Marcus Swanson, Filmmaker and LA Film School Student: You spoke in the beginning about
the rapid change in the industry causing problems. I wanted to know if you think students should
try to keep up-to-date with things that they’ve previously learned if by the time they graduate
it will already be kind of evolved?
Houston Howard, Transmedia Author and Instructor: One hundred percent. Everything changes so
fast that now it’s incumbent upon creators not just students but professionals especially
professionals that have been in the industry awhile. The typical 30-year screenwriter that
has seen and done it all they find it difficult to really want to stay on top of things.
I think students naturally because of the generation they have grown up multi platform
and they’ve naturally learned all of the new platforms and learn all the new stuff.
I think now we live in such a crazy, oversaturated, technologically advanced time that really
if you want to stay relevant you need to figure out how to utilize and maximize and leverage
the new platform, the new touch points and methodologies that audiences are using every
single day and it’s not necessarily because the theater is going away or Netflix is ensuring
that everything streams. It’s not necessarily that. I always put it in reference to the
audience. If you understand your audience and you can design to your audience then you
are going to be a better creator. And if you start to see audiences operating on multi-platforms,
if you see audiences really gravitating into podcasts. Podcasts are very big, they are
very popular today whereas two or three years ago not as much. But if you see a big push
into podcasts then all of the sudden that should clue you in that there is an opportunity
to the platform but in the mindset of the audience.
Once you start to understand that audience you will be able to take that psychology and
lace it through how you are going to create your IP [intellectual property].
I think a lot of the new platforms with mobile, with podcasts, with like Alexa, Google Home,
all of that stuff. I think understanding how that is starting to shift culture. Why are
people starting to use voice? Why is voice coming back? It’s almost like we are coming
back to a 1930’s radio era.
I think that instead of being threatened by that that creators, screenwriters, directors,
authors they should recognized that and leverage that as a tool into those things.
What I typically get is is “Well I don’t know how to make a podcast?” “I don’t
know how to make an Alex skill. I don’t know how to do any of that stuff.” Like
you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. I just don’t believe that. I tell people there
is this amazing website that teaches you how to do anything in the world and it’s called
G - O - O - G - L - E [dot] com. You go there and type in “How do I make a podcast? How
do I create an Alexa Skill? How do I do something on IGTV? And you can spend 7 or 9 or 48 hours
reading and learning how to do all of this stuff and now all of the sudden you have an
extra skill on your Batman belt as a screenwriter not necessarily to augment it in a way that
is flowing in line with culture and that I think is flowing in line with culture and
that I think is empowering rather than threatening. I’m a big advocate of never stop learning
especially as a creator because if you never stop learning you are always going to be in
line with your audience.
How do we differentiate between transmedia as a marketing strategy compared to like a
storytelling strategy? Should I be using transmedia in my storytelling or is it just a marketing
ploy?
Houston: Historically bad transmedia has been rooted in marketing and what happened and
what happened (nothing against marketing) marking is not a bad term, it’s not a pejorative
term but where transmedia breaks down is when creators push transmedia off to the marketing
people and really don’t understand the story or they don’t have the right to extend the
story. So a lot of times you will see a marketing heavy transmedia pushes that are light on
story and are never about just trying to exploit the media and create and entry point for the
audience and there isn’t a valuable extension of the story.
For me the best transmedia flows through the creator into all these touch points where
now the mobile game and the Facebook live and the IGTV series they are not just marketing
tools, they are storytelling tools and the big difference is how much story are you getting?
Is it story first or is it just promotional first?
The more promotional it is the less valuable it is to the audience. I always liken it to
me and my wife have two dogs. We love our dogs…we are like weird dog people that love
our dogs too much. And so I always use the analogy that you need to feed your audience
and feed your fans like you feed your dogs. That is the first lesson that you learn as
a kid with a dog is that you need to feed your dog every day, it’s your responsibility
(that’s what my dad told me). He said if we’re getting a dog, you are going to take
care of it, it’s your responsibility to feed it every single day. And creators need
to have that same attitude when it comes to their fans. It’s their responsibility to
continue to feed the fans. Don’t put it off onto a marketing person, to a publicist
or to other people (to PAs or interns). You need to understand this as a creator how do
I feed my audience? Which then begs the question what’s the best food to feed the audience?
The best food to feed the audience is story.
As a GAME OF THRONES fan the best thing you can feed me is a GAME OF THRONES story. Not
necessarily a GAME OF THRONES trailer or commercial. I’m excited about those things but they
are like sugar rushes. So if you eat a bunch of sugar, if you feed you dog just a bunch
of junk, if you feed it a treat, it may get excited but that’s not going to nourish
them over the long term.
So the thing that nourishes the audience the most is just honest to God just good story.
If you tell me as a GAME OF THRONES fan that there is great story delivered on Instagram
I don’t care that that is Instagram, I go there for the story. And I consume that story
and now there is a brand equity that continues to strengthen in me through the GAME OF THRONES
brand in general because they fed me and the more you feed you audience the more loyal
they are.
Because if you don’t feed your dog what happens? They either die, they go somewhere
else for food, they turn on you and eat you like Ramsey Bolton (that’s a GAME OF THRONES
reference). But anyway you cut it or your neighbor who has the food lures them away.
So now in an oversaturated market you have all these people saying “Hey I’ll feed
you over here! I’ll feed you over here!” And now there’s competition in the marketplace.
So for me the thing that differentiates marketing and transmedia is what kind of food are you
feeding your audience? Is it story or is it just promotional. And if the creator is involved
and it’s part of the creative vision, it’s more likely than not be more story than it
is promotional. As soon as the creators disconnects and hands it off to the digital marketing
people they may call it transmedia but it’s probably just going to be a big marketing
plot.