Transmedia Comes of Age? Dare to Dare

Now I do have problems with the term ‘transmedia’ being used as a catch all for everything that is non-linear but I think we are stuck with it for the moment as it has come to represent a few key areas

• New Media – doesn’t really have any meaning any more so transmedia may as well absorb the ‘new’ stuff
• Cross-Media – moving stories and content around platforms oh (360 and many more here)
• Multi-Platform – the art and craft of creating compelling cross media
• Social Media – yes transmedia has hi-jacked all that participatory, two way stuff
• Distributed Storytelling – it’s real meaning. Telling stories in fragments over time and place

OK I have a long post coming up on my top global blog personalizemedia that covers the above in more detail but for now lets, celebrate the catch-all term transmedia.

A couple of things in the last few days have suggested we are at the end of the beginning of the slow march to where alternate media forms (to TV and Film) are taken as bona fide players in the professional media areas.

The first is the announcement yesterday that the Producers Guild of America have now officially recognised a new title that can appear in credits of films and on various incarnations of that film across the web, mobile and outdoor etc: This short article from Deadline Hollywood explains all and the actual credit guidelines on the Producers Guild site here covers what exactly the credit refers to – scroll to the bottom after all the other ‘newer’ media credit definitions (interesting side point I have performed in nearly all those categories!). I suspect a great deal of this move is the result of some great work of an old friend from the late 90s (in his design agency days) to today, Brian Seth Hurst who has been active for over 10 years in the US in getting recognition for transmedia both leading the new media elements of the Guild itself and the Academy of Film and TV responsible for setting up the International Interactive Emmys.

Transmedia Producer – A Transmedia Narrative project or franchise must consist of three (or more) narrative storylines existing within the same fictional universe on any of the following platforms:  Film, Television, Short Film, Broadband, Publishing, Comics, Animation, Mobile, Special Venues, DVD/Blu-ray/CD-ROM, Narrative Commercial and Marketing rollouts, and other technologies that may or may not currently exist. These narrative extensions are NOT the same as repurposing material from one platform to be cut or repurposed to different platforms.

A Transmedia Producer credit is given to the person(s) responsible for a significant portion of a project’s long-term planning, development, production, and/or maintenance of narrative continuity across multiple platforms, and creation of original storylines for new platforms. Transmedia producers also create and implement interactive endeavors to unite the audience of the property with the canonical narrative and this element should be considered as valid qualification for credit as long as they are related directly to the narrative presentation of a project.

Transmedia Producers may originate with a project or be brought in at any time during the long-term rollout of a project in order to analyze, create or facilitate the life of that project and may be responsible for all or only part of the content of the project. Transmedia Producers may also be hired by or partner with companies or entities, which develop software and other technologies and who wish to showcase these inventions with compelling, immersive, multi-platform content.

To qualify for this credit, a Transmedia Producer may or may not be publicly credited as part of a larger institution or company, but a titled employee of said institution must be able to confirm that the individual was an integral part of the production team for the project.

A brave step forward in that the form itself is still evolving but this will do a lot to bring the role into mainstream heritage media thinking – surely if there is a label for the person doing all that ‘other stuff’ then it must be valid, yes? My only concern would be the catch all nature of the role and the fact that a true transmedia production actually would contain within it, film and TV – so it may be missing the umbrella nature of the role. Do you think?

The second less formal thing that caught my eye was a TEDx conference called Transmedia “Dare To Dare” aimed specifically at public service broadcasters who can reach out to their audiences and through a range of ‘distributed, participatory narrative’ services, fulfil their true remit – to be the conduits for cultural play and discovery. Well that’s my definition, your mileage may vary! The conference on the 22nd of April in Switzerland is being run by folk at my old stomping ground at the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) cross-media arm and the speakers are interesting. It contains a couple of Aussies, Nathan Mayfield from Hoodlum and Christy Dena (an ex mentor at AFTRS and LAMP from and then introduced to the Australia Council) but a range of folk I respect who have actually made some notable public service ‘true’ transmedia offerings such as Chris Sandberg Company P, of Truth about Marika fame. Of course the usual crowd such as Jeff Gomez and other ARG specialists will be doing their thang too. Interestingly and to bring the two parts of this post together Jeff actually comments about the Guild credit above in the Deadline post, and covers what I think will be the main fallout of the new role.

“The Transmedia Producer credit will help move transmedia storytelling from methodology to artform, from marketing tool to a conduit for dialog, mutual expression and co-creation. The credit will empower producers and creators to retain rights and take equity in the rich worlds they’ve worked so hard to build, even as they roll out across a dozen media platforms. That’s what the PGA is there to do.

We should all credit Alison Savitch and the Producers Guild of America’s New Media Council for vanguard thinking, and we should also acknowledge the support for this credit from the PGA and PGA East’s leadership in traditional media, people like David Picker, John Hadity, Gale Anne Hurd, Mark Gordon, Vance Van Petten and Marshal Herskovitz, among many others.” Jeff Gomez

But back to TEDx and I do hope that the talks are in true TED style and not a series of case studies or theory, but actually get to the cultural core of the changes in participatory, distributed, social storytelling and new mass market form vs the rather academic approach we often see from various quarters.

TEDxTransmedia, true to the spirit of the TED conference aims to inspire broadcasters, and in particular, public service broadcasters, to “DARE” more for creating innovative content and borderline strategies to connect with the audience of the future.

Television, although originally a one-way (broadcast) medium, has been trying to engage its audience in a two-way experience for several decades. A children’s television program called Winky Dink and You (CBS 1954) was the first attempt to drive the viewer from passive to active.

Since then content providers, despite numerous failures along the way, have been trying to develop programs which create and exploit possibilities to be engaged by and to interact with TV content.

TEDxTransmedia is designed to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences amongst creative professional in the ‘otherMedia’ sphere.

Nowadays the future of entertainment can’t be conceived without enhanced content and multiplatform distribution strategies, matching the media habits of the ‘Pokemon generation’, seamless consumers of games, books, Internet, film and television.

TV has lost its predominant role, and it is now mandatory for broadcasters to embed various forms of interactive technology in their programs and to focus on crossmedia content and transmedia strategies. As Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT and a foremost authority on today’s media environment says:“Media convergence makes the flow of content across multiple media inevitable”.

In order to be ready for the future of entertainment, broadcasters, content producers, media professionals and adults in general… should not be afraid to switch on a different mindset and try to push the boundaries!

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