Where Industry and Academia Fear to Tread – StoryLabs Launch

by Gary Hayes on August 26, 2010 · 7 comments

“We live in extraordinary times and the last five years particularly, a renaissance of storytelling. We are, as we were pre-printing press days when we equally shared, enhanced and distributed the fragments of our engaging stories. Today’s technology has delivered a new spirit of connectivity, a democratisation of story given back to the ‘many’. Storytelling not at walking speed but the speed of light. You equipped to deal with this?”

OK enough opening fluff and straight to the point. I was having a chat yesterday with a colleague at Screen Australia trying to answer a simple question. Cue music…

If you have a story project, that’s a little bit ‘strange’, who ya gonna call?

Magic Point Maroubra LX3 dBW 26

Not Fearing to Tread - Photo cc GHayes

(Strange = new format, transmedia, innovative, social, game-like, fragmented.) If you have a film and TV project and you need assistance to develop the script, help with the production, work through the characterisations, get advice on Red or 3D etc: there are a zillion consultants, vocational educational courses and many willing wannabe advisors to draw on. Film, Radio & TV particularly have 100+ years of maturity so it is also pretty easy to incrementally innovate, floating in watertight boats on tried and tested waters. Sadly the options for story rich projects that fall outside the straight and narrow linear path, have a more difficult time.

To be professionally guided or get the skills to create new storytelling formats you can

  1. Get in touch with professional agencies already doing this stuff. But they are often rather busy making ends meet and engrossed in ‘transmedia’ marketing big budget or existing story brands to really give you the time and advice you need.
  2. Find a traditional academic ‘digital story – type’ course (marketed as a world first) in your local area. Spend 6 months or longer working with ‘we need to do this stuff’ academics and theorists or at best, passionate aggregators of the best ‘new story’ project trailers masquerading as educational case studies. Also these course tend to be trials and under resourced – erm not the views of me with lecturer hat on, local employers ;)
  3. Find a local specialist individual who ‘seems’ to know about this new space – very few good experienced, passionate folk about and also a bit hit and miss.
  4. Seek out a handful of seminars, short workshops or networking events around the world. There are actually very few and they are often of the evangelising vs really getting down to nitty gritty ‘storytelling’ processes.

So here we are, a great dawning of transmedia storytelling, innovative new services and products yet still no true, deep development initiatives? Academia and industry either too money-busy, unable to take risk or focused on the past to really fill in this void?

Flash back to my early 90s when I was running immersive new media workshops in recording studios for musicians creating ‘multimedia’, then (when I joined the BBC as producer) running training in ‘networked audience futures’ for BBC execs. A couple of years later Frank Boyd invited me along to one of his independent residential MultiMedia Labs, an eye opener and which most of today’s ‘Digital Cross X Futures’ residential and other types of labs are based  on. Frank and I then ran several highly successful (especially from a people development perspective) internal BBC Labs using this basic Large Group Awareness Training format – which actually goes back a few hundred years but works especially well to expose traditional thinkers with new approaches. Since then we have seen sporadic charges in the longer format development labs from the likes of BBC again,  AFI Digital Content Labs, AFTRS Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (which I ran of course!)  and recent or continued carriers of the baton bTween, CrossOver (Frank Boyds), Pixel Lab, BAVC & Pygmalion amongst other longer format ones. There are others but they tend to be short, sharp shock, rock star events with at best solid international business networking outcomes.

What seems to be missing though are two key ingredients.

  1. Community. After all of these events/labs finish there is often a big drop off in keeping contacts and those with great story ideas just loose momentum as the weight of ignorance from the traditional industry and commercial pressures hit home. Great projects wilt and die if the original ‘spark’ people disperse.
  2. Story Development. As we know with the best traditional stories ones needs time to really fold depth, back story, great characterisation and wider story worlds into the mix. Like good original cooking it often comes down to good ingredients, time, taking risks and distilling the flavours (must be lunch time he says!). In a distributed and networked story environment these sorts of labs often fail to deliver this deeper more intense development nurturing. So…

A few ‘mates’ and I got together and we drew in some of the best transmedia thinkers and experienced lab folk and …. drum roll…

________________________________________________

For Release 9 a.m. GMT – August 26, 2010 – printable PDF download click here

StoryLabs Launched to Create and Educate the Next Generation of Storytellers

    Global transmedia experts join to launch story innovation lab in four countries

Gary Hayes - Australian Founding Mentor

Sydney, Toronto, Los Angeles, London, NYC – August 26, 2010. Support for the evolution of storytelling enabled by new technologies took a giant leap today with the founding of StoryLabs, an organisation of leading international multi-platform and transmedia creators dedicated to the education and mentoring of storytellers. Powered by a unique worldwide mentor network, participants will benefit from the rich knowledge and experience of renowned professional experts including innovative digital producers, games creators, TV and Film writer/producers, social media and community experts and transmedia content creators.

“Technology has created both new tools and new ways to reach connected audiences. Mastering these new storytelling tools in the changing media landscape is the mission of StoryLabs,” said Gary Hayes former BBC Senior Development Producer, CCO MUVEDesign and Australian StoryLabs Founder. “StoryLabs experts are the actual pioneers and commercial leaders in their fields pushing the frontiers of storytelling across many different platforms. StoryLabs is dedicated to the evolution of storytelling through its incubator labs and a persistent mentor community”

Storytelling 2.0 and Specialised Development Tracks

Matt Costello - US Founding Mentor

StoryLabs deep focused project mentoring cycle will go from incubation to production and distribution providing an education in the writing and design process and best production practices. Development tracks include: Ad Lab focused on cross media advertising, Mobile Media Lab, Community Lab focused on Social Media Story, Games Lab, Innovation Lab focused on story around new services & product and Transmedia Lab focused on the development of new forms of storytelling.

“The elements of a good story that engage an audience such as story arc, compelling characters and good production values don’t change in a transmedia world,” said Matt Costello, US StoryLabs founder and writer of The 7th Guest,Doom 3 and the 2010 E3 award winning Rage. “At the same time we are seeing new forms of storytelling that for the audience are part rich narrative, part play and game as they become co-creators and ‘users of story’. We are here to enable that kind of innovation. “

Neil Richards - UK Founding Mentor

StoryLabs mentors, who have had extensive experience in other lab environments, will provide a hands-on opportunity for brands and media properties to advance new story formats and to shape a fully integrated story based transmedia solution.

“Towards the end of the 90s there was a real energy around interactive story-telling which has slowly evolved into today’s buzzword, transmedia” said Neil Richards, UK StoryLabs Founder and Director of The Mustard Corporation. “We intend to go beyond the hype and at the heart of StoryLabs is a belief that whatever the platform or purpose, however participatory or shared – there are universal qualities of good story-telling.”

StoryLabs Network and Engagement Futures

Tony Walsh - Canadian Founding Mentor

StoryLabs is also hosting an evolving mentor and participant online network that will allow experienced incubator labs mentors and participants to continue to engage in the creation of new form storytelling. There are twenty four renowned global story and experience creators listed on the StoryLabs site, four from Canada, nine from Australia and seven from the US and UK.

“Entertainment shouldn’t be restricted by national boundaries.”, said Tony Walsh, Canadian Founder and CEO of Toronto-based Phantom Compass: “StoryLabs recognizes that great stories are universal.  Our network connects top international mentors to creative personnel, propelling emerging projects towards global markets and audiences.”

The StoryLabs network invites TV/Film writers, games storytellers, advertising writers and others who want to evolve their projects to initially provide expressions of interest at StoryLabs.us/submit and begin a conversation about changing the face of storytelling.

Brian Seth Hurst - US Mentor

“I am seeing a tremendous shift in the foundations of the film and TV industry as storytelling becomes dramatically more experiential”, said Brian Seth Hurst, CEO of cross media strategy firm The Opportunity Management Company who is currently at work with transmedia pioneer Tim Kring on the Conspiracy For Good. “Working with some the top TV and Film creators I am deeply aware of their desire to understand and develop new ways of reaching and including the audience and building vibrant communities. In the early days of TV new production processes were developed that became standard, I see the StoryLabs serving that function relative to new forms of storytelling. I am truly honoured and excited to be part of this initiative and I know participants will greatly benefit from the pooled expertise.”

StoryLabs are planning incubator labs for the first quarter of 2011 and Screen Australia are already onboard as a first sponsor. Other agencies & funding bodies who want to bring the StoryLabs process and incubators to Canada, UK, US or Australia can become a regional partner or sponsor in the first instance by contacting info@storylabs.com.au


View on Vimeo.

For more information, press only:

  • General enquiries – info@storylabs.com.au
  • Australia – Gary Hayes, gary@storylabs.com.au
  • Canada – Tony Walsh, twalsh@storylabs.us
  • UK – Neil Richards, neil@story-labs.co.uk
  • US – Matt Costello, mattcostello@storylabs.us

For more information on StoryLabs:

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Social: The Second Coming of TV. Heralded by Moki.TV ?

by Gary Hayes on August 14, 2010 · 13 comments

A quick look at a new Social TV Network ‘online’ service Moki.TV that follows the golden rules of building community around content and seamlessly binding loyal TV watching with social network connectivity.

Moki.TV

I have written about the range of Social TV services that are orbiting our connected TVs, mobile smart screens and desktop PCs, for example my Social TV reloaded post last year. The importance of the growth of the back channel as more and more people watch TV and communicate with their peer groups is not lost on many looking to capitalise on the potentially explosive marriage of broadcast ‘must-watch-tv’ with ‘must-talk-with-friends’ social networks. As such I have been contacted by several start-up companies showing me stuff and attempting up to put a deeper than the current ‘jack-of-all-trade-soc-nets’, social wrapper around the ancient pastime of TV network show watching. Moki.TV is currently a ‘closed’ beta service and being invited in to snoop around it attracted me with it’s simplicity and parallels with the king of SocNets, Facebook.

The service which I believe is US network only currently, has been developed by three recent MIT graduates Matthew Huang, Brandon Pung, Sandy Spicer who have intelligently kept the ‘community’ tools clean and free from clutter as they build it out and I can imagine the temptation to add lots of TV bells & whistle widgets even at launch was tempting. It says on their site ‘We’re the TV Community of the Future‘ and one of its founders Matthew says:

“Moki.TV, that allows people to rate TV episodes and discuss them with friends. We also provide show information, links to streaming episodes online, relevant news & blog posts, and recommendations for new shows.”

So I spent a few tens of minutes poking around and as I did thought of many of the key ‘beats’ that any new ‘network’ needs to hit from the outset to make it a goer. Naturally Moki.TV is barebones and a few key features are being incorporated towards full launch but here are some first trawl screenshots and thoughts about what they are doing right. This also doubles as a 101 beginners guide to starter networks from my meandering perspective compared with Laurel Papworth’s reams of ‘community’ wisdom, so I have tried to focus on the aspects of integration with TV/linear media watching. In no particular order (this is a 30 minute quicky, full of errors stream of consciousness post!) -

1 – Rewards

and seen to be rewarded for contribution to the network and community. I have blogged before (and indeed lectured several years ago) about one of my favourite networks TriggerStreet, that subtly pushes its members to write great constructive reviews about the films & screenplays by creating leader boards and awards system for that activity. Here Moki.TV rewards its ‘users’ with simple medals for contributing posts, reviews etc as well as rating other reviewers and contributors – encouraging the ‘rating’ of others contributions is such a simple but effective tool. Also notice the game-like levellling going on in the image below – having a sense on how far away you are from the next medal is a great incentive.

2 – The Content Hub

I suppose this is the equivalent of the Facebook ‘Brand Page’ but here we have the ability (as mentioned further down) to really develop the back channel – each show comes to life when it airs and there is a constant stream of activity from those in the community watching the 24/7 streaming shows viewable from one click at the top of the page. As you can also see here all 132 episodes of House are immediately available to explore – either reviews, comment streams, live threads or just see who played the patient in episode 7. Make the content area as deep as possible and I am sure moki have plans to allow loyal viewer uploads in the future. Perhaps snaps of them standing next to Hugh Laurie at the local mall or mash-up videos of the show or their own scripts? It is important that at the start their is enough dynamic content here too to make it a place to return to and this is where a strong relationship between the networks and Moki really starts to make sense.

3 – Who you really are

A very simple, 5 minutes and your up and running profile is tres important. Make it easy for noobs to quickly get in, give some brief info and browse to see what all the fuss is about. They can add more depth to their persona later as they and the network develops and they find more things they forget they liked or more importantly what ‘their’ growing network recommends. Laurel Papworth has some great insights into profiles and reputation management in her post last year here. Another aspect with Moki.TV to help develop a loyalty to the service would be a deeper level of personalization and like the promise of Personal TV (think TiVo suggestions) for a range of shows to be suggested and lined up for you based on previous viewing habits and friends consumption patterns but most importantly something that rarely gets ‘datamined’ – your own reviews of the shows themselves.

4 – Usability & Exclusive Features

Something that makes the network special and different – so it is worth visiting. Also a service that has thought carefully about how the users will engage with it – so imagine your using your iPad deciding on what to stream onto your PC or TV (a second screen) or browsing shows from the past, these simple season reviews and synopses below make it easy to 1) Choose the show 2) Tell everyone you have seen it 3) Rate the episode, in one screen. The ability to attach multiple personal criteria to content in an easy and non-intrusive way is critical to start to populate the network. Here I was able to simple check most ‘House’ episodes and spot a few I haven’t seen – I don’t even get this on the TV networks site!

5 – Levelling Up

Of course you get points for a raft of activities – recommending your friends from Facebook, Twitter, Google connect, commenting (and getting highly hearted) on shows & others comments, suggesting shows – basically the more active the more points. Simple.

6 – Content Popularity

It goes without saying that you need a way to express to shows popularity in this environment. The followers are part of that but it would be a great feature to see the TV show itself win medals and points for the activity and adulation it creates in the community. In fact awards shows should be 24/7 – every show that appears on global network TV is peer reviewed and rated, at any moment you see the peoples choice – not based on a once in a year checkbox blip but a constant ‘leader board’ based on what the community is feeling at that moment.

7 – Your EcoSystem

It goes without saying now that for the next few hundred years the ego-system that is numbers and quality of followers and displaying those you follow, will be the standard. I think here the power of peer recommendation to watch TV shows is far more pronounced than getting that in a twitter or facebook update from a friend – here Moki have the opportunity to do the infamous “20 of your friends are watching this show, 3 of your friends are watching that show”, to help you make more informed decisions. Of course the real time chat that will then take place becomes even more interesting – in terms of ‘this show sucks lets go watch…”. Sure Moki will be incorporating a what’s hot, TV show ‘worm’ like element too that shows the community swarming around a busy primetime evening selection :)

8 – Staying Informed

Across the range of hundreds of shows you can quickly find very detailed, better than usual EPG synopsis (full of spoilers if you haven’t seen the show or being better informed about whether it is worth watching – you choose)

9 – Connecting to Like Minds

As you would expect with any new service trying to pick up a following quickly the parallels with Facebook abound – here we see a basic profile bring to the fore their status in points and medals…but for some good ‘recommendiation’ing’ later on I suspect Moki will be data-mining those shows and activities.

Summary

The business models further down the line look very promising for the Moki.TV team as the current $300 billion dollar global TV industry starts to seriously shift its money online – vs carrying on with the flailing, 60 year old 30 second spot model. Here we have a self regulating psycho and demographic audience who, given the right incentives (free exclusive previews, extra peer-points etc), might put up with some old school ad agency shenanigans, at the start at least!

The potential is great for a good social TV service to surface and lead in this area – that combines the engagement of a strongly connected and loyal critical community with TV networks reaching out to key influencers in a dedicated walled garden (but seamlessly linked to existing social media) environment. Currently iTunes, Twitter, Facebook adhoc reviews & pages type updates are not ever really gonna cut it – there are just too many diversions from your friends to check out ‘other stuff’ and of course the content is too spread out. Moki.tv is squarely aimed at the TV network audience who loyally watch seasons of top drama & comedy and need a place to express and are able to turn their TV ‘chatter’ into something more meaty, persistent and meaningful.

SignUp?

If your interested in signing up for Moki here is a link for you to sign up http://moki.tv/auth/accept_invite/n48MLD and there is another brief review of the site from ‘Pause the Game’s  Moki.tv: A Social Gamification of TV Watching‘

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Producing Transmedia Stories – 10 Reasons why Audiences do it Better…

by Gary Hayes on August 5, 2010 · 16 comments

…than Agencies and Filmmakers. Why do transmedia professionals have a difficult time achieving authentic and fluid transmedia stories and why do ‘existing’ branded entertainment & digital agencies tend towards lowest common denominator, tried and tested formulaic cross media, more about  PR, advertising and marketing than real ‘story’ focused engagement. Against this and rather paradoxically we have the ‘so-called’ audience/users actually telling their ‘life’ stories across platforms in a much more natural and engaging way.

Having produced and studied cross media since 1997 (“What do Audiences Want” BBC pres) one very large and persistent problem has always been creating authentic transmedia stories – natural story arcs and bridges that lead you onward through a long format, multi platform experience. So why is this? What techniques do makers of user created transmedia (you and I wearing our normal, connected people hats) employ that make it more interesting to their target audience and what can the ‘artificial storytellers’ learn?

Montecity July 4th Celebs

note: this is a personal/user POV condensed version of a  longer chapter intro section in my wip book Networked Media Storytelling: Transmedia Design and Production.

Networked Media StorytellingFirstly excuse the use of the term ‘audience’ in the title, it is still a convenient catch-all for the ‘great unwashed’, old BBC term :) or rather, non-professional creators. Of course we are equals and participant users when using well designed professional transmedia services, but what do ‘users’ do when telling their own stories, that pro “experience creators” don’t do and may possibly never achieve?

Before we proceed this is not comparing apples and oranges as on one side we have ‘user created transmedia’ (UCT?) ‘life stories’ aimed at a specific ‘user group’ and on the other professionally created transmedia ‘fiction’ aimed at fans or niche ‘players’. Both have a target audience and both have stories to tell.

ORIENTATION EXAMPLE

To help frame this even more a ‘simple’ example. A typical well networked person wants to share an experience, tell a single (or part of a longer arc) story to ‘their’ audience, lets say (deliberately mundane!) a personally amazing chance encounter with a strange overseas friend who share stories during a mini afternoon catch-up adventure & challenges at various city locations. Challenges being obnoxious shop assistants or overcharging taxi driver etc: :) Remember this is their, Hero’s Journey, we all have one every moment of our lives, some bigger than others. In this example the main user has a pre-existing networked media story environment (amongst other networked elements) consisting of:

  1. 500 facebook friends
  2. run a well read blog
  3. 1200 twitter followers
  4. regular FourSquare user
  5. a heavily subscribed YouTube channel
  6. a busy personal flickr account
  7. use sms and skype a lot
  8. meet up with their physical social circle regularly

User Created Transmedia

Full size link – As the image illustrates I hope, and this is probably old hat to many reading this post, we can see how the rippling of moments (Laurel Papworth covers the social aspects of this in great detail in her post Ripple: Social Network Influencers) across the users ‘story world’ is constantly punctuated as the story develops. Also notice how the story world is setup – the Foursquare updates for example ‘this is where I am – if something happens you will already know…” reinforcing environment and back story. It is important also to take on-board that the user in this case feels the ‘need’ to share, part of their being is now about being constantly active in ‘their story’ network, that need will be reflected by by the network (aka a captive audience) – often it will be quick bursts of activity in real time, pushing messages outwards and occasionally responding to ‘influential’ friends as they know those contacts will proliferate the story even more. Notice also in the diagram that auto updates (twitter pushing into Facebook or flickr) are an acceptable part of more social storytelling as the need to know means a level of ‘spam’ acceptance. I could go on but this is to partly demonstrate how

Today’s socially networked users are evolving into the most talented and natural transmedia storytellers, able to fluently manipulate, create and respond across multiple ‘personally nurtured’ channels transforming in the process something very complex into something beautifully simple

OK the best pro-transmedia relies on the social media connections above to disperse their narratives but as with any form of 3rd party story, we see it is a temporary viral layer (movies, TV shows, games etc) on top of their deeper, personal life story…

The most successful element in user created transmedia are the natural bridges between channels and platforms whereas professional transmedia storytellers often force feed its audience explicit or contrived ‘in your face’ links

As usual my preamble has turned into a tome so without further ado here are ten sections that came from lectures I did on transmedia design at various presentations and higher ed establishments in 2008/9 which I will put up on my slideshare account along with some transmedia bible templates – highlighting some of the fundamental and underlying principles of an authentic networked story environment. I have compared responses to each from an UCT and professional creators perspective, across the specific kinds of interactions within the transmedia, social environment. These are all appropriate to drama, documentary and brand/ad transmedia design, production and storytelling.

NURTURING NETWORKED MEDIA STORYTELLING – WHY AUDIENCES DO IT BETTER

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Augmented Worlds Video Part 1 – Recognition

by Gary Hayes on June 30, 2010 · 22 comments

I am busy consulting, commercial projects and presentations (eg: SBTUG this eve) on Augmented Reality and the near future benefits for storytellers, a range of businesses and service industries. Key questions often crop up as to the relevance of AR to their ‘bottom line’ as well as usuability issues – beyond showing a range of videos from Layar, Junaio and the like it is difficult demonstrating how ‘consumer/users’ of AR devices may be interacting with them in the near, 1 to 2 year out, future. So based on a certain large tablet released recently I created a device that gave a much ‘bigger’ experience than current AR enabled mobiles, had a cleaner interface (as in less clutter POI dots on the screen – most of the time) and fitted into a series of AR future videos ‘AUGMENTED WORLDS’. Please find below Part One looking specifically at the Business Opportunities around type 3 of my AR types - Recognition (Outline) and more on how it was made and a description of the sketch interface below…

AUGMENTED WORLDS Pt.1 - Business Opportunities: RECOGNITION.

An ‘iPad 4.0 – like prototype’ stroll around an augmented Sydney. Video, music devised & created by GARY HAYES of MUVEDesign.com

Music – BTW if you like the music please subscribe via iTunes or other fav podcast tool to download over 250 of my euphoric/progressive trance, organic real harp/guitars or cinematic soundtracks via garyphayes.com or direct feed here.

ASSUMPTIONS WITH THIS CONCEPT

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What makes the perfect Transmedia Producer?…

by Gary Hayes on May 25, 2010 · 50 comments

…and the truth about ARGs.

Now that transmedia is everywhere and the Producers Guild of America have turned the ‘transmedia producer’ into a bona fide (or at least recognised) professional role one thing that rears it’s cross-media head is, who and where are the best transmedia producers going to come from? I have spent a good part of the last 15 years mentoring & training traditional & non-traditional media types in multiple platform content and now question where the best producers of this multifaceted ‘new’ content will come from – academia, film, book authors, social media consultants, game designers, TV, web developers, radio, advertisers, young, old, not yet born? Read on, a ‘hypothetical’ interview follows :) and this is an opinion piece I cannot put in my book or lecture about!

TRANSMEDIA – AMBIGUOUS CONCEPT?

Firstly what is it and does it actually mean anything at all? It is fantastic that the term ‘transmedia’ is now so widespread across the industry and with the official credit (attached ironically to film primarily) but is it a bubble about to burst – is what we have come to know as ‘transmedia’ in danger of being blown out of all proportion.

Here are some of the problems:

  1. Everyone is a transmedia producer - yes you’ve made a website that is attached to a TV show, your a TP. Created a mobile game that has a line or two from the comic, you’re a TP. No one will police this – is it a truly integrated story environment, does it have clever plot links or consistent characters?. A TP is a decathlete (multi-skilled, hard to get a one word answer about what they do in a bar!), gone is nice and simple mono media, a TV producer makes TV shows, film director directs films. You can be a TP if you merge your story across two or more media areas? But more on this later in the post.
  2. Transmedia as a concept is not focused. OK I know Henry Jenkin’s original definition has been spread around the web but it is a definition that is too broad. Perhaps I should exercise my floccinaucinihilipilification and suggest that something that tries to describe everything is actually worthless? Transmedia like a black hole in the universe it tries to describe sucks in everything that has come before (cross media, 360, social media, augmented reality, pervasive gaming and so on). At the other end of this spectrum citing Matrix or Blair Witch or other brand to justify the ‘field’ as mainstream it becomes apparent that the quoted definition itself is rather vacuuous. To quote Jenkins again from an LA Times article, transmedia - “means telling a story across different platforms, each element of which may or may not stand on its own but contributes to an enriched, dynamic, more participatory and “lifelike” experience.”
  3. We are still in the hype phase. Basically anything cool and different those transmedia types (and I point the finger at myself too btw) will take ownership of. I even heard the other day someone say Transmedia is the new Social media and augmented reality even gets a look in. I am not surprised those still getting their head around the ‘story’ potential of social networks or a cute mobile game find it all rather, dis-jointed. Also the increase in experimental and experiential ‘event’ based marketing suddenly meant transmedia is now inextricably linked with brand extensions (TV, film, product) – anything that is not a linear, branded film or TV show. I think for those who live in the transmedia echo chamber this has been the case for many years.
  4. It feels rather academic. Trans-media used to be an alternative semi-academic term to ‘cross-media’ (trans, from the latin ‘crossing’) but is now used to describe everything, non-linear, interactive, extension, participatory, social, brand, play, multi-platform, pervasive and so on. The idea that stories would be told in different places goes back thousands of years but in a modern media context a rich target for study and theorizing. Along came Henry Jenkins who coined the term transmedia almost a decade after the first basic cross-media incarnation. Henry admirably self confesses as being ‘too busy lecturing and presenting about transmedia, to partake’ of the industrial flavour of transmedia “some of it is not well done yet”.
  5. It is still a teenager. It has grown up before it’s time and become a troublesome big headed teenager without any true home and turned into a dysfunctional orphan at once protectively nurtured by over possessive academics, hijacked by experimental ad agencies and hardly understood by flailing stuck-in-time broadcasters. Originally cross-media was an intellectually stimulating concept – memories of mid 90s, pioneering BBC days also my old friend Brian Seth-Hurst who is “Referred to as “the father of cross platform” Hurst coined the term in 1998 as MD of Convergent Media at Pittard Sullivan”. Earlier definitions just talked about story based ‘crossing platforms’ element but since the exponential increase in social media as a place for millions to dwell it has suddenly had the participatory/social part added and also a suggestion that it is now a more integrated form of storytelling, I suppose I should have added a level 5 to my 5 year old (but about to be removed!) wikipedia cross media definition!
  6. Danger of being hijacked - Alongside all of this we have a ‘clique’ of so-called experts who try to describe something which is so simple on one hand (stuff on multiple platforms) yet so ambiguous on the other (fragmented narrative effervescence)  - time will expose the Transmedia echo chamber I suppose.

Of course I have nothing against the term per-say in the absence of alternatives having created transmedia entities/sites like Transmediadesign.org or lamp.edu.au or muvedesign.com – all transmedia in focus – but lets start thinking about the emperors clothes. Indeed the Producers Guild definition of the TP, however bold in its intention, is still a little ambiguous about the precise elements of the role to say the least

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.

TRANSMEDIA – CONTENT (THE TRUTH ABOUT ARGs?)

But this post is not just about the word – there are hundreds of blog posts even now still trying to really get under the surface of what transmedia means and it is too easy to fall down the semantic rabbit hole of terminology and the endless subjective splits between academics, industry and wannabes. Perhaps something more concrete can be found in the ‘transmedia stuff’ itself. What is this stuff and who is making it?

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Descending Clouds – Society and Augmented Reality 101

by Gary Hayes on April 8, 2010 · 37 comments

What happens when the content cloud descends? Rocket science or people science?

Here is a really simple metaphor to illustrate the pervasiveness and societal significance of Augmented Reality. For the past 20 years humanity has been ‘floating’ its content (its personas, its information, life data, economy and social media) creating a distant, electronic cloud drifting, conceptually, way up above us. A cloud that is only reachable when we area able to connect to it via a variety of fixed and mobile ‘information’ screens, themselves connected to a veritable wormhole aka the global internet. (In reality hundreds of thousands of servers murmuring around the world with billions connected via hard wiring to receive richer media & experiences).

Up until now this ‘content cloud’ (different to cloud computing) has been abstractly disconnected from our physical lives – we read news about California earthquakes sitting in Australia, we view videos on the train of a concert three weeks ago at a local venue, we have personal social networks fragmented across time and space, play a game set in Hong Kong on a screen in London, Facebook groups comprised of half friended, remote avatars (the extended self ). 99% of the content in the cloud is not relevant to here and now (although a philosophical moot point if the now ‘is’ the participation and consumption itself?!)

In a near AR future, non geo-sensitive content will be perceived as incomplete

The Descending Cloud

But that cloud, has reached saturation, it no longer can keep afloat, there is just too much or rather just enough content to be temporally and geographically relevant. In other words there is so much ‘stuff’ up there that it now makes sense to access it, in a true Web 3.0 way, in real time, the present moment from anywhere you are. It will at its simplest level be Google Earth, slowly morphing out of your PC screen, growing to global scale and locking into place over the real world or Facebook mapping itself onto the billion users faces out in the street, advertisers reaching out to where ever you are, personalizing your everyday life with relevancy vs noise.

The always on cloud has now become very useful to a range of stakeholders. Marketeers, storytellers & users alike. Mists of information, media and experiences will engulf onto our cities and physical infrastructure, it will become a persistent fog that will coat everything in its path with layers of time and place stamped content. It will create a web of layers, of parallel narratives and realities and enhance our experiences.

OK fluffy intro over and this leads to some high level areas of a ‘consultancy’ whitepaper I did mid last year (which annoyingly I still can’t publish) but some key themes are explored below.

What does this mean on the ground, a ground covered in this fog of information. The transformative effect of our physical world being invaded by ‘cyberspace’ will make the current discussions about social network privacy seem like a children’s party. When the ‘web’ spreads into and permeates our real world will their be any hiding places. As portable screens become practical (think iPad with camera), pervasive wearable computing becomes commonplace and surveillance technology evolves to being ubiquitous and transparent – society will evolve way ahead of government and law, who powerless to stop the flow of information on connected screens will be even more powerless to stop this flow moving into real space?

“Augmented reality allows people to visualize cyberspace as an integral part of the physical world that surrounds them, effectively making the real world clickable and linked,” says Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm.

The videos below might give them ‘digital’ food for thought.

Beware: I would like to point out everything below has already happened or about to launch in the next few months.

FIRSTLY – RECENT VISIONS OF THE DESCENDING CLOUD

From Eyetap.org (a wearable computing lab in Toronto) – “Stewart Morgan discusses Architecture of Information on the show Daily Planet. It is a visionary short film showing augmented reality, and the implications of it’s applications.” From 2007

THE PERSONAL CLOUD

What kind of society will it be when our personal profiles, details and content are available to anyone in the street simply by scanning our face. That person across the train carriage, are they really playing an iPhone game or finding out ‘everything’ about you, well at least that which you have placed on the open web? A short video that will shock forward thinkers…

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The Game that becomes a Film and Our Lives Online Survey

by Gary Hayes on April 4, 2010 · 4 comments

Been heads down writing, commercial development, life & course dev. I am now lecturing on (and running one of) two Multi Platform courses in Sydney, plus just out the other side of a big personal move to a new part of Sydney. All this combined with other blogs I am group posting on (eg: transmediadesign.org) and lil old twitter becoming a good micro-blogging, link alternative means this blog is starting to be devoted to article, resources or richer content – when I get the time. But I have a back-log of 15 drafts that will be pushed out (excuse the pun) in the next few weeks! Also busy putting a book together called ‘Networked Media Design – Multi Platform Production’ – so some of the good stuff trickling out there, more distilled rather than the temporary stream of consciousness here – but that will all change very soon.

1. ANECDOTAL CHANGING MEDIA FAMILY – HEAVY RAIN ON EASTER SUNDAY

How much time do we spend with different media forms? I am with my partner’s family down in Adelaide, Australia for the hols and on Easter Sunday have just been part of a bizarre ‘new’ ritual. I say new because in the past Easter sunday may have constituted a quick morning choco egg hunt, followed by lunch, a film or two, some topical TV and even radio later in the day during meal times. How far we have come?

A family group of two pre 10s, three early 40s and two seniors have been gathered around the hot family PS3 playing Heavy Rain for 7 hours! Yes you heard right, from 10am to 5pm we played, talked about, watched, shouted, got emotional to a ‘video game’ – all the time discussing the next moves, ethical questions, plot points, social aspects and production value. The kids were doing most of the driving while the rest of us took the back seat giving them directions and choosing some more of the subtle ‘conversational’ or plot options. I tweeted this ‘social’ game event as Parallel Access Gaming – as in this new form of media consumption some of the family simultaneously experiencing the game as play, others as an emotional cinematic event (complete with film music & inciting narrative) with everyone cycling between, action and passive. Typical?

@garyphayes easter sunday revelation – Parallel Access game Heavy Rain – kids play/drive, moms/aunties strategize, grandparents discuss story arcs

2. SURVEY HERITAGE MEDIA CREATORS AND MANAGERS – DAILY MEDIA vs LIFE TIME

This reminded me to do a post on another special demographic group who are often (anecdotally) associated with spending more of their daily time with cinema, the arts, TV or radio (traditional / heritage media). At several seminars I have been running over the past couple of years for traditional media creators/managers I have asked over 105 of them to fill in a little survey I devised – imagine a typical week or month and construe from that an average day spent with media & life events. So over the past week if you averaged it out, how much TV per day would you watch, how much on social networks, how much playing games and so on.

Two sets of questions:

Heritage media and life time – Sleep, Eating, Travelling, Books, Live TV, Live Performance, Conversation, Sports, Live radio, Cooking, Newspapers, Family Stuff, Cinema, Education, Pubs & clubs

Social, online entertainment – Email, On-demand music, On-demand video, Console games, Social network, Online games, Online video, Shopping online, Mobile – SMS, Uploading, Twittering, Collaborative writing, Writing blogs, Research, Forums

The purpose of this was to see how closely their life/media time balance matched the stats I was presenting from the likes of Nielsen, Forester and other ‘notable’ research who were obviously taking larger samples than my 15 at a time and what I publish here – 120 anonymous respondents. The results were rather surprising and the age ranged from around 19 up to early 50s across heritage aspirants and established creators. I start with a couple of charts at the Gen Y end, film foundation students which shows some detailed online time followed by my special aggregation that compares key groupings.

On-demand and online entertainment


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