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

As I’ve mentioned before, the upcoming episode (Wed Oct 24th in the US) of CSI:NY will feature and continue in the online virtual world Second Life. A primer has been released on youtube, getting audiences excited and prepared for cross-platform traversal, which is good!:

[youtube 3-ZmjA7GCzQ]

Although not everyone realises it, I am actually based in Australia. I spend alot of time online checking out what is happening around the world. The Net is great for this, but at the same time I hardly ever get to meet my colleages in person. This year I’ve travelled to five countries and meet many researchers & designers who have come to Oz from OS. Here are some pics of me (in order of meeting) with some colleagues who share my research interest (I’ve met others but don’t have the pics): 

Photo by ?, uploaded by Eric Voight on flickr

This motley crew is the group shot from the First International Conference on Cross-Media Interaction Design held in Sweden in March. Wohoo! It was great meeting lots of people, including my fellow keynoter Liam Bannon. But in particular I was thrilled to meet Monique de Haas and Jak Boumans. In the pic: bottom right in the blue jacket is Monique, behind her is Liam, beside Liam is me, beside me (to the left) is Jak, and below Jak is Charlotte Wiberg who with Mikael Wiberg (the first guy to the left of Charlotte) are the conference organisers. 

Monique and I have been championing cross media for years now. We were discussing this stuff via emails and through our blogs long before it became a pervasive economic imperative. I got to spend lots of time with Monique as I stayed with her in Amsterdam and then Monique, Jak and I gave an impromptu panel session at Noordelijke Hogeschool where I was asked to give a lecture (organised by Eric Voight who is also in the pic). It was a delight meeting Jak – whose years of experience with the area has given him a balanced wisdom and generous spirit.

Photo by a lovely lady from AMP, on Jane’s flickr

This is myself and Jane McGonigal (right). Jane is of course the first major researcher of alternate reality games, she has lots of presentations and articles and a dissertation on the topic. It was especially great chatting with Jane because we got to talk about ARGs but also because she works in industry and academia. It was so good to share stories with someone who understands what it is like.

Photo by Tama Leaver, on flickr

This is Lisbeth Klastrup (left), myself and Jill Walker (right), both of whom I met for the first time at perthDAC 2007. Lisbeth co-wrote a paper with Susana Tosca on ‘Transmedial Worlds: Rethinking Cyberworld Design’, which I have referred to here and in my papers and is in my chapter on World Creation in my thesis. The paper is available for download on Lisbeth’s articles site. Jill has written on ‘distributed narratives’ which I’ve referred to here many times, in many of my presentations and of course is in my thesis too. Check out her dedicated minisite  and here is a snippet:

Distributed narratives don’t bring media together to make a total artwork. Distributed narratives explode the work altogether, sending fragments and shards across media, through the network and sometimes into the physical spaces that we live in. This project explores this new narrative trend, looking at how narrative is spun across the network and into our lives.

Now actually meeting people who share your research interest may not be exciting to you, but to someone who doesn’t get to meet people who work in this emerging area (and so not many looking at it) it is an absolute delight.

I was very happy to see this, a multi-place commission:

AVENUES OF INVESTIGATION: we are looking for works that (1) bridge multiple realities while maintaining autonomy; (2) engage the user as a participant; (3) include the dynamics of both one-to-one and one-to-many communication within the work; (4) require collaboration between artists, programmers, scientists, and others; and, (5) encourage dialogue.

CRITERIA: (1) ability to conceive the project for three spaces-a synthetic, 3-D rendered environment, the Internet, and physical space; (2) intellectual and artistic merit; (3) degree of programming skill and technological innovation; and (4) extent of collaborative and interdisciplinary activity.

And the results:

MIXED REALITIES was an international juried competition that resulted in the commissioning of 5 networked art works to be exhibited/performed in 2008 at Turbulence.org; Huret & Spector Gallery; and Ars Virtua, a gallery in the online 3D rendered environment, Second Life. Each commission is $5,000 (US).

 The winners are:  

1. Imaging Beijing by John (Craig) Freeman
2. Remotely Coupled Devices (working title) by Usman Haque, Georg Tremmel and Neill Zero
3. No Matter by Scott Kildall and Victoria Scott
4. The Vitruvian World by Michael Takeo Magruder, Drew Baker and David Steele
5. CATERWAUL by Pierre Proske, with technical assistance from Artem Baguinski and Brigit Lichtenegger

Being in Australia, I can only experience 2 of the 3 parts. But that is exactly the point of these works, and the challenge for the creators: to manage the different points-of-entry.

Check it out: http://transition.turbulence.org/comp_07/awards.html

This Wednesday you can attend this event inside of Second Life:

“In World” Panel Discussion (Re-run)
29 August @ 9.30am – 10.30am
 
One of the fastest growing online communities today is the virtual world of Second Life. With more than 6 million users worldwide, many big corporate including IBM, Toyota, Dell, Telstra, Sun Microsystems and the ABC have already set up a presence in Second Life.

 On 29th August from 9.30am – 10.30am, the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) is holding it’s rescheduled panel discussion event where key industry experts will provide insights into this virtual world, which analysts predict will become an essential part of online life within the next four years. The panel will also address the critical question for marketers.

Panelists include:

Lisa Romano, Project Manager, Strategic Development, ABC Innovation – ABC
Lisa will discuss ABC’s Business and Marketing Objectives and achievements to date with its Second Life Island, and building virtual communities
 
Kelly Yeoh, Virtual Worlds Engineer, IBM
Kelly has been involved in several of IBMs high profile Second Life builds including the Australian Open.  She will discuss IBM’s presence in SL and the importance of open standards within virtual worlds and the need for scalability and security.
 
Mandy Salomon, Senior Researcher, User Environments, Smart Internet Technology CRC – Swinburne University of Technology
Mandy will discuss what threats and opportunities exist in setting up a presence and doing business in Second Life.
 
Grace Roberts, Founding Director – Second Life TV Network & Cattle Puppy Productions
Grace will bring an innovative perspective to real business opportunities taking place in this virtual world, and how collaborative partnerships and building global networks is a key attribute to these worlds.
 
Nick Abrahams, Leader of Technology Media & Telecommunications Group – Deacons
With a GDP of US$700 million, Second Life is a significant economy. Like all economies there are capital inflows and outflows and participants investing in these Virtual Worlds need to have transparency and certainty about the way these economies are run. Nick will discuss the risks, legal and otherwise, for corporates when they create their Virtual World presence.
 
Moderator – David Holloway, Director – SLOz
SLOz is a site devoted to bringing an Aussie slant to the Second Life experience. Launched in November 2006, SLOz believes that Second Life at the very least may bring a new approach to internet-based interaction, and we want to cover the fun ride to be had along the way. 

Details on how to get the teleport location at their website

For his keynote at the Virtual Worlds Conference recently the creator and executive producer of the three CSIs, Anthony Zuiker, announced that there will be a specially written episode of CSI:NY which will include a search for a killer in the online virtual world Second Life (SL). However, beyond featuring SL in the TV plot, audiences will be able to help solve the crime by going into SL and visiting a specially created CSI lab . Virtual Worlds News reports:

In the fifth episode of the upcoming season, TV Guide reports that a murderer will escape into Second Life and not return until spring. Users can help solve the murder in the meantime.

“The campaign will be something like, ‘Your first life begins at 10 o’clock. But your Second Life begins this weekend.’ You’ll be able to go and download and get in the site and play in the ['CSI'] lab.”

The Sheep are working to build a virtual lab where users can recreate the experiments and tests from the show. There will also be contests through a Zuiker Blog, allowing users to view a dead body and formulate an opinion on what happened. Zuiker will then rank the responses.

Zuiker has also described he location as an ongoing mystery lab: “What I’m creating is this multimedia, virtual crime lab that will actually take place and be live and active that same weekend for the next year. You’ll now be able to actually solve one crime per month, like a real investigator.” [source]

A writer for CSI: NY, Peter Lenkov, elaborates:

“Nina [Tassler], the CBS executive has been talking about this for a while… [Episode five] is basically a forensic investigation into Second Life, an online social network, a metaverse where you go on, you create an avatar and cruise different worlds. Part of our investigation is going in there. Mac Taylor has to create an avatar and go and hunt down a killer who is using somebody’s avatar to commit a murder. It’s a little bit of a CSI: New York sci-fi internet pursuit with a big action sequence at the end of the episode. It’s fun; it actually has a big moment for Mac and Adam because Adam sort of becomes this big expert in the world of Second Life. He’s done it before, so he sort of guides Mac into the how or the where of it all. I think it’s going to be a fun episode. It’s very different,” he revealed. [source]

Zuiker is also quoted saying “It’s going to be the biggest cross-platform stunt in TV history.”

Hmmm. I never like hearing ‘biggest’ and ’first’ claims, the former because you don’t know that until after the event and the latter because the claims are 99% of the time incorrect. For instance, here is an example of a ‘cross-platform’ stunt that I have referred to many times in my talks and essays: In the late 1990s the Homicide TV show extended to the web. When the TV detectives clocked off for the day, the ’second shift’ of detectives took over on the web. Then in Feb 1999 a case (webcast killing) was investigated by the online detectives, was followed up by the TV detectives and then concluded the following week on the online detectives. The website included forensic evidence that the audience/users/interactors could work with to help solve the case. As we can see from this pivotal example, their are other cross-platform stunts. The problem with the ‘world first’ and ‘biggest ever’ rhetoric is that it is supported by an intricate eco-system: the press want such claims to make their articles more appealing to readers and viewers, and audiences are attracted by them. Just describing a project isn’t enough it seems, it has to have some contemporary and original gloss in order to be interesting. Or so it seems.

Another quote I found interesting was this one by journalist Ellen Gray:

Ideas for cross-platform stunting usually originate with marketing guys, not writers, but that’s a line the relentlessly energetic Zuiker’s never appeared to notice. [source]

It never ceases to amaze me how people bundle together cross-platform approaches and marketing. Given, there are good reasons for it: they are usually motivated and implemented by people other than the writers and ‘cross-platform’ and ‘multi-channel’ etc approaches have been used by marketers for a while. One of reasons why a cross-platform approach has been driven by marketers is that there has been a dearth of writers who think multi-platform. It has been something that has been added on afterwards or has been implemented using a marketing logic. But this is changing as there are a new generation of writers emerging. But using multiple media platforms is not intrinsically marketing.

And another quote of Zuiker from TVGuide:

The future of television in my opinion really is television, mobile, gaming and Internet. If I can incorporate all four of them with the television show as a center conduit, what will happen is that you’ll have the younger generation teaching their parents how to do this. CSI: NY will be a wild child in doing that this season. [source] 

OK, yes, I agree in part. But I’d say that a future of television is to use multiple media platforms and artforms (not just TV, mobile, gaming & the Internet). As for central conduit, I’m not so sure. I think Zuiker means that the TV will be the primary media channel. But TV is not a good aggregator, and so the hub that links all the components should be bundled together on a website. And as for the younger generation teaching their parents. Sure, I like the idea of facilitating cross-generational interaction, but please don’t bundle together mobiles, gaming and the Internet with ‘youth’. Indeed, Second Life has an older demographic than some other virtual worlds.

In summary, I’m sick of the rhetoric around cross-platform projects in mass entertainment but very pleased to see writers involved in many integrated cross-platform events.

The Nines is the directorial debut of John August, screenwriter for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Go, Big Fish and The Corpse Bride. 

[youtube QUUOgMl-ED4]

It is a “highly anticipated” film that is described as:

The Nines consists of three short films, each featuring the same actors in different — and sometimes overlapping — roles.

“The Prisoner” tells the story of a troubled television star (Ryan Reynolds) who finds himself under house arrest, with his chipper publicist (Melissa McCarthy) and disillusioned next-door neighbor (Hope Davis) providing his only links to the outside world. Mysterious events lead him to question whether one or both women are deceiving him about the nature of his incarceration.

“Reality Television” is a half-hour episode of “Behind the Screen,” a Project Greenlight-style documentary series tracking the process of creating a network television drama. Having shot the pilot, creator/ showrunner Gavin Taylor (also Ryan Reynolds) faces post-production with the help of his best friend (and lead actress) Melissa McCarthy and development VP Susan Howard (Hope Davis).

“Knowing” finds an acclaimed videogame designer (also Ryan Reynolds) and his wife (Melissa McCarthy) facing car trouble deep in the woods. Their daughter (Elle Fanning) uncovers information which leads to a difficult and irrevocable choice.

Together, the three stories form a single narrative that explores the relationships between author and character, actor and role, creator and creation. Alternately funny and unsettling, The Nines is like a riddle where the answer is the question: “How does it all add up?” [source]

It is this type of fragmentation at the level of the subject or story (the apparent splintering across time and space of a person) and at the level of the discourse or plot (three separate stories), that lends itself to cross-media exploration. So, it is interesting to note that there is “cross media game” that has been created by Newmarket Films to market the film (can’t wait until the writers get more into these extensions). There are nine puzzles that “blends the virtual and the real” just like the movie apparently [source]. I haven’t seen the film and so I can only speculate about any possible relationship between the film and game. I like to imagine that the film is so complex it leaves unanswered questions that only the game can answer. So far, four puzzles have been released.

The first puzzle is at Underground Online:

The second puzzle is at Coming Soon:

The third puzzle is at Movie Web (and you can also see it when you solve puzzle two):

And there’s some more descriptions of the “cross media game”:

The movie The Nines is a puzzle that explores intersections between multiple media platforms, and calls into questin the boundaries between virtual and physical worlds. It is the sort of movie that appeals to people who like to solve puzzles and figure out riddles. This is precisely the target audience for casual cross-media games, and it happens to describe a large part of the population in Second Life.

The fourth puzzle is at Gabriel’s Blog (and you can also see it when you solve puzzle two):

I’m actually quite enjoying this “cross media game”. I’m enjoying it because the film seems well-written and complex. I therefore look further into clues. I also enjoy it because it crosses many websites, the “virtual and the real” (hint hint) and it looks like a few live events are coming up. My experiences after discovering the target location glimpsed in the second clue was good. I found a lot of things that had me thinking about the puzzle but more so the narrative of the film. I’m trying to figure out the plot of the film before I see it. The game has only just started…Although four of the nine puzzles have been found, the third and fourth have not be solved yet. It is up to you/me/us.

• Official site : http://lookforthenines.com/
• Official site forum thread for the game (not much there) 
• ARG community play

In October 2007, Mediamatic will be running a workshop on ‘Games in Crossmedia’:

Virtual worlds such as Second Life are gaining popularity fast – they are places for acting out fantasies, but also for film making and telling stories. Techniques like machinima offer new possibilities for creating films and television in the 3D worlds of popular computer games – as for instance the BBC and Endemol are doing. There is a huge window of opportunity for media makers interested in the collaboration and exchange between games and other kinds of media.

In this 5-day workshop, Mediamatic will bring professional media makers, producers, broadcasters and production companies up-to-date on game culture and will provide makers with the tools to incorporate game aspects in crossmedia projects. [...]

During the workshop, participants will build a prototype of their crossmedia project and develop and visualize its user-scenarios. Participants will learn the basic principles of creating machinima, designing 3D game spaces and developing game play and game rules. Participants will also learn about trends in game culture such as massive multi-player games and new kinds of game interfaces like the Nintendo Wii. Besides this, participants will be updated on the new web culture of creating, matching and sharing user-generated content, which is very influential in game culture. Through the course of the workshop many practical examples of crossmedia projects which feature game technology such as Historic Battles (BBC), and Bamzooki (BBC), Peter Greenaway’s Tulse Luper Suitcases and Endemol’s Second Life projects, will be viewed and analyzed.

Check it out: http://www.mediamatic.net/artefact-17509-en.html

As I mentioned previously, last month I gave a talk at the Australian Literature Board’s Publishing the Story of the Future. Although it is very cringe-worthy to me (I’m not my usual lively self and I’m reading a script), I’ve decided to share my slides and the video. The slides are actually best viewed at a bigger size, at slideshare.

Last Sunday I presented at the Revelations Film Festival in Perth on Second Life art in the panel: ‘Second Life & Beyond: Virtual Communities and Making Media in a Digital World’.  During that presentation I mentioned a dance film, Thursday’s Fictions, that will be broadcast on the ABC this Sunday @ 3pm, which will be followed by a Q&A in Second Life and the opportunity to experience the Second Life version of the storyworld. This Sunday I’ll be moderating the Q&A panel @ ABC Island.

The work, Thursday’s Fictions, began as a multimedia stage production in 1995 (which was also on radio), became a poetry book (which became the primary text in this multi-platform work), recently became a dance film and has just had a Second Life rendition created. I’ve been speaking to Richard James Allen for a while about the development of this project and his creative approach is quite interesting. Although each iteration is more an adaptation than a continuation of a narrative, it is interesting to see a project that was conceived to be expressed across a number of artistic forms from the beginning. I don’t know how much we’ll get to talk about this on Sunday, but for those interested you can join us inworld (at ABC Island Ampitheatre) at 3pm EST, watch it being streamed live or view it afterwards at SLCN.tv.

Thursday’s Fictions in Second Life Credits:

Director: Richard James Allen
Writers/Producers: Richard James Allen and Karen Pearlman
Second Life Producer and Designer: Gary Hayes
Conceptual Artist: Kate E. Wills
Story Consultant: Jackie Turnure
A Physical TV Company Production
[and Tony Walsh was the guardian mentor of this project when it was developed at LAMP]