Cross-Media + Transmedia Entertainment

** SHORT VERSION: I’M NOW BLOGGING AT WWW.CHRISTYDENA.COM **

Well, not quite ‘death’ but an indefinite hiatus. I’m powering down this blog for a few reasons, one of which is my desire to finish my PhD. I’ve tried for the last year and a half to do PhD writing and work and this blog, but found the mindsets are somewhat incompatable. I’ve decided therefore to close this blog down. I don’t know if I’ll bring it up again and if I do when, or whether I’ll start another one. But I do know that I have thoroughly enjoyed blogging here these past few years. I have especially enjoyed meeting many of you because of the blog, and seeing ‘cross-media’ (etc) projects become ubiquitous. Thankfully, the area has alot more people looking at it now, from alot of different perspectives. Here are some blogs that will keep you informed:

• Networked Performance: research blog that posts about emerging network-enabled practice;
• You can read and listen to news about alternate reality games and just about any online extension of a film, TV or book property on the ARGNet blog and ARG Netcast (podcast);
• Henry Jenkins personal blog and the Convergence Culture Consortium blog has lots of goodies from a media studies perspective about ‘transmedia storytelling’ and ‘convergence culture’ in general;
• DeMontfort University share their investigations into what they term ’Transliteracy’ at their PART blog;
• Jeff Gomez, the CEO of Starlight Runner and longtime practitioner of ‘trans-media’ projects, is now blogging regularly about his insights and experience over at the Producers Guild of America blog;
• Monique de Haas blogs about ‘crossmedia communication’ occasionally;
• Tony Walsh posts semi-regularly on alternate reality games;
• Valentina Rao blogs about crossmedia games and anything related to that at Games Across Media, and will hopefully be starting her PhD on the subject soon;
• Johnathan Gray, Derek Johnson and Ivan Askwith are blogging about everything around TV and film at The Extratextuals;
• Crossmedia Dialog is a group blog that post regularly on crossmedia in Amsterdam and worldwide;
• Faris Yakob, Adam Crowe blog about ‘transmedia planning’ and other changes to the marketing industry;
• Jak Boumans posts every single day about stuff happening in the Netherlands and worldwide at Buziaulane; 
• Max Giovognoli runs everything to do with cross-media in Italy;
• MobileCrossMedia is a blog that looks at the different ways mobile phones can network with different devices and the real world;
• If you don’t already get it, the Convergence Newsletter has regular interesting newsletters about convergence in journalism and has been my favourite newsletter for the past few years;

I don’t plan to be blogging here about events or publications I’m involved in, instead I’ll pop them on my bio site. But for now, here are some events I’m involved with, in the not-too-distant-future:

• I’ll be on the ‘expert panel’ with Mark McCrindle and Tim Flattery at Mitchell Communications Group ’s launch of ‘While You Weren’t Watching’, a documentary on changes to branded entertainment etc in which I was interviewed. The launch is private but the documentary will be put online I believe in Nov; 
• I have my own panel on ‘Designing, Experiencing and Analysing Games in the Age of Integration’, and I am a panelist in Darren Toft’s panel on ‘What Happened to New Media Art?’ at the Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment in Dec;
• I’ll be on the panel on ‘Cyber-Born Film’ at Megan Spencer’s Destination Festival (or DestFest) in Dec;
• In Jan 08, I’ll be a guest lecturer again for Sue Thomas and Kate Pullinger’s Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media, De Montfort University, UK;
• In Feb 08, my essay on ‘Tiering in Alternate Reality Games’ will be published in the special issue of Convergence edited by Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze.

For now though, I will continue to be online in a different way. I’ve started a podcast, a podcast where I’ll interview talented people working in this area. My ‘birth’ podcast is a bit awkward, but the second is a great one: an interview with Stitch Media’s Evan Jones. At the site, I also provide sneak preview information about Stitch Media’s latest project.

That is it for me here, thankyou all for sharing this time with me. I’ll see you on the other side of my PhD.

Check it out: www.ChristyDena.com  

Check it out: www.UniverseCreation101.com

One of the presentations I really enjoyed at perthDAC 2007 (which I reviewed here) was Axel Brun’s ‘The Future is User-Led’. In particular, I appreciated his ‘common characteristics’ of Blogs, Wikipedia and Second Life. Here is his ppt:

The full paper is online [PDF] and detail about the book this paper is a part of.

After my post about highly regarded fan fiction, it was interesting to note Tony Walsh’s post about Microsoft’s ‘Game Content Usage Rules’. People wanting to create machinima using XBox 360 are warned:

You can’t add to the game universe or expand on the story told in the game with “lost chapters” or back story or anything like that.

And then they end the list of rules by saying:

If you do any of these things, you can expect to hear from Microsoft’s lawyers who will tell you that you have to stop distributing your Items right away.

There’s still a way to do some of these things we’ve excluded, but you have to contact us for a commercial license. Thanks, and have fun!

* Shaking my head in disbelief *

Check out: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/developer/rules.htm

Dan Hon, COO of Mind Candy has put the transcript of the 2007 SXSW conference panel: ARG! The Attack of the Alternate Reality Games transcript online. It is a fantastic talk that addresses alot of questions people have about ARGs and marketing and emerging trends. I’ve cherrypicked some quotes that stand out for me.

Read the rest of this entry »

I stumbled across this video by Mickey Gilchrist and Scott Bartlett that is titled “transmedia”. The inference, then, is that this video is a collection of transmedia examples. Have a look:

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Now, in an effort to demythologise what ‘transmedia’ and ‘cross-media’ etc is, I’ll take the opportunity to unpack the relations between the segments presented in this video:

• Segment 1: Superman cartoon = 2D animation probably circa 1940s which is an ADAPTATION of comic books introduced in 1938 (although there may be some TRANSMEDIA expansions of the storyline);
• Segment 2: Superman movie = live action ADAPTATION of segment 1. At quick glance, the adaptation occurs on a few levels: 1) Medial (2D to live action); 2) Cultural (storyline alteration for contemporary audiences);
• Segment 3: The Simpsons cartoon = 2D INTERTEXTUAL relation (Genette) where the cartoon alludes to the Superman storyworld, also a ‘metaform’ (Johnson);
• Segment 4: The Simpsons videogame = 3D ADAPTATION of The Simpsons 2D cartoon;
• Segment 5: The Simpsons real life version & The Simpsons original cartoon = MASHUP/REMIX/INTERTEXTUAL relation (quoting) of original 2D cartoon and fan live-action APPROPRIATION/ADAPTATION/HOMAGE (source);
• Segment 6: The Matrix title sequence & The Simpsons original cartoon = INTERTEXTUAL relation (quoting) of The Matrix feature film within The Simpsons original 2D cartoon;
• Segment 7: The Matrix Lego animation = fan live-action APPROPRIATION/ADAPTATION/HOMAGE/PARODY of The Matrix live-action feature film;
• Segment 8: The Matrix feature film = excerpt from live action feature film (that is what it looks like);
• Segment 9: The Matrix videogame = INTERTEXTUAL relation (quoting) of 3D videogame ADAPTATION of The Matrix feature film within iPod interface REMEDIATION (transparency relation – Bolter & Grusin).

So, from this little analysis we can see that there the media relations exhibited are those that have been present for decades. From what I can tell, there is only one that is only one example of a weak form of expansion of a storyworld: the parody. I bring up the point of expansion because that is the contemporary understanding of ‘transmedia’, as popularised by Henry Jenkins. Jenkins’s definition of ‘transmedia storytelling’:

A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole. In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does what it does best—so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics; its world might be explored through game play or experienced as an amusement park attraction. Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained so you don’t need to have seen the film to enjoy the game and vice-versa. (Convergence Culture, 139)

Transmedia storytelling, in Jenkins sense, refers to the expansion of a storyworld, with each unit being self-contained. This is actually just one type of transmedia expansion of four (4) top-level ones that I have identified. But the point about expansion is there. That is why I baulked at the video being described as ‘TransMedia’. Now, ‘cross-media’ is a term that has been around for a long time. It has many meanings to different parts of industry, different industries and different academics. I employ ‘cross-media’ to be an umbrella term that describes all inter-textual relations in a multi-platform environment: repurposing (remediation), adaptation and transmedia expansions (and more).

I find it interesting that ‘transmedia’ and ‘cross-media’ are often employed to described intertextual relations that have been present for a while. One of the reasons is that some people enter the notion of intertextual relations through these forms and so label them according to what they have just found out. Another reason is a fetish for the new. To label an intertextual activity according to notions that have been around for a very long time negates the excitement and uniqueness of it. With this analysis we can see that the activities listed in the video are not new in terms of the intertextual relations. What is new, however, is the range of media and artforms that we can employ for adaptations; the ways digital technologies enables easier appropriation of forms & the broadcasting of them; the growing preference for these forms and they way ‘official’ producers are engaging in these behaviours as well…

One thing is clear from this video though: people really do love seeing fictional worlds persist in every media platform and arts type, irrespective of the creator.

If you haven’t already seen this, check out Assistant Professor Michael Wesch’s video on how digital text has changed everything…Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us

Sandra Hanchard, analyst for Hitwise Asia Pacific, responded to my post about cross-media bundling by offering some stats on what areas of entertainment are most searched for on the Net. The idea being that those with the greatest amount of interest on the Net shows that people are actively looking for other information and other media forms within that subject. As Hanchard says: “This may be used to inform at least the online component of a cross-media bundling strategy”. Good stuff!

See Sandra’s post at Hitwise

I’ve attended many industry conferences that claim to be addressing the theme of ‘cross-media’ and ‘transmedia’. I’ve also assessed the schedules of those I haven’t attended from afar. I have not seen one that really understands what it is, and so they do not select the right speakers or ask the right questions. Well, I’m thrilled to say there has been a conference that does hit the nail on the head. The MIT Comparative Media Studies and the Convergence Culture Consortium presented the Futures of Entertainment Conference, on the 17 and 18th Nov, 2006 at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The podcasts of the sessions are now online so you can soak in that transmedia goodness. Of particular interest, to me, is the session on Transmedia Properties (it goes for over 2 hours!) and Henry Jenkins’ Opening Remarks. But there are so many great sessions on fan cultures, virtual worlds and so on. All the podcasts of MIT Comparative Media Studies are here. Enjoy.

Andy Kessler, a hedge fund manager, has written this interesting but sceptical account of the state of media: Media 2.Uh-Oh.

On Friday night/Friday morning I presented my first inworld lecture inside the virtual world Second Life. Drawing from my articles in Slate Night Magazine, I spoke about the ‘Remediation of the Art Space in SL’. This lecture was part of a special session Anya Ixchel, the editor of Slate Night arranged for the New Media Consortium’s Impact of Digital Media Symposium. CDB Barkley has already podcast my session. Anya’s presentation was fabulous, so was the ‘Fashioning the Avatar’ show where we discussed unusual choices of avatars, and the SL musicians panel was great. Anya/Angela has posted all the links to all the sessions here. But then I had to leave (it was 2am in Australia by this point) so I could get some sleep for a radio interview. I was interviewed on Saturday morning by Alan Saunders of Radio National on the By Design show. I spoke about “Alternate Reality” design aesthetics and, you guessed it, Second Life. This is already podcast too!

But I want to mention too, the closing keynote of NMC’s Symposium was Howard Rheingold! You can listen to the podcast here.