Digithoughts

Transmedia is Everywhere Part 1: What is it?!

Comic Con is more than just a place to experience the latest that the entertainment industry has to offer; it is also a place to learn.

Thursday, I attended a session called “So You Think You Can Make Transmedia Entertainment” which was presented by Henry Jenkins of USC, author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide.

Because this topic is so vast and pretty much touches every aspect of entertainment, including online, I decided to make this a two part series. Part one will focus on what is transmedia in detail and part two will showcase the best uses of it online as well explain its importance in online campaigns.

Introduction to Transmedia

Comic Con is a wash in transmedia; the concept is all around. Comic Con has become ground zero for the shift in entertainment. It has grown far beyond comics and the push for more transmedia is part of the reason. This concept has become so solidified in entertainment that there is now an official job title, Transmedia Producer, with new Producers Guild of America rules to go with it.

So what is transmedia exactly? By definition, transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction are dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Each medium makes its own contribution to the story.

Back in the day, you just had to pitch a great story to make a movie. An example of this is the classic Casablanca; one movie, one story. Soon, the idea of sequels came into play. The key to this was a central character or set of characters that are the center of the story, example Freddie Kruger in Nightmare on Elm Street. But today we see that a single story or unifying character is not enough; now you must create a world, where there are multiple stories with multiple characters. The best present day example is Star Wars, which has spanned decades across multiple media forms, from movies to TV to books to comics.

You might think that this is just for profit, to milk a story or idea for all it is worth across a franchise. But trasnmedia strategy is not a promotional strategy, but an aesthetic one. When it is done right, it expands the experience for the fan, giving them more content to enjoy. Strategies are based off of active engagement and fan participation. Active engagement and fan participations are two are of the driving forces of Digital Destinations.

Even though transmedia can be part of a marketing strategy, should not be confused with branding; they are two separate concepts. Branding is a promotional tool to generate awareness or draw people to a story where transmedia strategy focuses on what each part contributes to the overall story.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV Show is an example of transmedia while Star Wars cereal is an example of branding. The TV show fills in the gaps between Episodes 2 and 3 where the cereal is just a promotional tool to appeal to Star Wars fans.

To really understand transmedia and all the different ways to produce it, it needs to be broken down. According to Jenkins, there are 7 core concepts of transmedia:

Concept 1: Drillability and Spreadability

Drillability is all about how much the audience can dig out of the story and become immersive. Lost is a perfect example. The TV show is designed to have so much information that the audience and drill down and discover more and more about the story. Lost in particular had so much detail that a “Lostepedia” website had be created just to keep track of it all.

Spreadability is all about dispersion and moving the content from place to place. Social media has made this easier for transmedia storytellers. An example of this is True Blood, who have different, engaging content on Twitter, Facebook and on HBO.com.

Concept 2: Continuity vs. Multiplicity

The concept of continuity is a cornerstone of comic books. Characters and storylines must match up over the course of the series, which could be decades. You can do a spin-off and dive deeper into a particular subplot but it has to match out with the main arc or arcs. X-Men has one of the most complicated continuity challenges because of there are so many characters.

Multiplicity is using the same characters in different stories that deviate from the original plot. Pride, Prejudice and Zombies is a perfect example. While it contains Jane Austen’s original characters and similar plot lines, Austen’s story did not include the undead.

Concept 3: Immersions vs. Extractability

Immersions are becoming more and more popular. The new theme park The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is one example of immersion. Another is a Star Trek exhibit I attended at Boston’s Museum of Science.

Extractability is when the audience can take a piece with them and extend the story themselves. Action figures are the most well known form of this.

Concept 4: World Building

World building has been around for generations. Many people don’t know that L. Frank Baum wrote more than 20 Oz novels. He was more than just a storyteller, but a world builder as the Land of Oz grew across multiple books.

Present day world building is very present on the Internet. True Blood has done a wonderful job with website for groups within the show such as The American Vampire League and The Fellowship of the Sun. World building is not just about creation of a place for stories and characters to live, but a place audiences can “visit” as well.

Concept 5: Seriality

Seriality is continuing the same exact story, as opposed to continuity in which the story can change and evolve as long as the facts remain correct. When Episodes 1, 2, and 3 of Star Wars came out, they were not new stories, but the same story continued.

Concept 6: Subjectivity

Subjectivity is when you tell the story from different points of view. This adds elements to the world and can provide much needed back-story. Heroes, a TV show with a large ensemble cast, did this through a series of web comics. Providing back-story and points of view from that many characters would have been impossible to do on the show itself. The web comics enhanced the experience of the fans, without taking away from the TV show.

Concept 7: Performance

Performance in the context of transmedia is all about what are you giving the audience to do. Fox’s hit show Glee has done a tremendous job of this by encouraging the audience to participate via online videos of them singing songs from the show. At Comic Con, they debuted a Glee Karaoke video game, which further added to the Glee fan’s participation and engagement with the show.

Part Two: Transmedia in the Online Space

How is transmedia relevant in terms of the online space? I briefly touched on online media such as video and web comics, but in part two I will focus on where transmedia and online marketing meet and how understanding the two can lead to a better user experience online.

Reena Leone Marketing and Social Media Coordinator

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