Zen Films

Developing a Transmedia Project: My Approach Part 1

There seems to have been a lot of Twitter and email activity recently about how to actually go about developing a transmedia project so I thought I’d share my approach to a project I’m producing right now.

This is a work in progress so this is only part 1!

Background & Objectives

I have a suspicion that many readers and viewers – I’ll collectively call them the audience – aren’t as demanding... or as knowledgeable... or as willing... to consume stories as much as the technology will allow. Hence, with so many platforms and so many things that can be done I wanted to scale everything back to do something very simple.

I want to reach as wide an audience as possible.

Step 1 - Keep it Simple.

I started with a high concept: One story, three perspectives – each point of view told across a different media. That’s hopefully easy to understand, right? Hmm.. time will tell :)

Step 2 – What’s the Business Model?

I wanted to employ the CwF+RtB model so that I could give away all the digital content for free but still get paid.

I'm also assuming the audience is fickle. Make it easy for them to consume and buy with minimal effort in a way that they decide. When I have their fleeting attention, maximize the benefit to both of us.

Step 3 – Story Synopsis

A decorated San Francisco homicide detective, Larry Hayes, wakes up in a gutter in the Tenderloin after coming round from a drug-induced coma. His radio beeps – there’s been a murder two blocks away. How long has he been out? Could he have done it?

His story is told in text in a novella.

Hayes’ wife is fighting for custody of their 12 year old daughter and has hired a private detective to dig the dirty on Hayes to use against him in court.

The wife’s story is told on her blog.

The private detective’s story is told across a series of videos (webisodes).

At this point lots of ideas start jumping off – a MySpace page for the daughter, webcam clips for the wife’s blog, a web page for the private detective, a Google map with murder victims on it etc. BUT I want to keep it simple and cheap. Each media adds another layer of time and energy. I can always come back and develop these later or – better still – they’re sandpits for the audience to play in.

Step 4a - Mesh the Story with the Business Model

To meet my requirement that the audience be able to consume the story as easy and as convenient as possible, I wanted each media to be stand alone without requiring the audience to jump from media to media. I wanted someone to be able to buy the book to read on a journey and not worry that they didn’t have an Internet connection to watch the videos, for example.

It’s not a requirement for the audience to consume all media – only that they enjoy whichever one they have right now. Now, given all the attention we’re giving to the fact that there are three media and that they represent three perspectives on the same story, if someone enjoys the novella I think it’s likely they’ll watch the webisodes and vice verse.

So, there are no particular calls-to-action within each media except the plot points and the twists and turns of a great story which I think will motivate people to get a different perspective on events – who’s telling the truth?

The story is being written by the award-winning crime thriller writer Simon Wood and I’ve left him alone now to continue writing while I’ve turned my attention to the money.

Step 4b - Getting Paid

All the media will be free to read and watch online. It will be released episodically – possibly two episodes a week (Tues and Thurs) maybe weekly... But from the first episode we’ll be selling the whole story so you don’t have to wait.

I believe that reading a book (or Kindle) or watching a DVD on the TV is still very popular and often more convenient than doing the same online. I’m hoping that audiences are going to pay for that.

The picture above shows the “media browser” I’ve developed to make it easy to consume the media, easy to connect with us the creators and for the audience to connect with each other.

It should also work well with the iPad ;)

The default configuration is for the shop to be displayed in the right panel. The shop has a range of purchase options from $5 to $50,000 – each intended to pique the interest of different members of our audience. If you check the video I explain more.

 Step 4c – Possible tie-ins?

So that’s pretty much where we are right now. We have our own financing to deliver the project but I’ve started to reach out (although very early days) to anyone that might be interested in sponsoring the project .  I know the subject matter isn’t very family orientated but it’ll be no worse than CSI or The Wire. To that end, I created a very short video to help pitch to possible sponsors. If you’re reading this and you’re interested in sponsoring, please get in touch ;) – DM me on Twitter.

 

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!

Transmedia in Pictures

While writing an upcoming article for Indie Slate magazine on Transmedia I came up with this infographic that illustrates the difference between the typical..well..let's say "Hollywood franchise" that leaves us all disappointed when we consume all the media and a transmedia project in which each media should be satisfying in its own right but consuming all the media delivers that "wow!" factor.

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...

Parasites Graphic Novel: Episode One (Dead Girl)

In working through my ideas for the feature film and webseries, I created this first installment of a graphic novel. Although the character Simon Newbry might make an appearance, the feature film isn't about him. Hence the graphic novel allows further exploration of what it's like being a "King" in the world of Parasites.
Parasites Graphic Novel

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.