Zen Films

Transmedia Entertainment Marketing

Here's a presentation I created for a local client that wants to use transmedia for the benefit of their clients. It's goal is to explain the power of transmedia in engaging consumers in a storyworld and how it's different to product placement and branded entertainment. 

Specifically I use an ARG (alternative reality game) to illustrate how it can work with an integrated marketing communications plan.

I had to hold off making the document public but now it's out! I'd be interested to hear thoughts from anyone working in this area. Hope it doesn't horrify anyone :)

Transmedia & Marketing

View more presentations from Zen Films.

Jawbone.tv

Delighted to have been interviewed by Jawbone.tv 

It's principally about the how transmedia is shaping up but there's also news about the social, interactive, multi-platform tool I'm developing for folks seeking to deliver transmedia experiences.

 

Mongoliad - episodic, collaborative, multimedia

I managed to catch a glimpse of Mongoliad in operation last night at Dorkbot in SF.

I have to say it was more impressive than I'd hoped and I think it's going to be very big. Not only the storyworld but also the publishing platform that underlies it (which goes by the name PULP).

Rather than me waffle on, check out this presentation from the evening and then head over to Facebook group :)

The photos are from SF App Show - I took them from the Mongoliad Facebook page.
 

 

 

Transmedia: Platform Selection

 
 

Downloadable Content

• The full article as a PDF and it's also available on Scribd
• Excel spreadsheet tool for ranking platforms

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PART 2 of 2

The first part of this article is at Culture Hacker - it's here.

How do I motivate audiences to cross platforms?

Having decided your objectives, how do you motivate audiences to jump platform?

Digital content can have a nice layout and a URL to prompt action but what about a  live street theatre performance – how do you get audiences to cross platform from the street to, say, go online? Possible solutions with this example might be:

·         flyers with your URL on it (potentially lacks social/real time web)

·         flyers with QR code and Twitter #tag

·         merch/pins (badges)/bookmarks and other give-away with QR code or #tag

·         performers wearing a t-shirt with a QR code or #tag

·         the performers verbally encourage the audience to go online (e.g. shout at them!)

These suggestions answer the mechanics of “how” and assumes that the live audience has mobile phones (so make sure the online landing page is small-screen friendly). But they don’t address “why?”

Motivating the online involvement in this example ought to stress the urgency or immediacy of the situation – don’t let the crowd disperse and hope they’ll connect later: integrate the online component into the performance. Now you’re incentivizing cross-platform activity with the promise of online participation in the live show.

If this isn’t possible or appropriate, you need to consider other incentives ranging from blatant bribery with gifts or prizes to simply the promise of satisfying the audience’s curiosity about what happens next or explaining what on earth the performance is all about.

Figure 3 illustrates a way to think about what you might need to do to motivate audiences to cross or combine platforms. The diagram shows the audience being acted on by two opposing forces: the incentive to migrate (positive force) and the disincentive to migrate represented by “friction” (negative force). By friction I mean anything that makes crossing platforms a pain: increased cost, additional keystrokes, diverted attention, low bandwidth and so on.

Figure 4 and Figure 5 illustrate the consequences when the opposing forces are of different magnitudes.

Figure 3 Incentive Vs Friction: Motivating the Audience to Cross Platforms

Figure 4 When Incentive > Friction Audience Crosses Platform

Figure 5 When Incentive < Friction Audience Doesn't Cross Platform

 In the example of the street performance, the live activity creates attention and a call-to-action gets them online - but what now? Sell them a DVD? Get them to join a social network or mailing list? It’s going to depend on where you are in the project and I’ll address this in the next step.

4. Platform Timing

Unless you have unlimited resources it’s likely you’ll have to prioritize how platforms are released and to do that it will be helpful to define your objectives. Set your objectives with reference to your business model and resources.

Table 5 and Table 6 provide examples of roll-out strategies dependent on different business models. Note that the steps can and may need to be combined or they may overlap. There’s no hard and fast rule – the purpose of the approach is get you thinking logically and covering the bases.

Table 5 Example Platform Release Strategy 1

 

Table 6 Example Platform Release Strategy 2

 

Until now very little has been said about the story. It hasn’t been ignored – it’s been there as a touchstone throughout these five stages – but now is time to see what we might need to do given our platform preferences.

 

5. Changing the story

Think of the story has having two components:

·         “the story”  - the whole world that’s created with all the characters stretching out in chronological order

·         “the experience” – how the storyworld is revealed to the audience (timing and platforms).

Note that the story might be much larger than the project you’re working on now.

Our objective throughout this process is to have the story and the experience of the story integrated with the business model.  Although you started with the story in mind, platform selection has rightly focused on the experience. Now is the time to sanity check the experience and see if there’s any missing story, story that now needs adapting or story + experience that can be improved.

For example, now you have a roll-out strategy for your platforms (the experience), iterate back through the story and looking for these types of opportunities (in no particular order and please add more of your own):

·         Twists

·         Surprises

·         Cliff hangers

·         Inciting incidents

·         Reunions

·         Breakups

·         Conflict

·         Discovery

·         Exposition

·         Reversals

·         Suspense

·         Threats

·         Complications

·         Conclusions

Transmedia as a Tool for Audience Building

The main article for this post is over at Culture Hacker. What I'm presenting here is the original document I created for the producers of Vauxhall Crossed.

The document looks at how we might use transmedia as a means to build an audience for the movie before there are any movie assets (such as trailer for example).

Transmedia For Audience Building

Transmedia Round-Up

Having been blogging at Culture Hacker for the past few months my site here is looking a little empty :)

As much for my own benefit as anyone's, here's a list of those posts:

• Moving filmmakers to a transmedia business model
• Transmedia as a Tool for Audience Building
• Collaborative Transmedia Storytelling
• Transmedia Notation
• Crowdsourcing for Indies

Merry Christmas everyone!

Cut Scenes in Games (a.k.a my Love Affair with BioShock)

I wonder if I’m alone in playing through Halo 3 to get to the cut scenes?

As I played it, I looked forward to those sit-back digital performances because they were beautifully executed and they really felt like rewards for completing the level.  My only criticism of the Halo cut scenes would be that too much of the story was told in dialogue which I often found difficult to follow. Even so, the visual artistry and score more than compensated for this shortcoming.

So how important is the cut scene?

I’m currently playing Mass Effect (I know it’s a bit old but I’ve only just got around to it!) and I have to say I find the cut scenes rather frustrating and intrusive. I am impressed by the nuanced performances and the direction so it’s not the execution – the choice of shots and editing within the scene is very nicely done and I thought this too for Gears of War 2. I’m updating my directing course for Learn Film Asia and I’m wondering how I can incorporate some of the cut scenes: it’s very interesting to discuss the director’s choice of lens and camera position/movement in a situation where there are no physical constraints. But that’s a digression….

My point about Mass Effect is that the cut scenes start to feel unwelcome. I picked up my Xbox controller to take control, not to sit back and be controlled…at least not so often. I feel terrible about saying this because I want games to have more storytelling (I’ll get onto BioShock and Fallout 3 in just a moment ) and it’s quite possible that I’ll ask Santa to bring me a PS3 so I’ll be able to play Heavy Rain (which I’m really excited about along with Alpha Protocol). But with ME it feels like information overload. There’s just so much story to take in before I’m allowed to progress and the game keeps taking away my control too frequently and for too long.

Now look at BioShock and Fallout 3… oh brother what beautiful works of art these games are. Yet the cut scenes here are few and far between. And when they’re used it’s for the drama – sometimes delivering a powerful plot twist that each time really amazes and engages me. Unlike Halo 3, they’re not rewards for completing the level, at least not in the same way, they advance the story and they can come at unexpected times: I’m suddenly flicking the buttons on the controller wondering if it’s gone dead when BAM! I’m held captive to a story advancement that’s a thrilling experience. The plot twist in the middle of BioShock I found truly jaw-dropping: first class. The storytelling, the cut scene and my active control are all in harmony and not stratified.

Friends of mine who “don’t have time for games” are missing out on what I’ve found to be a rich, rewarding experience. I’m no game designer so I won’t pretend to have any expert knowledge in this area, I’m just trying to rationalize my experience as a humble gamer. I feel as though holding the controller creates such a deep, heightened connection to the story that isn’t there with movies. It’s more than just being in control, it’s also those moments in the cut scene when the controller vibrates to underline what’s on screen.

Although the vibration is felt in my hands, I experience it in my chest.

Sidebar: In movies the closest we get to this is pumping up the bass in the mix hoping it’ll cause the cinema seat to vibrate (it’s in the Dolby Surround spec but I doubt I’ll be mixing in Dolby again anytime soon). Maybe now that portable devices are so popular, someone could develop a media player that while playing the movie it listened for a very low bass audio frequency and then activated the mobile’s vibrator?

So how would I feel if BioShock or Fallout 3 had more cut scenes? Hmmm… I don’t think they’d benefit to be honest. The cut scenes in these games are not bolt-ons or after-thoughts or supplementary fluff, they’re intrinsic to the gameplay.

But here’s another suggestion: I would love to see rendered in-character pseudo “behind the scenes” footage from the “cast”. The Liam Neeson interview on the Fallout extras is nice but what would have been really cool would have been an interview with his digital character. For example, his father character could have been interviewed by Three Dog at the radio station, LOL! It would have blended realities in a very engaging way.  I know this needn’t be part of the actual gameplay but it could have delivered story insights – for example about the shelters or the wasteland or other characters.  And it could have been optional for those like me who enjoy this stuff while those who just like killing mutants could sidestep it.

So what’s the conclusion?

Well, wait a minute… how do I feel about the cut scenes in the Tony Hawks skateboarding games? Hmm… they don’t really feel like level rewards and they don’t really tell a story… not a proper story, come on. In the THPS series the “story” is a flimsy mechanism to make the skateboarding venues feel part of something cohesive. But it does definitely work. I buy into each THPS “story” without any question but here the cut scenes tend to explain how to get through the level  - they’re informational and they’re perfunctory. But most importantly they don’t feel intrusive.

So maybe we can say the cut scene should never feel intrusive; it must feel integral. Though what this means in practice is different for each game (or depends on genre maybe?).

Perhaps the goal of the cut scene should be to go beyond integral (that’s a hygiene factor) and strive to be something that heightens the experience. I’d like to see more games like BioShock and Fallout 3 where the cut scene delivers a real punch… but to do that well the game is going to have to have a decent story.

 

End note: BioShock 2 – YES YES YES; BioShock feature film… oh please nooooo. I just know it’s going to suck even with the great director they have onboard. I’m sorry but Hollywood doesn’t have a good record with game-to-movie conversions.

Had I been given the chance to direct the BioShock movie (which was never going to happen), my choice would have been to make it a motion capture digital movie using the existing BioShock in-game “sets” (levels). So much of my love for that game is in the texture and the lighting: it’s so so possible to create an amazing feature that leverages the existing assets. Guys, give us fans a Creative Commons license and the machinima tools to tell our own stories in the rich environment you’ve created. The ARG looks cool but think of the publicity and awareness you'd get with hundreds of user-generated videos? And you'd be rewarded with more loyalty towards the IP such that should the movie suck you’ll have an easier ride :) I honestly believe you could make BioShock a cultural phenomenon: but you must unleash the tools!

 

 

Parasites: Maps of UK in 2512

I've had a stab at creating maps of the UK and London following 500 years of global warming. If anyone knows of better reference sources or wants to make better maps, please contact me!

Here's the two primary sources I used: A Channel 4 map of UK in 2080 and this amazing flood map tool! I raised the water level by 14 meters :)

Note that initially the gameplay will focus on urban London but expand as the online population grows. The London map needs quite a lot more work actually - need to go down to borough level and then down to buildings & rooms.

Transmedia Development

Thank you to everyone that's been supporting the Parasites transmedia project and thanks for all the offers of help!

We will have more details to follow shortly but I wanted to reassure everyone that progress is being made. A lot of work is being done off-line or behind the scenes to provide the foundations that we can all build upon.

The diagram below highlights the complexity but most importantly our approach.

What we're in the process of creating is a Project Reference Guide. Those in the TV industry might think of this as the "bible" - the document that informs everyone where the story is heading across the season(s). "Bible" is a bit too religious for my liking so we're calling it by what it is - a reference source :)

To create the bible..*cough*.. reference guide, we have to first start with our premise and then work our way through describing and developing the world (a dystopian Britain 500 years from now ravaged by global warming and political corruption), the characters (various leaders, visionaries and crooks that inhabit this new world) and the plot (what drives these people and how do they conflict with each other? who is our hero?).

It would be easy to think that we could just develop a story and then implement it across multiple media and multiple platforms. But the media and platforms lend themselves to different interactions, form factors and uses. And we want to tie everything together as described in my earlier post.

The diagram below shows the relative amounts of brainpower we're spending on the different elements. The game, you see, potentially provides the most immersive experience and hence requires the most consideration and planning. The movie on the other hand only allows the audience to view through one window on to the world. It's also fair to say that a lot of what would be done for script development like character backstories etc. that would be evident in the movie if not explictly shown is being done under the "game" heading even though we know it'll be used for both.

The gameplay and social interaction through the game is amazing. Hoping to have something to share for everyone to comment on soon...

Importance of Gaming in Transmedia & the Parasites Multiverse

The gaming component of Parasites creates key relationships between:

•  the audience and the story

•  members of the audience.

It has the power to transform enjoyment of the storyworld from a passive experience to an active experience. It offers investors and sponsers two key benefits:

 

• Engagement. Movies have always been a sit-back experience. Not completely passive because the best movies invoke an emotional response but the audience is at the mercy of the movie. They can't re-cut it on the fly or investigate other story paths that might interest them. All this, of course, is available in the best games. And while a movie may last anywhere between 30 seconds and 3 hours, the best games are captivating audiences for 8 to 24 hours and upwards

• Revenue. This article compares the profitability of Grand Theft Auto 4 and Spiderman 3 and concludes that games are where the action and the money is. So there is massive untapped potential in the game development. However, our revenue model assumes a rather modest contribution because at this time alhough we'd like a game on the scale of Eve Online or WoW it's a little too ambitious even for us (unless of course you can help!). Note that the game is free to play and revenue comes from in-game trading.

Our plan is to start with the Parasites game on a social network because it's faster & cheaper to implement than other game patforms (and the feature film) and it offers a chance to spread awareness and interest of the Parasites project ahead of implementing more costly transmedia components. It's hoped that the social game will stimulate participation in the project and offer insights into the development of the feature and web series.

The Parasite's game is not a lame, cynical extension of the movie, it's a core part of the relationship between the audience and the storyworld.