Transmedia: Storytelling for the Digital Age

Angela Watercutter:  "Oculus Story Studio's new project is more than a cute animated short--it's a test case for narrative techniques that could change the way we watch movies."

Tadhg Kelly:  "VR's coming whether you like it or not. How best to make use if it?"

Liz Stinson:  "IN A LOT of ways, designing in virtual reality is just like designing in real life. Certain rules must be followed to ensure that people have an enjoyable experience. In the physical world, this might mean you can navigate a building without getting frustrated; in the virtual one, it means you won’t puke on your shoes."

Bill Desowitz:  "Is Virtual Reality going to finally be an interactive game-changer? Its proponents showed up in Stuttgart at FMX to make their case."

David Canfield:  '"It's like the early days of any medium where artists were inventing the content and the form at the same time."'

DJ Roller:  "From the Chauvet Cave paintings of 30,000 years ago, to 6K digital cinema today, we've always told stories, we just do it differently as media changes. There's a new leap in storytelling happening now. Virtual Reality (VR) is going to change the way we express ourselves, communicate with each other and experience the world."

Fusion:  "This [Ferguson Firsthand] is an interactive experience that explores Michael Brown’s death using a combination of graphic journalism and virtual reality. It allows you to move through an immersive recreation of the Ferguson shooting—and view the events based on eight eyewitness accounts."

Angela Watercutter:  "If the offerings at this year's Sundace Film Festival are any indication, VR filmmaking is coming—as soon as these folks figure out how to master it."

Ryan Rigney:  "Just as people struggled to find a practical application for hydrogen balloons, small thinking has also plagued the development of one of today's flashiest technologies, virtual reality devices. But VR doesn't need a killer app. It just needs to be unleashed on the world, so the people tinkering with it can lead us all someplace new."

Jeff Sneider:  "Industry power players James Cameron, Steven Soderbergh and Werner Herzog are also among the growing list who are interested in exploring the budding medium"

Bryan Bishop:  "Virtual reality company Oculus has been building momentum since it launched the Kickstarter campaign for its Oculus Rift headset two years ago. At its developer conference Saturday, it launched its latest prototype — while filmmakers made a convincing argument that VR is the dawn of a completely new form of visual storytelling."

i-docs:  "The brainchild of Creative Director and PhD researcher, Nina Simoes, Meet Lucy is an innovative and interactive story that highlights the reality of housing issues in London and runs parallel to Learn Do Share."

Pierre Ziemniak:  "What’s the specificity of transmedia projects in this very competitive space? There are only two ways to get a transmedia project out, according to [Rebecca] Smit: find your transmedia project first, and then look for potential partners; or look at the projects that are already there and make them transmedia."

Jess Linington:  "From a realisation that the digital sense of presence is a powerful thing, to being the dubbed the 'Godmother of VR', Nonny de la Peña took use through her experiments in 'immersive journalism' at an lunchtime talk in Bristol."

Mark Wilson:  "Google, Samsung, and Facebook have all invested in VR. Now they need help selling it to the public. Enter Hollywood."

Robert Pratten:  "Stories are the way we make sense of the world. Our minds can’t deal with randomness and we see connections, causes and reasons even where there are none. Whether we are happy or sad, positive or negative, this is often the result of the story we construct – it’s the meaning we attribute to events and things that without human interpretation have no meaning. So powerful is story that the life we lead today is a result of the stories we told ourselves in the past.

We are entering an age of fluid reality."

Jess Linington:  "Immersing your audience in hyper-real situations can evoke intense reactions - How do you balance the potential of projects with the ethics of immersion?"

Jessica Conditt:  "Virtual reality was the belle of this year's Sundance Film Festival. Immersive exhibitions displayed on face-hugging headsets told powerful stories in lifelike worlds, in 360 degrees and with the viewer in control of the camera. [ ... ]  But, now, the buzz is fading and a question remains: Do filmmakers in Hollywood think that virtual reality is the future of cinema?"

Mark Wilson:  "So many companies, so many technologies. Who can keep it all straight? We can! Here's a plainspeak FAQ to get you up to speed."

Kate Abrosimova:  "The craft of storytelling is experiencing a sea-change in its development. Putting a viewer in the event directly with the help of virtual reality technology is what journalists are likely to be doing in the next decade."

Eric Johnson:  "The hopes for VR movies are huge, but there are a few technical kinks to work out first."

Nikita Richardson:  "How does the Zachary Quinto-produced horror movie Banshee Chapter look on the much-discussed VR device?"

Beckett Mufson:  "Nonny de la Peña has been called the pioneer of "Immersive Journalism," as she fuses news experiences with virtual reality, literally putting viewers inside the story."

Kevin Ohannessian:  "One idea is dominating this year's Game Developers Conference: virtual reality. From Treadmills to bodysuits, from guns to games, the emerging VR ecosystem is vast--and growing."