Transmedia storytelling

Transmedia storytelling

In Transmedia storytelling, content becomes invasive and permeates fully the audience's lifestyle. A transmedia project develops storytelling across multiple forms of media in order to have different "entry points" in the story; entry-points with a unique and independent lifespan but with a definite role in the big narrative scheme. One of the first documented uses of the term was by Marsha Kinder in her 1993 book "Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Video Games: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". She called them “commercial transmedia superstructures”, and goes on to say “transmedia intertextuality works to position consumers as powerful players while disavowing commercial manipulation."

These two videos explain the ideologies behind Transmedia quite well

The Power Of Transmedia from Starlight Runner Entertainment on
Vimeo.

Transmedia Examples

Journey of Jin
"Journey of Jin" is a transmedial play experience centered on mobile media, location-based entertainment, a comic book, and other web-based media. A creation of Stephen Dinehart, this simple transmedia system is intended to invite users into a virtual world with multiple points of entry. Journey of Jin offers a grand adventure in bite size consumables. Unlike properties like Star Wars, He-Man, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which lend themselves to transmedia, JOJ was created with the intention of being transmedia universe, and not proliferated into other media formats for simply for merchandising purposes but for enriching the storytelling.

The Matrix
In Convergence Culture Jenkins cites the Matrix as an example of transmedia storytelling. Jenkins explains that, "key bits of information are conveyed through three live action films, a series of animated shorts, two collections of comic book stories, and several video games. There is no one single source or ur-text where one can turn to gain all of the information needed to comprehend the Matrix universe."

Batman Begins and the Dark Knight
Another example that Jenkins cites is from the 2005 movie Batman Begins. DC Comics published comic books before the release of the movie to give further background information for the movie; most of the background information was to give further details about Bruce Wayne's past. This example shows how Warner Brothers, owner of DC Comics, used multimedia sources to convey information about a single story.

Get Serious:Transmedia Branding from experience freak on Vimeo.

Sorority Forever
In 2008, Warner Brothers partnered with Big Fantastic to create Sorority Forever, the first original web series for The WB. In addition to the episodes, a fully interactive metaverse was created and produced to provide an immersive, transmedia experience, with almost limitless entry points into the story. Viewers could interact with characters in real time using MySpace, Twitter, Stickam, and other internet platforms, as well as discover additional story and character elements.

Other Examples include: Heroes, Pokemon, Cloverfield and Marvel Comics Spiderman

Heroes Transmedia Storytelling Extensions from Branded Evolution on Vimeo.