Transmedia storytelling

What it is? Commented [HP1]: Definition

Henry Jenkins (university of cali) defines transmedia story telling as:

A process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across
multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated
entertainment experience.
In other words, the transmedia story is one in which separate story elements of a larger
narrative can be experienced by many different audiences via a range of technology
platforms.
CORE ELEMENTS:

 Story
 Technology
 Audience

STORY:
Backbone (Pillar) of transmedia
Not from a single point F.I Thinking about Little red hood… a transmedia story in which
there’s the point of view of the wolf, and from the grandma, etc.

COMMON RULES
The story world is the spine from which infinite new stories or aspects of the main narrative
can be created, shared and added to. All are separate complete stories in their own right. But
all following the same rules of reality that make them clearly belong to a larger, more
complex common central world.
Each of these stories could be enjoyed as a standalone experience, but each should have
enough common conceptual hooks to enable them to make sense collectively. They should
all fit cohesively together,

SERIALITY IN TRANSMEDIA
We can interact with as many different but related story elements and piece together a rich
picture of a larger story world.
We can access as many or as few of these stories as we'd like and we can do it in any
order.
Transmedia stories do not just have to be limited to fiction. They can also be inclusive of
advertising and marketing strategies or even campaigns to social change

Why is it important to create a story-world to be the at the center of a transmedia storytelling

strategy?

 It establishes the rules (or ‘conceptual hooks´) within the larger fictional world
surrounding the original story
 It enables an audience to build a deeper understanding of the larger story-world the
more they engage with different story elements within in
 It enables many different stories to be created that feel like they belong to the same
universe

APPROPIATE USE OF TECHNOLOGY

The second critical element of transmedia storytelling is the appropriate use of different
digital technologies or any technologies. To:
(1) disseminate the story to a range of audiences around the world,
(2) tell the story in different ways, linked to how the technologies work,
(3) and engage audiences in the act of storytelling and creation.

We can access what we like, when we like, in ways that have the most meaning for us.
Each of these technological platforms has enabled a different type of story creation.
One where we can share, tell and engage in the experience. Every platform can offer a new
dimension to the basic story, expanding it and providing new nuance, detail and
opportunities for experiencing and learning about the larger story world.

What are the advantages of using different technologies to tell stories in a transmedia
approach?

 Internet based technologies can enable more people around the world to engage
with a story
 Certain technologies enable the audience to participate in and contribute to the story-
world (ARGs f.i.)
 Having different storytelling options allows an audience to access what they like,
when they like, in ways that have the most meaning for them
 The characteristics of different technologies allow elements of a story to be told in
different ways
AUDIENCE
Every story needs someone to hear it, see it, experience it, evolve it, share it and perpetuate
it. We live in what Henry Jenkins calls a Convergence Culture in which old and new media
intersect, where grassroots and corporate media collide, where the power of the media
producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways.
As an audience, may be experiencing disparate story elements and not a complete story in
the form of a beginning, middle and end, gaps in the narrative between different elements
of the larger story may emerge. This means that there is a space for audiences to take an
active role in filling these gaps for themselves and others, by participating in the
story. People can use various online technologies such as websites, social media, or in Commented [HP2]: When there is not a lineal structure
forums, to actively seek further clarifications and to understand the richer story world by
collaboratively piecing together back stories, character histories, solving gaps or preempting
the main storyline of a film or series. Spreading story elements to other contexts or even
creating and sharing new story elements themselves.
The more the audience interacts with different transmedia elements of the larger
narrative, the more they're rewarded with a richer understanding of the story world. This is
where active audience participation in the story merges with contemporary participatory
cultural practice, particularly surrounding the use of digital technologies.
This global interaction of communities of interest is a type of what philosopher Pierre Levy
called a Collective Intelligence. A group of people sharing a common interest
and collaboratively contributing to and defining a growing bank of knowledge.

Important things to remember about a transmedia audience:

 They have many entry points into a storyworld – you cannot predict which part of a
story presented on different platforms they may encounter first
 They may want to actively participate in discussion or contribute to the storyworld via
different social networks and communities
 They can be very diverse in terms of their location, interest, and level of engagement
in a storyworld
 March 10th
Video: Henry Jenkins the benefits of Transmedia
All right, so the word transmedia, by itself, is an adjective. It's not a noun. So it has to modify
something. So, if we go back to Marsha Kinder's original use of it, it was modifying the
concept of characters. So, transmedia characters were characters that had
appearances across multiple media platforms.
Now what are the payoffs of that? Well first of all you can extend the timeline. So, if you look
at something like Star Wars, Star Wars extends the timeline of The Old Republic through
Knights of The Old Republic the game Takes us much further into the past then the Lucas
produced films ever did. You can flush out secondary characters.
WORK IN TEAMS
No one person is going to know the full range of media platforms and techniques necessary
to create a transmedia property in and of themselves. So, what you have to do is build that
collaboration from the very beginning.

COMMERCIALISATION
What we believe is that real art forms are commercially successful. And that this is a flexible
enough evolution of just where entertainment and storytelling is going that it can meet mini
goals and objectives. And that it needs to be done correctly.
 March 15th
THE ANATOMY OF STORY (Key concept)
Basic concepts that are useful in describing how a typical story is constructed.

 Story as meaning: Connecting complex ideas to emotions

 The hero’s journey1
The monomyth. Shared elements for many stories:

The ordinary world

Call to adventure (Problem)
Refusal of the call
Meeting with the mentor
Crossing the threshold
Tests, allies, enemies
Approach To the innermost cave
Ordeal (the hero’s darkest hour)
Seizing the sword, reward
The road back (after a moment of reflection)
Resurrection (new light, new life)
Return with the elixir (reward helps the ordinary world)

Characters Archetypes
An archetype is something that exhibits the typical elements of certain personalities.
“An exaggerated character type that is easily identifiable to an audience as aspects of
themselves they need to emulate, refine, avoid or improve”
MBTI Archetypes (Myers Briggs types)
In his 1992 book, “The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters”,
Christopher Vogler described the eight most common character archetypes appearing in
stories.

 Hero (Protagonist. Self sacrificed)

 Mentor
 Guardian
 Herald (brings messages or knowledge)

1
The Hero with A Thousand Faces. Joseph Campbell
  Shapeshifters: Shapeshifters are characters used in tent, a legend or motivation
and not clearly nowhere, they may at different times appear to be against or in favour
of your quest. They represent uncertainty.
 Shadow. This character is usually the main opposition to the hero. Where the hero
is light and hope, the shadow is darkness and fear. They can also represent the
darker side within the hero and ourselves. The hero will usually have to meet
and overcome this character during the final stages of the story.
 Ally. Travels with the hero. Shares the yourney
 Trickster. Buffon.

Motivation
What drives the character to undertake this journey? Why did they persist when things get
tough? Why is the goal that they are chasing so important, that they will risk death just to
realize it?
While the monomyth underlies nearly all modern story structures, once you've identified the
types of characters in the story, thinking about their motivation gives you an opportunity to
begin to create more specific story context relevant to the underlying message or life lesson
that you want to communicate.

The Moral

Perhaps, one of the most important elements of the story is it's moral.
All stories have an instructional purpose, and the moral is a lesson that can be learned
through the transformative journey of the hero.
The moral can usually be distilled into one simple core message, that's designed to help
provide a positive life-lesson to the audience. It also provides the context that defines the
detail of all the other story elements.
“The lesson” – “It is the main positive life-lesson that the audience can learn from the story”
When establishing the moral of your own story, it pays to ask yourself what is the message
I want to share? And most importantly, why this this story need to be told?

Henry Jenkins on “The story and the plot”

I think, one of the things is the distinction between the story and plot. So, plot would be the
sequence of events as they unfold in a film. This scene happens, and this scene happens,
and this scene happens. Story would be the total thing we understand at the end of watching
a film.

World Building / Unified Rules

So, by a world, we mean a kind of integrated system with lots of moving parts. So, a world
consists of characters, settings, myths, artifacts. Think of it as a whole system of a society
or a culture. So, science fiction is really all about world building. Imagining what the world of
the future looks like, what an alien culture looks like. Fantasy is very much about world
building. We're travelling through these different lands and we encounter different peoples
and then this happens and this happens. But, historical fiction also is that way.
So, if you start from one of the genres that are world building is involved with. Building
transmedia, the creative generation, is just looking for those moments where we want to
know more.
Picture your audience as a really inquisitive five-year-old who keeps saying why? Or
what? Or what happened then, daddy? And you've reached that point where you just keep
building out from that central hub all of these extensions that fill in things that people might
want to know.

Tom Ellard (mp3) - The role of memory imagery

So, storytelling is things that happen and then basically bring on the next thing in a chain, a
rolling chain of events. This causal, that caused that.
Because I was in a bad mood I had a car accident. Because I had a car accident I missed
the job interview and I never got that job.
And people do that not only with their days but they do that with their entire lives. People
build their life as a narrative.
 April 14th
Week 2: Creative Ideas Generation - Building a Storyworld

The premise and six word stories (Key Concept)

One of the simplest models of thinking we can apply when we are creating new transmedia
stories is conceptual blending. This was first described as by association by Arthur Koestler
in the 1964 book, The Act of Creation.
Conceptual blending. Analogies and metaphorical thinking can also aid this process, as
we combine and find connections between things that may at first glance seem unrelated.
We often subconsciously conceptually blend two existing things together to create
something new. (Listas cruzadas)

C1 CB C2

Basically, bringing two or more seemingly unrelated ideas together to form something new.
A six-word story: Stories have been around for thousands of years, and different forms of
telling stories have also been around for thousands of years. But, the six-word story has a
more recent history. The idea for the six-word story is said to have come from a challenge
to the well-known writer, Ernest Hemingway.
“With the less you can do more”
The best examples can suggest a whole life, or help you to imagine a real person in just six
words. Six-word stories can move us to tears or make us laugh out loud.
They can even have the three stages of action, conflict and resolution.
You can also have several six-word stories, one that describes the theme, one that describes
the emotional tone of your story, and one that describes the main character, and so on.
It is a useful way of mapping out the essentials to ensure you don't get too lost in details at
the start.
Memes extend the six-word verbal idea by also adding an image. Sometimes just by
changing the photo in a meme, it changes the way the story is understood. Adding images
also make words and stories more memorable. Dr. John Medina, in the book, Brain Rules
says, if information is presented orally, people remember about 10%, tested 72 hours after
exposure. That figure goes up to 65%, if you add a picture. So, a six-word story is two things
conceptually blended together, the idea of a story with a restricted word length.
Premise: A six-word story can also be a premise. A premise in the idea generating process
can be a simple statement, which helps to frame the concept and which could help to lead
us on the pathway to the conclusion, a bit like a headline in a newspaper article.
Think of the last movie you went to see. What is that movie's premise summed up in just
one sentence. A book or a movie title can sometimes be its premise.
The premise is a simple, short statement which helps to frame the central concept of the
story
Quirky traits. Another technique we can apply to create more original ideas for transmedia
stories is to actively consider our own personal traits, environments and processes. What
personal strengths and weaknesses are you aware of as you create stories?
What environment and surroundings help you to be more creative? And what creative
processes do you use, or consciously avoid using, to help you to stay focused on creative
tasks?
Contrast Checklists: Our final technique in this lesson is to create a contrast checklist and
to use it as a gap analysis tool. What would you like to see or do in a transmedia world?
What stories do you think might be missing?
Write a list of things that you really enjoyed as transmedia stories in one column and
describe why you think they engaged you. Then in another column write a list of things you
would like to see, and that you feel are missing as creative new stories.
Column 1: Transmedia stories you have enjoyed and why they engaged you
Column 2: Things you feel are missing as creative new stories
You may have heard of the Black List, created by Franklin Leonard in 2005 where he asked
people he knew in the movie industry to nominate the best unproduced screen play from
that year. Once the list was created, he asked people to vote on which scripts they would
most like to see produced as a real movie. That in itself was an interesting story and process.
More than 300 screenplays have now been put into production after appearing on the Black
List, and many have gone on to win Oscars and other awards.
In summary, we have considered conceptual blending, six-word stories, the story premise,
our personal traits, environments, and our processes, and also using a contrast checklist.
Tools and techniques like these can help us to develop a more creative approach to help
aid our transmedia work processes.
 April 15th
THREE TOOLS FOR CREATING CONTENT (Key concept)

 Toolbox
I've sometimes described the different idea generation tools I like to use as being a bit like
a toolbox. So inside our mental toolbox are different creative techniques that can be applied
as different tools to create new ideas for different purposes. And unusual and unpredictable
ways.
Audiences love the unpredictable and unusual, as they're more memorable and engaging
in the transmedia storytelling world.
Top Three Transmedia Tools. We will look at re-framing, random stimuli, and designing a
desktop and notebook to help us to research our stories.
Re-framing. Our first tool is re-framing, which is used constantly to evolve and develop
good stories. When we look at the history of storytelling and explore the types of stories that
have become well known, we can see that there are patterns in some form of stories which
are repeated.
Re-framing stories can involve changing the place, the time, characters, or changing the plot
sequence. It is sometimes described as viewing an idea through a new lens. We filter
information and ideas and regenerate them when we add re-framing to the mix. What type
of traits do the characters in your story have? What processes do they use as they move
through the story? And what environments or story worlds do they live in?
The hero's journey identified by Joseph Campbell is one of the best examples of extensive
re-framing in storytelling. He compared many myths from lots of different countries and found
powerful common themes amongst them.
Taking an existing story and changing the place, time, characters or plot to give it a new
perspective.
Random Stimuli. Ask five friends to email you their favorite photo. Take the first three that
you receive and write a three-act story that combines aspects of those randomly received
images.
Why do we use techniques and tools like random stimuli? They help us to avoid predictable
pathways and habitual ways of creating when we are coming up with new ideas.
The power of random selection is that it can help you to explore useful associations that
would not emerge intentionally. Random stimuli can also be used as a personal tool. Imagine
you've got a box that's called a story bank. Into it, you put lots of different things that inspire
you, move you, or intrigue you. Pick one out at random, then another, then another. Consider
these three things and write a story that links them.
There was an interesting exercise done using objects found in charity shops, by
adding a powerful personal story, and listing the objects for sale. The perceived value
of the objects increased. The authors set up a website called Significant Objects and
100 of the stories have been selected with a photo of the object and produced as a
book.
Using symbols like rings allows us to include metaphors into our stories. Next time you're
walking past a charity shop, have another look at the objects in the window. Imagine what
their back story is. Who owned and loved those objects, and what happened to the people
who they belonged to?
Research and reference / Design your desktop and notebook. A desktop is not just the
virtual one on your computer. Having a real-world desktop which is organized to, provide
inspiration is important. The more personal this is the better, consider pictures from places
you've traveled, objects that have special meaning for you, and inspiring quotes.
I highly recommend keeping a notebook which you deliberately design to be 50% visual and
50% verbal. Writing things down and drawing physically embeds the information in our brain
and memories. In many different ways then typing and filing things away on a computer
screen.
Using a notebook creates a sequence and personal story in itself. So how we research and
what we reference in the content of our stories is important. Notebooks also provide a
physical tool for random stimuli as we turn over several pages, new connections can occur
to us.
Notebooks enable you to easily refer to and record all of your research about your ideas.
We have briefly looked at another thinking model we can call the three r's, re-framing,
random stimuli and research and references. Using these three tools can help extend our
creative ideas generation in less predictable and more interesting ways.