What exactly is transmedia storytelling? And how do you develop, produce, share transmedia stories? Well, for starters, you might want to check out Robert Pratten’s Getting Started with Transmedia Storytelling a practical guide for beginners 2nd edition. You can access a full, online version below. Or purchase the print edition (or ebook) now.
http://www.slideshare.net/ZenFilms/getting-started-in-transmedia-storytelling-2nd-edition
[The Internet is] a natural transmedia vector, and we already see stories being told by parallel text, video, audio, fixed image, and other kinds of content, on multiple screens. To get the whole story, you have to engage with all the different media that are used to tell it, and none of them has the complete lowdown. We use very different perceptual equipment to understand each of these media, and they happen simultaneously… The transliteracy skills needed to decode and assimilate a transmedia communication require multi sensory perception, time shifting, and parallel processing. ~ Ray Gallon (Rant of a Humanist Nerd)
The Numinous Place, by
Mark Staufer Mark Staufer (@MarkStaufer) promises a pioneering
transmedia thriller with the launch of ‘The Numinous
Place‘. Blending book, film and web-based narrative
elements, Staufer’s quadrilogy will immerse participants in an
interactive parallel world blurring traditional narrative
entertainment and game play.
‘The Numinous Place’
is the world’s first truly multidimensional work of fiction –
technology and creativity merge harmoniously to create a uniquely
experiential new medium. (The
Numinous Place)
In a recent interview
with Mike Vogel (@MikeVogelCom), the creator of the
transmedia story Phrenic, Stauffer shared some
transmedia (and human nature) observations that I’d like to
highlight.
I believe there’s still a lot of
gimmickry surrounding transmedia, and by that I mean the technology
and the excitement of using multi-platforms oftentimes come at the
expense of the actual story… Tech accentuates the narrative.
Story should always come first. One of the main fears of
traditional publishers is that mixing media—text, audio, video,
etc.—could take the reader out of the story. But that’s an
incredibly old-fashioned view. The fact is, every single one of us
experiences the world in a multi-stream way; our brains multi-task
and filter information and entertainment constantly as an essential
part of our day to day reality. (This is Transmedia)
Old news, not new news. But too often overlooked. Thank you, Mark
Staufer. Looking forward to ‘The Numinous Place‘! BTW, You can read
the full Mark Staufer interview HERE…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7vHMSZBspk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrfmSnOxN_s
Writer and game designer Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) hass corralled 25 Things You Should Know About Transmedia Storytelling which you should read before it becomes 26 or 50. But, if you’re rushy, at least read my favorite half dozen from his list:
Current Transmedia Definition
The current and straightest-forwardest (not a word) definition of transmedia is when you take a single story or storyworld and break it apart like hard toffee so that each of its pieces can live across multiple formats. This definition features little nuance, but hey, fuck it. That’s why this list exists — to gather up the foamy bubbles of nuance and slurp them into our greedy info-hungry mouths.
Still Gotta Give Good Story
Good storytelling is still good storytelling. Doesn’t matter how the story is being told. And this is where transmedia stops being a buzzword, ceases to be a gimmick — no matter what you call it, no matter how many screens you slap it on, no matter how experimental you choose to get, you still have to know the ins and outs of strong storytelling. You cannot and should not lean on the crutch of transmedia.
True Heart, False Face
I find that a lot of what people call “transmedia” fits the technical definition (as noted at the fore of the post) but fails to take into account what for me is more important: the philosophical definition. For me, what makes true transmedia unique and beyond the buzzword, past the gimmick, is when it carries two corollaries to that earlier definition: first, it offers audience investment and lets them act as collaborators; two, the story was intended to be a transmedia experiment from the very beginning.
Let The Audience Drive The Dune Buggy
Here’s why transmedia storytellers need to put their auteur egos off to the side — because the audience needs to control a chunk of the action. This can be overt, where the audience is literally allowed control (or even provenance) over the narrative, and their input changes the entire experience. This can be covert, where audience investment helps to shape the output if not directly change it. But the audience must be part of the feedback loop — and in this increasing age of interactivity, the audience wants their slice.
The Word I Like: “Emergence”
I’m starting to feel that the success of a given transmedia project lives or dies on how much emergence it affords — emergent gameplay being unexpected or unintended game interaction, and emergent narrative being stories growing out of the experience that you did not plan for or anticipate (and note that both are strongly driven by audience). You cannot demand or force emergence, but I think you can cultivate it by leaving room for it, by designing aspects that cede authorial control (or some portion of it) to those who are participating in your story. It also may work if you just hand out buckets of hallucinogens.
Not Every Story Requires It
Transmedia isn’t a big pop culture Snuggie. It is not one size fits all. Some stories just don’t demand that kind of treatment. They’re better off as single-serving entities — book, film, show, comic, deranged hallucination, Scientology pamphlet, whatever. But on the other end of the coin, transmedia isn’t a genre-only thing. I mean, it often is in practice. But it shouldn’t be. And it doesn’t have to be. (25 Things You Should Know About Transmedia Storytelling)
Thanks, Chuck!
Transmedia storytelling is a way to create a storyworld and tell a story across multiple platforms and formats. The different media complement each other and are linked together. An essential aspect of a transmedia production, is that the audience can actively participate in the storyworld. Therefore a digital platform often has a central role. One example is a tv series where the audience can follow the characters on Twitter and respond to them.Transmedia arises from our convergence culture, as mediatheorist Henry Jenkins states. We use all kinds of media at the same time. We text with our cellphones while listening to music on Spotify, reading the newspaper, checking tweets and meanwhile writing a blogpost.
Since the audience is getting more and more used to consume different media at the same time and responds to them online, producers are looking for new and creative ways to tell their stories, and use different platforms in order to create a storyworld. ~ Katía Truijen (Masters of Media)
Transmedia Storytelling is the practice of telling a single story with multiple platforms and formats, often using digital tools. Often shortened to simply Transmedia, it can allow documentary filmmakers to not only reach new audiences, but also to create unique educational components to enhance their film’s message and provide ways to partner with companies and brands, which can mean welcome financial relief to lighten the burden of the high cost of filmmaking.
[…]
“Transmedia” is a buzz term that while currently all the rage may soon go out of fashion. But the essence of Transmedia storytelling — the integration of digital technologies and creating cross-platform experiences to enhance content, perhaps in a documentary’s case its message — is here to stay. Documentary filmmakers already wear many hats. Partnering with a developer familiar with coding and end users’ needs will elevate a documentary Transmedia project — and just might open creative avenues the creator wouldn’t have thought of on his or her own. With Transmedia, it really does take a village. ~ Amanda Lin Costa, producing of documentary, “The Art of Memories.” (MediaShift)
Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story… There is no one single source or ur-text where one can turn to gain all of the information needed to comprehend the… [story]. ~ Henry Jenkins
In a March 22, 2007 blog post, “Transmedia Storytelling 101“, Henry Jenkins laid the foundation stone for all subsequent conversation and speculation on the nature of transmedia storytelling. (Nota bene: USC Professor Marsha Kinder is generally credited with coining the term “transmedia” in 1991.) Though transmedia storytelling definitions abound, most trace their DNA back to Jenkins. Attempts to explain the idea of transmedia storytelling sound wonky: discrete constituent parts of a narrative are distributed via diverse audience interfaces, permitting a more interactive, organic and audience-centric story experience… Snooze!
Despite the academic language and the buzzword-laden rants, transmedia storytelling isn’t such a complicated concept. We apply the term primarily in instances where digital communication channels are involved, but the underlying idea is that the audience/player/consumer actively “creates” the story by selecting and aggregating distinct but complementary narrative threads. Uh-oh, I’m slipping into wonk-land. The idea is simple. Articulating the idea, less so.
Immersive multi-channel storytelling…
Yikes.
This isn’t working!
