Dimension Busters

Are we witnessing transmedia storytelling experiences evolving into popular mainstream entertainment franchises like many of the thought and innovation leaders know it can become? 

Fourth Wall Studios, creator of the Rides.tv platform have come a long way since debuting in May 2012. Now having seven properties of various genres that range from horror, drama, dark comedy, to animation, Fourth Wall has truly taken the needed steps to advance transmedia deeply into the minds of the mainstream public. It seems as though much needed traction for transmedia entertainment is (depending on your opinion) being delivered in fresh ways by the “founding fathers” of multi-platform storytelling.

Having taken a look at a few of the intellectual properties available for free at Rides.tv, including Flare and Airship Dracula, I can say that they have definitely got my attention. (*Note- if you’re into the horror genre, you’ll likely be very interested in some of the other properties, such as the Dark Wall episodes)

The animated feature “Airship Dracula”, a combination of Bram Stoker meets steampunk, is an interactive web comic that I found most interesting. I signed up on the Rides.tv site, happily giving away my contact information (name, email, and phone number) in order to get the absolute maximum experience that Fourth Wall is providing. While there is only one 7:54 minute episode at the moment, I was taken into a nearly 20 minute adventure exploring all of the additional content that was being supplied, learning the history and background of the characters, trying to get up to speed on what exactly was going on. Watching the episode itself was also an interesting experience, as I sat watching the story unfold while getting text messages and an unobtrusive phone call or two from characters in the story. All of this served as a mechanism that enabled me to have a better idea about what was going on than the characters themselves...and likely a chance to develop feelings of attachment that is sought after in any entertainment product. 

This is all a fairly new way to go about telling a story, which heightens audience engagement, but make no mistake, it’s FAR from perfect. The bottom-line however is that it was interesting and worth the price of admission, my coveted contact information. Something like this could take franchises like Mass Effect or Halo to a whole new level geekdom. 

With Microsoft recently releasing their Smartglass iOS app, just imagine being mid-campaign aboard the Normandy SR-2 and having to keep your phone or tablet handy so you can get secret intel regarding Reaper tactics, Citadel Council decisions, and/or Liara’s moves across the galaxy as the Shadow Broker? There is a TON of potential with these multi-platform methods, I have no doubt that we can look forward to increasingly interesting ways to consume entertainment content, now...and into the future. 

    

Industry Professional Highlight

 Sought after speaker on the future of media (new & social), business marketing and strategy, branding, content creation, analytics, and the utilization of transmedia platforms for major Fortune listed businesses; Gunther Sonnenfeld is a self-described social technologist, serial entrepreneur, advisor, and international speaker.

Gunther situates himself on the leading edge of actually THINKING and implementing ideas that matter to people based on inherent human behavior. In a speaking engagement with the Miami Ad School, he proposes a theory that, as a society, we are still shaking off the thought forms of the industrial age of manufacturing, and coming into a stage of creating efficient processes for the age of creativity, customization and collective intelligence utilization. Using the forward thinking Henry Ford as a prime example of industrial process efficiency, as the creator of the assembly line system, Gunther speaks about how business "used to be" and has evolved from a "think tank" idea room of businessmen into a silo system of divisions that were disconnected, but built for high-volume low-margin production. 

http://vimeo.com/39992007

BUILDING SOCIAL VALUE IS THE FUTURE

You build value by giving people what they want (even when they may not know it yet), this method to build businesses and make money is now being done through the art of storytelling and building relationships with the consumers of the products and services that are being produced. There are so many ways that transmedia storytelling can be done that it is bound to get confusing, even for the potential producer of the content…there are a lot of ducks to keep in a row. 

OR…

Sometimes there really aren't that many ducks. In the case of #ALGREN, a core documentary with transmedia storytelling extensions, the picture maps out for visual purposes what this complex storyworld actually includes. But, far simpler examples of transmedia experiences exist, and are also ways in which current brands and franchises can further relate with fans. For instance, Skyfall, the new James Bond film due for release in November obviously has a broad fan-base of fervent followers, what if someone who travels to Europe on a consistent basis for work purposes were also a fan of the franchise? Not really a big stretch to imagine, but what if this fan also signed up on the website and downloaded a 007 app with locational features that trigger certain storyline extensions when the person spent time in areas near where in-story events have happened in Skyfall were activated? Potential games, story features, information, etc. could then be distributed to that person instantly, and would make sense on a fully customized basis. There are many ways to do something such as this even though we don't all travel to Europe for business. Therein lies a perfect opportunity for engagement of an already loyal base of fans, while also having the opportunity to attract people who may not be familiar with Bond (*Note: is there such a person??). 

  

The point is, we live in times of vast amounts of change; but human behavior and the things that excite us remain fundamentally the same. If a potential content creator has an ability to tell a story that people are interested in, OR has the ability to attract a group of people who have various skills and talents to create an interesting story, as well as encourage them to come together as a group to accomplish a goal or project…there are untold possibilities to explore and horizons to cross. 

The fun for me is getting together with like-minded people, brainstorming a potential project, bouncing ideas back and forth, seeing what the original idea morphs into, and then taking the steps to bring the idea into reality. This is what the cr8f_conclave stands for, and is what our first foray into transmedia storytelling intends to show.  

iXmedia-- Associations

As if the sub-industry of Transmedia Entertainment wasn't tricky enough already, what's an aspiring transmedia professional to do when looking for professional associations to join when definition alone can't really be agreed upon by established organizations within entertainment. There's barely a  

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) defines transmedia narratives as: 

"a project or franchise consisting 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. It is NOT these extensions being repurposed material from one platform to be cut or repurposed to a different platform."  

cameron_grey_the neverending dreamer

Leaders of transmedia, such as Dr. Dena Christie, tend to have a bit of a struggle with this strict definition, mainly due to the three-count platform limitation. She rightfully says, that there have been and assuredly will continue to be projects that are created that certainly feel like a transmedia experience, but won't be classified as such due to this three platform requirement.

Why is this the case? 

Organizations positively NEED to be able to define the genre somehow in order for the producers of the content to qualify for recognition in the field or even in order to be able to receive grant money from an organization like the "The Tribeca Film Festival". Andrea Phillips, author of "A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling", says that the while the "definition has proven to be a moving target, making everything just a little more complicated…" in the present, it could "be decades before the dust actually settles." Ms. Phillips addresses the importance of flexibility in the definition, but also underscores the importance of having definitions simply due to the ramifications they can have to a producers career when they are finally able to put "PGA Transmedia Producer" on their résumé.

Even with the difficulties, we are on the cusp of a large shift in awareness towards interactive storytelling and interactive narratives know widely as "transmedia". The Tribeca Film Institute Interactive, SXSWi, TEDx, and transmedia Meetup groups, there have never been more ways to get noticed and get funded for your transmedia vision. Active groups on Facebook such as "ARGNet""Universe Creation 101" and "Storycode" enable interaction with other likeminded individuals, as well as allowing you to keep your fingers on the pulse of the industry.

In order to be able to qualify for membership in the PGA, there are a few things you need to have under your belt. Namely, a sponsor…someone who has firsthand experience with you and the content that you produce and a minimum of two broad domestic project releases. 

cameron_grey_hope for the sound awakening

The best thing to do is to CREATE CONTENT..point blank. Start making things, and market yourself unabashedly until finally somebody listens. Join active social media based communities filled with individuals who you can brainstorm, shoot ideas off of, and collaborate on projects with…then make something. Then keep making things until you're able to get some traction in the industry. 

While it may be that transmedia is emerging and nebulous right now, it's also a blessing. You really can't mess up, you can only gain from the experience and eventually, maybe you get that idea that turns out to be sticky and gathers a following. Andrea Phillips started out the exact same way, and after some very lean years freelance producing content she is now VERY established as an expert in the field, it took time and the willingness to fail, but her trials are beginning to pay off.

Gamers FTW!

While I am currently deeply immersed in  "Real World Education" at renown top new media institution, Full Sail University, I am also engaged in a "Gamification" course at The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and "Networked Life" a course also at UPenn. 

Networked Life insightfully details: how real networks work, the effect of human behavior on networks, game theory, games on networks, trading within networks, and how it all comes together to create the current technological state of the world we live in. The Gamification course, taught by Associate Professor Kevin Werbach, plunges deep into the history, design, and methods of gamification and how this concept is being used by businesses attempting to cut through the clutter of advertisements and engage individuals with a brand (think Nike + or Foursquare). The course obviously goes MUCH further than just how those two basic examples are successfully implementing the concept of gamification in business, but that's "a whole 'nother Oprah" that I will detail in a future post directly relating the seemingly intertwined futures of gamification in business and transmedia entertainment experiences. 

Today, I'd like to talk about how transmedia storytelling relates with games, more specifically, how games utilizing transmedia methods can EVOKE social change in the real world. I recently had the opportunity to listen to TED Speaker, Jane McGonigal deliver an excellent speech about how we as a society can use games to create a better tomorrow, solving many of our current world problems. 

McGonigal begins by showing a picture of a gamer on the verge of what she refers to as an "epic win", "…an outcome that is so extraordinarily positive that you had no idea it was even possible until you achieved it." Jane's PhD. research has lead her down some very interesting paths, and led her to come to some even more interesting conclusions, namely, needing to "game for at least 21 billion hours a week by the end of the next decade in order to solve the very real world problems of hunger, poverty, climate change, global conflict, and obesity." 

The major point of the whole speech is that we live in a world in which a lot of people feel almost helpless to make real world impact, yet at the same time, work adamantly to problem solve, collaborate, and "win" within the virtual game environments. McGonigal's whole goal is to bridge that gap by using gaming as the platform to create social change through new behaviors derived from what we learn within games.  

Dr. McGonigal goes through a historical reiteration of Herodotus (Greek Historian), and how the king of Lydia used dice games to successfully combat the internal fighting caused by far-reaching famine in the kingdom. The king of Lydia directed the people in the kingdom to alternate days between a day of fasting and a day where they would do nothing but play dice games for over 18 years. This particular use of games to create behavior change possibly saved the kingdom from imploding on itself at a time of wide-spread strife. In the end, further measures were needed to save the kingdom, but this is a great example at the power games have on the human psyche and capacity.  

She further relates this directed escapism with the usage of modern games like World of Warcraft and the amount of time an average gamer spends on games by the age of 21. 

10,000 hours

Interestingly enough, this 10,000 hour mark that the average gamer spends playing games by the age of 21, also correlates with research attributed to Malcolm Gladwell's theory of success. Gladwell's theory states that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice at any given task to master it. McGonigal makes this connection and claims that now, in theory, there should exist "an entire generation of young people who are virtuoso gamers." 

So…what are the skills that "digital generation" have perfected? 

McGonigal has just begun to try and unravel just what exactly these skill sets may include, but for now has come up with four main high-skill areas that have been developed by the current 500 million gamers worldwide; this figure is projected to balloon upwards to 1.5 billion gamers within the next decade.

She says that these virtuoso gamers skills are:

1. Urgent Optimism

2. A Tight Social Fabric

3. Blissful Productivity

4. Epic Meaning

As a member of this group of individuals, I believe she's on to something here. There is a good reason that colleges such as Full Sail, Wharton, and many others are seeing such great success in curriculum designed around the Entertainment Industry, and why businesses worldwide are implementing more and more game concepts into their business models. The answer is because it works to cut through the clutter and offers meaning to the individuals using the products or services. A school like Full Sail, specializing in the various facets of entertainment can succeed because people demand choices in entertainment. Even traditional, moderately "stuffy" schools like the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business have courses on Gamification because the times have changed so significantly, right before our eyes, that many of the traditional avenues of brand extension no longer have the same impact as they use to.

We live in a hyper-connected world, with stark generational contrast. Being on the older end of the younger generation, I consider my peers and myself more prone to lean towards optimism, doing more of what we love and are passionate about, creating and sharing with anybody willing to listen or watch, and having more of an interest in connecting with other people whom we share common interest, rather than our potential companionship being dependent on what country someone is from or what color their skin is. Those things simply don't matter to us. We want to share and derive meaning from bonds that we can now establish at the speed of our broadband network connections. 

Bing Gordon, ten year Chief Creative Officer at Electronic arts and current partner at venture capital firm in Silicon Valley Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, in an interview with my Gamification instructor says this VERY well, he says:

 "Kids who've grown up digital believe that the purpose of the world is to be the best version of yourself that you can be. That life is not hierarchical, so we're going to a peer-to-peer world, and if you can find ways to communicate more effectively, build relationships more effectively, and learn more effectively…why not? Because we probably only have 100 years on the planet, and if you could save years by getting clearer feedback or being more motivated…why not?"  

It seems to me that even with an economy in dire straits and the real world problems that McGonigal outlines above, we also have come up with the necessary tools to reverse all of the dystopian potentials. We only need to learn the right techniques with which to apply the tools we have. I believe this will be a challenge met more and more often by socially conscientious businesses that realize that a long-tailed vision on their bottom-line revenues is the way of the future, and it will become a steadily more mainstream expectation  from a businesses potential consumers.

Act of Cr3ation

Let there be light….

If only the causation of the lightbulb in your head bursting forth in the form of your grand idea were enough to manifest a successful project at the end of the day.. we would all be awarded Emmy’s, VMA's, Webby’s, Grammy’s, Nobel’s, Medal’s of Honor, etc.. 

While it is a romantic thought, the causation is only a step on the path to realization. There are seemingly endless aspects to actually delivering a transmedia experience that attracts a dedicated following and makes them yearn for more of the world you are offering. It is the astute delivery of the story elements delivered in pieces across logically used devices and physical reality that the would-be success transmutes into a real world success. 

First, a pop quiz... 

What is the most important tool(s) at the disposal of the group or company producing the transmedia storytelling experience??? 

If your first thought was some particular computer program for the design, implementation, coordination, maintenance or countless other elements relating to a particular software package or action step….I'm sorry, there is no gold star for you today. 

Those are all very important to creating something engaging that people flock towards and immerse themselves in, but seriously, it's PEOPLE. You absolutely positively MUST have a core team of talented individuals. Just ask Scott Walker of Transmedia 101. He was asked this very question at the FMX2012 conference in Stuttgart Germany during the Q&A session by a very astute lady by the name of Inga von Staden. His response? "It depends." Now, Scott is a highly respected professional and a transmedia storytelling genius, he wouldn't have been a presenter if he wasn't, but he got a bit stuck and took the question out of context, thinking it more technical or logistical. This is very important, and a lesson I'm sure that he has since become even more aware of as it directly applies to the industry itself, you must be flexible and mercurial of mind when working in transmedia. 

It is coordinated chaos…at least that's what the production feels like. Andrea Phillips, author of "A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling" (*Note: digital edition is the same price on iTunes), creator of the ongoing Twitter horoscopes character Madame Zee, and with work on "The Maester's Path" for the HBO hit series Game of Thrones and much more says, "Producing a transmedia project can feel a lot like planning a wedding and shooting a feature film at the same time". That is Andrea's opening line in the above mentioned book in chapter 17, titled Project Management: The Unsung Necessity. This seems a particularly useful topic for me at this point in both my education and infant stages of my own collaboration project. This is precisely where the necessity of having a solid core-team of talent intersects with dynamic and unwavering leadership. 

This chapter of Andrea's book (which I HIGHLY recommend) lays out a few project management subjects to be aware of for any transmedia project:

1. Budgeting

2. Organization

3. Quality Control

4. Metrics

It's pretty obvious that these factors are important to success in every business venture that I can think of,  but perhaps more so due to the shear amount of details that are inherent to transmedia projects. It certainly isn't an easy feat to juggle with so many balls in the air, but the judicious project manager executing a plan with great foresight can make all the difference in the world towards making a successful transmedia project. First, however, they absolutely MUST surround themselves with talented and dedicated go-getters prior to the project commencement of pre-production.

Transmedia and Convergence: What, When, and How

The transmedia market is as broad as the definition of transmedia itself...and is often confused for the multitude of non-integrated entertainment and narrative experiences that have been around since the Japan Media Mix of the 70’s according to the author of “The Art of Storytelling” Frank Rose, in an interview with Transmedia Storytelling expert Henry Jenkins. 

Transmedia narratives aren’t simply rehashing stories for different devices or platforms. Instead they are about building an experience that uses each device or platform to its strongest function, and delivers a piece of content that when assembled, create a sum greater than its individual parts. 

Alternate Reality Games (ARG) provide us with a great look at how this successfully works to drive user engagement through the roof, and hence create a marketing buzz that can generate millions of additional dollars for what could already be classified as a blockbuster entertainment release.

ARGs like 42 Entertainment’s campaigns “Why So Serious?”, which triggered buzz about a year before the film’s launch, or Halo 2’s “ilovebees”, both were responsible for gathering a tremendous following. 

These campaigns immersed and engaged fans of the franchises into the respective worlds that had been created by the producers of the film “The Dark Knight” and core video game “Halo” in a way the not only made sense, but added to the depth of the storyworld that was created.

Elan Lee and a couple of key performers, Jim Stewartson and Sean Stewart, formerly of 42 Entertainment and leaders of the above mentioned ARG campaigns, left the company to start Fourth Wall Studios in 2007. Founded by these key individuals, Fourth Wall Studios realizes that as a society, we are really just beginning to crack the surface of what the future brings for what these deep and immersive ARG experiences can bring to the entertainment table. For a more clear illustration of what is in store for fans click play in the header video [here].

Henry Jenkins, a brilliant mind credited with the term “transmedia”, says in his book “Convergence Culture”: 

“For the foreseeable future, convergence will be a kind of kludge- a jerry-rigged  relationship among different media technologies- rather than a fully integrated system. Right now, the cultural shifts, the legal battles, and the economic consolidations that are fueling media convergence are preceding shifts in the technological infrastructure. How those various transitions unfold will determine the balance of power in the next media era.”

 Convergence plays a vital role in transmedia storytelling and ARG experiences both. Without the ability to seamlessly transition across devices, deep media just doesn’t hold the same appeal. It is my view that this could be part of the business decisions of many of the biggest names in technological platforms who are seeking to copy what Apple began with the launch of the iPod. An integrated ecology that allows the individual this smooth experience between devices. 

The battle for the time, attention, and wallet has been forged for many years now, but the advances in technology have also led to information overload. The new leaders will have found the ways to break through and impact the lives they seek attention and market share from...I believe that transmedia storytelling and ARG experiences are a developing mechanism to do just this. 

Gamification of what 42 Entertainment calls “The World as the Platform”.

Digital Leash

Digital Leash

As this is my very first blog post, of many more to come…I wanted to take a step back for a minute prior to moving forward, in order to properly frame where we may be headed. I want to go back to a time that seems like an eternity ago, yet at the same time, like just yesterday.

I want to take a look at the breakneck speed at which all of these things that we as a society have so quickly embraced and have integrated into our lives that we start to feel naked when not attached.

Our technology. 

There are many ways which technology has been adopted in our society- high-speed mobile Internet; smartphones with hundreds of thousands of applications- geared towards entertainment, productivity, collaboration, and all the other categories in between; streaming video content online or wirelessly connecting a phone or tablet to your TV (high definition); social media networks connecting us with people we knew long ago, or perhaps with new people we share a particular interest with; music from signed and unsigned artists as well as distributed via legal or illegal means; video games, for both core or social platforms which can be instantly updated with new features, and many other technological breakthroughs that we spend increasing amounts of time with per day. 

Anyone could continue that endless list, but I'm sure you catch my drift. We have moved passed the days where measuring trends in terms of decades or centuries were of greatest import and, while valuable in its own right, it is far less relevant now than before the boon of networked technology. It is almost as if time itself has been put on >> x4 . Now trends are measured more accurately by the year…if not month or minute. Not even 20 years ago technology was not only far more fragmented, but also much less accessible or pervasive, for better or worse, this was a reflection of our society and the way businesses operated…a silo mentality. 

The BAD News First

We have new addictions forming, potentially every bit as destructive as alcoholism or drug abuse, such as an addiction to gaming so severe that people have died from it in Korea. Technology, possibly inhibiting our face-to-face communication skills and arguably causing a rise in social anxiety, seems to be making people inept interpersonally. Privacy is continually chipped away, we have cameras recording us at every turn, and digital Jesse James' armed with viruses and malicious code to be constantly aware of…wolves in sheep's clothing abound. 

Now the GOOD

From anywhere we choose, we have access to a plethora of options to pass our time. We can write a book on the bus during a twice daily public transportation commute and instantly self-publish, we have open source tools allowing us to code an application that we and others could use to increase productivity or a game that people find fun and engaging. We have phones that enable us to talk and web surf simultaneously, or play our favorite jam during an intense run. A device in our shoe wirelessly connects to the phone's application and tracks our distance, speed, and more, and then we post our statistics at the push of a button to update a group of "running partners" who live on opposite sides of the globe. We can group video chat with business partners while we share desktops to complete a presentation for a client contract proposal. An idea for a TV show can be produced with studio-in-the-box tools available on most any computer now. Any would-be director/producer can post their content to YouTube and develop a fan base, read Brian Solis' interview with Miles Fisher for a blueprint on how to make that happen. Make your music and post it to SoundCloud, or another self-publishing platform, while you, an associate, or even a fan that discovered your talent makes your video because you were so inspirational.

So. Which is it, the good or the bad? Is technology inhibiting us or is it liberating? 

Are we destined to ends like those portrayed in the multitude of Hollywood films like The Terminator or Mad Max…some version of an apocalyptic tragedy where we meet our collective doom? Perhaps maybe we succumb to the mundane frailty of our human nature and most base desires for survival during a worldwide zombie outbreak?

OR

Is the future to be all butterflies, buttercups, and flying rainbow farting unicorns? A utopian society where technology becomes so incredibly advanced that it becomes organic with boundaries unnoticeably integrated with us and overlayed into direct signals that our Human Senses process and make decisions as to what we choose to experience? Do we become a direct and even more literal version of Chris Brogan’s "Human Digital Channel"? Can it become mainstream to modify our bodies with abilities that are currently impossible? Technology upgrading human senses, allowing people to explore the world in new ways, such as seeing through an ultraviolet eye filter or feeling electromagnetism wherever they go. 

Everything is energy…and our brains tell us what we are experiencing based upon electrical signals, so it's not too far fetched to think that a reality such as that could potentially exist, if we can keep from blowing ourselves up. I think it far more likely that the answer is "C"…simultaneously neither and both. Technology is inert; we can do things now with technology that was simply impossible 20 years ago, but it is not the tool that holds the power, it is the operator of the tool. To me, that is the beauty and wonder of people, the varied skill sets, interests and dreams. 

The key factor is us, and our ability to apply a balance to all things in life.

Balance

Martial arts taught me from a young age that balance is a key to performance in this world, and the same is true with technology. We have the ability to chat with someone 24/7 on the other side of the globe, but we can also wave to our neighbor or connect with a retail service member. As we move forward we can't forget our roots and inherent connection with everything else around us: our friends, our family, our pets, nature…when we balance all these things, things we haven't even thought of surprise us and give us happiness and contentment. Technology provides us the ability to make the Stone Soup of our choice, with the world as our global village. Each can contribute to the stew we make as a society; it can be either delicious or disgusting. As always, it is our choice. 

Brian Solis' answer when interviewed on balance sums this thought up very distinctly, he says- "Balance is less like spinning plates and more like running your finger around the rim of partially filled crystal bowls with varying depths of liquids. Each singing bowl makes a unique sound and as a result, music to “one’s” ears."

                                               ♪♫♬
I say…Let us make great music together…and forge a future worth living in.