Transmedia Storytelling is the technique of telling a single story or story
experience across multiple platforms and formats including, but not limited to,
games, books, events, cinema and television. The purpose is not only to
reach a wider audience by expanding the target market pool, but to expand the
narrative itself. Henry Jenkins, author of the seminal
book Convergence Culture, warns that this is an emerging subject and
different authors have different understandings of it. He warns that the
term "transmedia" per se means "across media" and may be applied to
superficially similar, but different phenomena. In particular, the concept of
"transmedia storytelling" should not to be confused with traditional
cross-platform, "transmedia" media franchises, or "media mixes".
From a production standpoint, transmedia storytelling involves creating content
that engages an audience using various techniques to permeate their daily
lives. In order to achieve this engagement, a transmedia production will
develop stories across multiple forms of media in order to deliver unique pieces
of content in each channel. Importantly, these pieces of content are not only
linked together, but are in narrative synchronization with each other.
History The origins of the approach to disperse
the content across various commodities and media is traced to the Japanese
marketing strategy of media mix, originated in early 1960s. Though some
have traced the roots to Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded written by Samuel
Richardson and even suggest that they go back further to the roots of earliest
literature. By the 1970s and 1980s, pioneering
artists of telematic art made experiments of collective narrative,
mixing the ancestors of today's networks, and produced both visions and
critical theories of what became transmedia.
With the advent of mainstream Internet usage in the 1990s, numerous creators
began to explore ways to tell stories and entertain audiences using new
platforms. Many early examples took the form of what was to become known as
alternate reality games, which took place in real-time with a mass audience.
The term ARG was itself coined in 2001 to describe The Beast, a marketing
campaign for the film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Some early works include,
but are not limited to: Ong's Hat was most likely started
sometime around 1993, and also included most of the aforementioned design
principles. Ong's Hat also incorporated elements of legend tripping into its
design, as chronicled in a scholarly work titled Legend-Tripping Online:
Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong's Hat. ISBN 978-1628460612
Dreadnot, an early example of an ARG-style project, was published on
sfgate.com in 1996. This ARG included working voice mail phone numbers for
characters, clues in the source code, character email addresses, off-site
websites, and real locations in San Francisco.
FreakyLinks, 2000 The Blair Witch Project - feature film,
1999 On Line - feature film, 2001
The Beast - game, 2001 Majestic - video game, 2001
The Macaulay Honors College, part of CUNY, New York, established a New Media
Lab focusing on Transmedia Storytelling and content, under the direction of
Robert Small. Current state
As of 2011, both traditional and dedicated transmedia entertainment
studios are beginning to embrace transmedia storytelling techniques in
search of a new storytelling form that is native to networked digital content
and communication channels. Developing technologies have enabled projects to
now begin to include single-player experiences in addition to real-time
multiplayer experiences such as alternate reality games. While the list
of current and recent projects is too extensive to list here, some notable
examples of transmedia storytelling include:
Copiii: The First Entry, a transmedia project directed by Gustavo Cooper.
Conspiracy 365, a transmedia/multiplatform experience for
The Movie Network TV in Australia. Slide, a native transmedia experience
for Fox8 TV in Australia. Dirty Work, an interactive web series by
Fourth Wall Studios. Skins, a transmedia extension of the
Channel 4/Company Pictures TV show by Somethin' Else in the UK.
Cathy's Book, a transmedia novel by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman.
"Personal Effects: Dark Art", a transmedia project by JC Hutchins.
Year Zero, a transmedia project by Nine Inch Nails.
ReGenesis, a Canadian television series with a real-time transmedia extension
that took place in sync with the episodes as they aired.
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a web series adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with
Twitter and Tumblr accounts. Pandemic, an independent film and event
created by Lance Weiler. MyMusic, transmedia sitcom by Fine
Brothers Productions as part of YouTube's original channels initiative,
one of the more robust transmedia experiences.
Clockwork watch, an independent project, about a non-colonial Steampunk world,
told across graphic novels, live events, online and a feature film created by
Yomi Ayeni. ZED.TO, a crowdfunded Canadian ARG that
simulates the rise and fall of a futuristic Toronto "lifestyle biotech"
corporation. Fallen Nation, a transmedia setting that
currently includes 2 books, 1 graphic novel, and a collection of audio albums
and audio theater released in podcast format.
Defiance, a television show and video game paired to tell connective and
separate stories. The HIVE Transmedia Project, by Daniel
D.W. is a sci-fi novella series incorporating QR codes within the text
to multimedia and a simulated reality story.
Ingress by Niantic Labs in 2012. Endgame: Proving Ground, a web, phone,
book, movie & live paid actor campaign of transreality gaming by Niantic Labs
beginning in 2014. Simon Wilkinson has created several
transmedia shows, including Beyond the Bright Black Edge of Nowhere and The
Cube, which both tell the story of a mass disappearance in 1950s America.
After seeing the performance, audience members investigate the disappearance
online through a series of websites. In 'Digital State: How the internet is
changing everything', author Simon Pont argues that transmedia storytelling is a
theory that is at last starting to find its practical stride. Pont cites Ridley
Scott's Alien-prequel Prometheus, and specifically the three viral films
produced by 20th Century Fox as part of the advance global marketing campaign,
as vivid executional examples of transmedia storytelling theory.
Where Robert McKee argues that back-story is a waste of time, Pont
proposes that storytellers like J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof have “pretty
much lined McKee’s argument up against a wall and shot it”. Pont goes on to
argue, “Parallel and non-linear timelines, ‘multi-verses’, grand
narratives with crazy-rich character arcs, ‘back-story’ has become ‘more
story’, the opportunity to add Byzantine layers of meaning and depth. You don’t
create a story world by stripping away, but by layering”.
In 'Ball & Flint: transmedia in 90 seconds', Pont likens transmedia
story-telling to "throwing a piece of flint at an old stone wall" and
"delighting in the ricochet", making story something you can now "be hit by
and cut by". Educational Uses
Transmedia storytelling mimics daily life, making it a strong constructivist
pedagogical tool for educational uses The level of engagement offered by
transmedia storytelling is essential to the Me or Millennial Generation as no
single media satisfy their curiosity or lifestyle. Schools have been slow to
adopt the emergence of this new culture which shifts the spotlight of literacy
from being one of individual expression to one of community. Whether we see it
or not, Jenkins notes that we live in a transmedia, globally connected world in
which we use multiple platforms to connect and communicate. Using
Transmedia storytelling as a pedagogical tool, wherein students interact with
platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Tumblr permits students’
viewpoints, experiences, and resources to establish a shared collective
intelligence that is enticing, engaging, and immersive, catching the millennial
learners’ attention, ensuring learners a stake in the experience. Transmedia
storytelling offers the educator the ability to lead students to think
critically, identify with the material and gain knowledge, offering valuable
framework for the constructivist educational pedagogy that supports
student centered learning. Transmedia storytelling allows for the
interpretation of the story from the individual perspective, making way for
personalized meaning-making. In 'The Better Mousetrap: Brand
Invention in a Media Democracy', Pont explains, "Transmedia thinking anchors
itself to the world of story, the ambition principally being one of how
you can ‘bring story to life’ in different places, in a non-linear
fashion. The marketing of motion pictures is the most obvious
application, where transmedia maintains that there’s a ‘bigger picture
opportunity’ to punting a big picture. Transmedia theory, applied to a movie
launch, is all about promoting the story, not the ‘due date of a movie
starring...’ In an industry built on the conventions of ‘stars sell movies’,
where their name sits above the film’s title, transmedia thinking is
anti-conventional and boldly purist." Transmedia storytelling is also used by
companies like Microsoft and Kimberly-Clark to train employees and
managers. Gronstedt and Ramos argues: “At the core of every training challenge
is a good story waiting to be told. More and more, these stories are being told
across a multitude of devices and screens, where they can reach learners
more widely, and engage with them more deeply.”
References ^ a b Steinberg,Marc, Anime's Media Mix:
Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. p. vi
^ Phillips, Andrea. Transmedia Storytelling.
^ Jenkins, Henry. "Transmedia 202: Further Reflections". Confessions of an
AcaFan. ^ Pratten, Robert. Getting Started in
Transmedia Storytelling: A Practical Guide for Beginners. London, UK:
CreateSpace. p. 224. ISBN 978-1-5153-3916-8.
^ Bernardo, Nuno. The Producers Guide to Transmedia: How to Develop, Fund,
Produce and Distribute Compelling Stories Across Multiple Platforms.
London, UK: beActive Books. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-9567500-0-6.
^ Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, p. 110
^ Prior, Karen Swallow, The New, Old Way to Tell Stories: With Input From the
Audience, The Atlantic, October 18, 2013 ^ Kinsella,Michael. Legend-Tripping
Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat University Press of
Mississippi, 2011 ^ "Dreadnot". SFGate. Archived from the
original on 2000-02-29. ^ Pont, S. “Digital State: How the
Internet is Changing Everything” Kogan Page ISBN 978-0749468859.
^ 'Ball & Flint: transmedia explained in 90 seconds' Simon Pont
^ a b c Jenkins, H. “Transmedia Storytelling and Entertainment: An
Annotated Syllabus”, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 24:6,
943-958 2010. ^ Wilson, M. E.. Teaching, learning, and
millennial students. New directions for student services. Summer 2004.
doi:10.1002/ss.125 ^ Warren, S., Wakefield, J.S., and
Mills, L. "Learning and Teaching as Communicative Actions: Transmedia
Storytelling", in Laura A. Wankel, Patrick Blessinger Increasing Student
Engagement and Retention using Multimedia Technologies: Video
Annotation, Multimedia Applications, Videoconferencing and Transmedia
Storytelling, 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.67-94
doi:10.1108/S2044-9968(2013)000006F006 ^ Teske, Paul R. J. and Horstman,
Theresa. "Transmedia in the classroom: breaking the fourth wall". Paper
presented at the meeting of the MindTrek, 2012.
^ Pont, S. “The Better Mousetrap: Brand Invention in a Media Democracy” Kogan
Page 978-0749466213. ^ "Storytelling for the Netflix age".
T+D Magazine. August 2013. ^ Gronstedt, Anders; Ramos, Marc.
Learning Through Transmedia Storytelling. ASTD. ISBN 1562869515.
Further reading Pratten, Robert Getting Started in
Transmedia Storytelling: A Practical Guide for Beginners 2nd Edition
Phillips, Andrea. Transmedia Storytelling
Azemard, Ghislaine, 100 notions for crossmedia and transmedia, éditions de
l’immatériel, p. 228 Pont, Simon “The Better Mousetrap: Brand
Invention in a Media Democracy”. Kogan Page. ISBN 978-0749466213
Pont, Simon “Digital State: How the Internet is Changing Everything”. Kogan
Page. ISBN 978-0749468859