the organizational strategist for VODO, 3Generations, and the Resist Network and its forthcoming film Who Is Dayani Cristal?.  Lina has provided strategic consulting and project design to a group of organizations dedicated to social impact, including UNESCO, MobileActive, Shine Global and BYkids. Sheʼs @lksriv on Twitter.

A lot of transmedia evolves around fiction, around mythologies and fantasy and suchlike. Youʼre an advocate for transmedia activism; how do you feel transmedia can help when it comes to social issues?

Transmedia as a construct and a strategy provides quite a few distinct advantages in effecting social change. I'll describe here four that are on the top of mind.  First, as we know, transmedia frameworks create multiple entry points into a story universe-- paths through which audiences, authors and participants can enter the universe and engage with it. There is a distinct opportunity here in using narrative and a designed experience to guide activists, influencers and members of the general public into your story universe and create engagement and action toward a solution. (When I analyze a story universe for social change, I think first in terms of an ecosystem of issues, social and cultural conditions, communities and solutions-- and not only about the narrative arc of the story.)  As a community of storytellers and activists, we can move beyond awareness and outreach to engagement and action. A great example this year was Medecins Sans Frontieres' "Starved for Attention" campaign, which used a variety of media, film, video, objects and photos created by a number of authors and distributed via web, tablet, and real world installations to create a number of advocacy points that targeted a range of stakeholders and moved them in a nearly seamless fashion from story to their desired action.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 111

Second, transmedia strategies, in allowing diverse and multiple authorship, have the potential to create better streams of participation for "local voice"-- i.e, voices coming from an affected community, to tell its own stories and participate in solutions-building.  This year, I'd point to 18 Days in Egypt as a great example of this, as its building a creative engine to collect and curate group local storytelling around the 2011 Egyptian revolution.  Also, from projects that I work with, I'd point to the work of 3 Generations, a nonprofit that is investing in multi-platform distribution of first-person, local storytelling that all point to a core question of survival from mass atrocity.  I love the work we've started laying out for 3 Generations, in which we're experimenting with transmedia principles as a core of the organization's mission and operations, and a demonstration of the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate affected communities (as opposed to considering transmedia elements for any of the individual stories). I'm not sure yet how this will play out in terms of the transmedia per se, but it's been a great experiment in terms of narrative design and media strategy in human rights.  I'd also point to another project I've been working with: The Invisibles, part of a larger transmedia platform around systemic poverty and human rights along the US-Mexico border and in Central America, and the film Who Is Dayani Cristal?

Third, setting out a transmedia strategy may be an innovative way to create a co-creation network and to build community-centered collaboration.  Creation networks are an interesting way to think about two things: (1) combining community-driven solutions (bottom-up, grassroots) with resources and capacity (top-down, institutional). I worked with UNESCO and Pratt Institute of Design last year in creating a system and a toolkit to build capacity for co-creation teams of local stakeholders and UNESCO program officers to jointly build culturally relevant and resonant creative programs for behavior change.  While the project didn't fall strictly under the banner of transmedia, I asked the same questions and used many of the same strategies for this project as I do when working in transmedia.

Fourth, transmedia answers the question, "How do you tell the story of a system?" There's a danger in social change when you tell a story from one perspective or from one node in the system. True social change comes when solutions are systemic, and transmedia itself is a social innovation that allows us to view our ecosystem and create stakeholder engagement around systemic change.  The advantage to transmedia is that it helps us tell the story of a system by presenting multiple voices on a number of stories extending from the core over a number of distribution channels.  (I recommend your readers take a look at a great TED talk by

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 112

Chimananda Adichie about "The Dangers of a Single Story" to go a little deeper into how multiple narratives help us conceive our perspectives, dialogues and solutions with more richness and more relevance.)

How has the transmedia activism industry or movement evolved during the past few years?

When I first started writing about transmedia activism and examining social action projects through its lens in 2008, there was no identifiable community of colleagues investing time, resources or thought into it. Today, it's still a relatively young construct-- it's more of a strategic framework than an industry or a movement yet-- but over the past 18-24 months, a number of creators and institutions have come to recognize the potential that transmedia has when applied to social change, and so there is interest in investing in tools and technologies that advance the field. Philanthropic institutions like the Ford Foundation and the Sundance Institute have started funding transmedia projects, which is cause for celebration. On the other hand, we haven't yet built a field in which there are a set of norms or business models. We have limited capacity globally, in terms of the numbers of strategists or practitioners who have experience in the design principles of a transmedia strategy, or the subject matter expertise in social innovation or social change. We need to build a community of practice if we're going to really create effective partnerships and implement sustainable solutions.

What has been the most exciting or fulfilling or encouraging transmedia experiences youʼve encountered over the past year?

Aside from work I've been doing this year, MSF's Starved for Attention campaign and 18 Days in Egypt excite me for the reasons I stated above. Lance Weiler's "Pandemic"-- which debuted earlier this year and has inspired some interesting collaborations in social change for him--and his recently launched "Robot Stories" are really interesting. I love the work Breakthrough has been developing for their Bell Bajao campaign, which is rather less involved than Lance's work, but highly engaging and sometimes cheeky, always striking the right tone for the very serious subject of ending domestic violence.  GMD Studios' work with the Smithsonian gives me hope that there are going to be more interesting transmedia collaborations between cultural institutions and experience designers. And the launch of the Mobile Media Toolkit (from MobileActive.org, for which which I sit on the Board of Directors) was particularly exciting in providing guidance on local, independent content creation

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 113

through mobile phones. Finally, I was head over heels for PunchDrunk's "Sleep No More" -- while this is not a "social change" project by any means, it is one of the best immersive, interactive experiences I've ever had in New York City. I'm hoping someone will create a Hitchcock, Fellini or Jean Cocteau transmedia experience, or bring alive more Shakespeare plays, or other classic movie, theater or literary experiences soon.

Do you see anything within the field of transmedia that you are especially looking forward to in 2012?

I was happy Brian Clark addressed the question of business models at Henry Jenkins' site. The founding of StoryCode from Transmedia Meetup NYC is a positive development in this direction, and I'm hoping we as a community delve more deeply into discussions and answers on the evolution of business models and systematically supporting a community of practice.

I'm interested to see how we move forward on personal storytelling as an element of social change campaigns, whose potential is expanding with platforms like Cowbird; and the potential for effective content curation, as Vadim Lavrusik describes in his piece "Curation and amplification will become much more sophisticated in 2012".

In my own work in field-building, I want to continue to align concepts of transmedia to social innovation and design. I would like to continue to work with nonprofits and institutions to themselves experiment with and adopt transmedia storytelling in both communications as well as program design.  And I want to build on discussions that I started in collaboration with StoryCode this past fall on the potential of transmedia in emerging markets, for economic development and creative sector capacity, and community-centered solutions-building. We launched a series with Africa, and hopefully will also explore the Indian film industries and Latin America in 2012. 

On the content side, related to that last point, I'm looking forward to working closely with a forthcoming project called "Lakou Mizik," a transmedia platform for musicians in Haiti, and in continuing to build the platform around Who Is Dayani Cristal? 

If you would hazard a guess, where will transmedia be in 2015, and transmedia activism?

I think it's the way we'll all be communicating and creating rather regularly, so will we

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 114

even need the term "transmedia" anymore? At any rate, in three years, I think "narrative design" will become an essential function across a variety of sectors (for-profit and non-profit), and that transmedia storytelling will be leveraged by more of the creative arts fields, like music, dance and theater, and by more cultural institutions. There will be more global efforts and projects, and more investment in global co-productions in terms of creative content and financial investment.

And I'm hoping we who work in the interstices between the creative and nonprofit sectors will have learned a lesson from the 2011 political revolutions and social movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, Greece, India, Mexico, the US and beyond. I hope we invest in the strong convergence between both (perhaps seemingly converse) individual storytelling and collaborative production, and look to technologies and institutional structures globally that support free and secure expression, a vibrant civil society, and thriving cultural economies.  I hope.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 115

RESOURCES————————————————————————————————

There are a number of places I regularly visit to keep up-to-date with what is happening in the transmedia sphere, to get inspiration or advice, or simply to read some great writing in this field. Below is a first draft at a compilation; you should obviously find the right people to follow on Twitter (the #transmedia hashtag has become a bit cluttered, but is still a good hashtag to follow), join some Facebook groups (Transmediology, Transmedia for Good, Transmedia Nordic to name a few) and look up some of the groups available on LinkedIn to discuss and connect. For the US, you should also give TAG (Transmedia Artists Guild at http://www.transmediaartists.com/) a look, for the European professionals Transmedia Europe is starting up, and so on. You should be able to find your tribe in no time - and should you not, do start your own (and tell me :). Below then, a first list of great sites with short explanations:

http://transmythology.com/

Simon Pulman’s blog on all things transmedia. Simon has a background in law and works at Starlightrunner Entertainment. He is simply great at analyzing different aspects of the multiplatformed media world and put them into relevant context. A must read for anyone interested in transmedia.

http://metascott.com/blog/

Scott Walker writes from his position as a transmedia veteran, the founder of Shared Story Worlds, president at Brain Candy and steward at Runes of Gallidon. Basically he’s a very nice person and very knowledgeable when it comes to engaging audiences and fostering value co-creation.

http://thepixelreport.org/

The Pixel Report comes from Power to the Pixel’s Liz Rosenthal and Tishna Molla. They host a lot of post from people in the field of transmedia as well as their own lecture videos from the Pixel events. A good site to follow.

http://transmediala.pbworks.com/w/page/48427037/FrontPage

A Wiki on transmedia hosted by the Transmedia LA Meetup group. Read up on all things transmedia and contribute yourself.

http://www.personalizemedia.com/

Gary P Hayes’ blog on ”the digital, personalized you in immersive, networked media worlds”. Gary is a founder of StoryLabs, has an extensive background in transmedia and multiplatform and was the author of the

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 116

”Transmedia Production Bible Template”

http://thearrglingtonjump.com/

April Arrglington is one of the directors of the aforementioned Transmedia LA Meetup group and is an avid blogger, especially from different transmedia events.

http://www.deusexmachinatio.com/

Andrea Phillips is a transmedia veteran, having been involved in everything from the Cloudmakers to Game of Thrones / The Maesters Path. She writes good posts; not necessarily always on transmedia but always interesting.

http://christineweitbrecht.com/

”Thoughts on the T” is a blog by Christine Weitbrecht, covering a lot of transmedia events, focused on the US west coast.

http://www.alterati.com/blog/category/transmedia-talk/

Transmedia Talk is a podcast hosted by Nick Braccia, Robert Pratten, Dee Cook and Haley Moore. Its focus is on Story, in a transmedia setting.

http://transmedia-activism.com/

A blog by Lina Srivastava and Vicki Callahan, looking at transmedia from a sociological perspective – ”… a framework that creates social impact by using storytelling by a number of decentralized authors…”

http://henryjenkins.org/

Well, Henry Jenkins is kind of the ”godfather of transmedia”, and over at Confessions of an Aca-Fan he posts great stuff about transmedia, including guest posts and interviews.

http://www.tribecafilm.com/tribecaonline/future-of-film/

The Tribeca Future of Film blog hosts guest posts on amongst other subjects transmedia, from a lot of the best writers and industry people out there.

http://laurentguerin.posterous.com/

Laurent Guerin is a French transmedia producer who publishes a series of interviews under the headline ”Around the Transmedia World”. Also available in French.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 117

http://silverstringmedia.com/category/creative-voice-interviews/

The ”Creative Voice” line of interviews are written by energetic and talented Canadian transmedia producer and writer Lucas J.W. Johnson.

http://www.yousuckattransmedia.com/

YSA is a blog and a website by Dr Christy Dena, one of the few people to have a degree that states that she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to transmedia . It’s also a good read, featuring debates and interviews and just basically trying to help everyone suck a little bit less at transmedia

http://www.tstoryteller.com/blog

Robert Pratten of Transmedia Storyteller shares a lot of his talks and slides on transmedia, building on their own platform Conducttr.

Bonus resource:You could do worse than doing a YouTube search for ”TedxTransmedia” to

listen to some great speakers from the events of 2010 and 2011.

Staffans / ONE YEAR IN TRANSMEDIA / 118

ABOUT THE AUTHOR————————————————————————————————

Simon Staffans lives in Vasa on the west coast of Finland. He’s been working in media for over 20 years already, in newspapers, radio and television. Since 2005 he’s developing formats - cross media, interactive, multiplatform and transmedia formats - at MediaCity Finland. He’s a published writer, was iEmmy-nominated in 2010, holds lectures and talks and is a firm believer in the powers of transmedia storytelling and transmedia methods.

He’s a very happy father of three and husband of one, an avid fisher, an eager cyclist, an occasional DJ (ranging from 80s heavy metal via 60s soul to 2010s techno) and an almost compulsive collector of single malt whiskies (which he never can find the time to drink). He only knows four languages well, but can curse in at least a dozen more.

Follow him on Twitter at @simon_staffans

Blog posts are extracts from the blog SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS on http://muchtoolong.blogspot.com

http://flavors.me/simon_staffans

One Year in Transmedia by Simon Staffans is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at muchtoolong.blogspot.com and interviews.