The Cross-Media Environment

Searching for the Origami Unicorn:The Matrix and Transmedia Storytelling

A presentation about Convergence Culture’s chapter

Transmedia Storytelling

“A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole.”

Henry Jenkins in “Convergence Culture” (2006 p.95)

What made this possible?

1Time-shifting technologies (starting with the VCR)

allow the public to go back and follow more complex plotlines

2 Digitization

Media conglomeratesGenerate revenue streams for their various companies

headquarters

3

they want to go deeper, find new possibilities, insights and experiences within storiesAudiences want to feel empowered4

“When I first started, you would pitch a story because without a a good story you didn’t really have a film.

Later, once sequels started to take-off, you pitched a character because a good character could support

multiple stories. And now, you pitch a world because a world can support multiple characters and multiple

stories across multiple media.”

Hollywood scriptwriter cited by Jenkins in “Convergence Culture” (2006 p.114)

Pokemon

The most sophisticated transmedia story to date

Completely furnished world(innovative idea with recognizable traces)

Encyclopedic in information(full of pop, religious, ethnic, mythological, historic and academic references)

Collaborative authorship (manga writers, game industry, animators from across the world)

Other content designed simultaneouslywith the movie

Many points of entry (games, films, etc)

By creating a world, with different stories happening in different media, it’s inevitable that not everyone will have the same experience.

Is it a love story? (Keanu Reeves said so)Is it “a titanic struggle between intuition and controlling intellect”?

(Hugo Weaving, aka Agent Smith)Is it a story about believing in something or not believing in something?Is it a story about secret societies keeping society under control?Is it a story about men’s history or men’s future?Is it just an enhanced Kung Fu movie?

The Matrix

Good Not so good

Possibility to link personal media affinity with the story

Endless possibilities to get conversation about the story going

Community building

Possibility to alienate non-hardcore audiences

Restricted experience by digital divide

Different Levels of Experience

Final Flight of the Osiris (animated short) Jue (protagonist) tries to send a letter to the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar

Matrix Reloaded (film) Characters discuss the “last transmissions from the Osiris”.

Enter the Matrix (game)1st Mission: retrieve the letter from the post office

Example

“If you give people enough stuff to explore, they will explore. Not everyone but some of them will. The people who do explore and take advantage of the whole world will forever be your fans, will give you an energy you can’tbuy through marketing”

Ed Sanchez, Blair Witch Project

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=IowE6oxkOMg

So far, however, there aren’t established aesthetic criteria to evaluate the works that

are distributed across multiple media.

“Our schools are not teaching what it means to live and work in a knowledge society, but popular culture may be doing so”

Jenkins, in “Convergence Culture” (2006, p.129)

Hunting for information =

Play with knowledge

Up to this point, do you think the industry has been successful in creating interesting worlds?

Do you think that in the future, transmedia stories will overcome single media ones as industry standard?

Do you think transmedia stories you’ve seen in this presentation get people more engaged or the depth actually alienates most people?

Do you agree that today’s children will inevitably grow up thinking in “transmedia-mode”? What are the implications of it?

Discussion