Transmedia: Storytelling for the Digital Age

Aubrey Page:  "In an era where long-cancelled shows like "Arrested Development" and "Mr. Show" (now living on as "W/ Bob and David") can suddenly be revived for a new season alongside their contemporary counterparts, it's clear the key to television success is as difficult to suss out as ever.  [....]  Helping to cut through the confusion is a new infographic, breaking down the secret life of some of your favorite shows and sharing some fun facts about your favorite shows, like "Mr. Robot" and "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," in the process."

Houston Howard's powerful case for why screenwriters should embrace transmedia ... it's the key to innovating the independent film industry!  

Charlie Jane Anders:  "Worldbuilding is the bedrock of science fiction and fantasy. We obsess about it constantly, because characters and plots are often only as compelling as the worlds they inhabit. We've decried bad worldbuilding before -- but what makes worldbuilding great?"

Nicole Laporte:  "Emmy-winning writer Steven Moffat talks about reimagining one of the world's most iconic characters for a modern, and less stuffy, era."

Mike Jones:  "Like any narrative genre, Post-Apocalyptic fiction can be understood as a response to social fears - a metaphoric framework for exploring ideas about humanity that stem directly from where we are in the present day " ...

Warning this article contains a "couple of Star Trek Into Darkness spoilers (you have seen it by now, right?)"

How to take basic story structure and turn it into great screenwriting ....

This one's for writers everywhere ...

How much detail is too much detail when building fantasy story worlds?

Al Kennedy:  "I do care about everything I write, but dealing with a hugely loved character and 50 years of world-building – that felt different. Different in the sense of being horrifying and wonderful."

Joe Berkowitz:  "Barring some exceptions, what actually happens is an entire writers room full of interlocking personality types forms like a comedy Voltron to pitch and polish ideas until one or two writers have enough material to go off and write up a draft. It's a process that's known as breaking a story, and it is incredibly difficult to do."

Kevin Hodgson:  "In simple terms, I like to think of transmedia as storytelling with few if any boundaries, and as we continue to explore digital writing this month and beyond, this idea of taking a story for a walk across platforms seems to be right in tune with the possibilities of writing in a digital age" ...

Mike Jones:  "Long-standing tenets of narrative still hold, but if we’re going to live and work in a multiplatform world - where audiences are spread across many narrative forms, not conglomerated together around a dominant - then Writers may need to rethink their processes and even the definition of what they are and what they do..."

September was a busy month for professional development in New Zealand with events on interactive storytelling, finding 'voice' in film & television, and transmedia ... Fiona Milburn reports back from this year's DOC Edge Lab, The Big Screen Symposium and NZGDC's Hollywood & Interactive IP event.

Image: Ingrid Kopp of the Tribeca Film Institute

Stephan Vladimir Bugaj:  "After Pixar story artist Emma Coats tweeted Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling in 2011, quite a few people have riffed off of those rules. In the case of Stephan Vladimir Bugaj, a Pixar employee of 12 years, he's decided to elaborate on them."

Lance Weiler:  "The last few years have seen a rise in filmmakers who are extending the stories they tell beyond a single medium" ....

An interesting list!

An interesting and rather unexpected take on Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling.

Lucas Johnson provides a transmedia context to yesterday's scoop: At Home In Fantasy's Nerd-Built Worlds.