Transmedia Lenses
Conversations about Transmedia have been very healthy recently, with both Brain Clark's (@gmdclark) 'Reclaiming Transmedia Storytelling' post and Brooke Thompson's (@imbri) 'Transmedia is killing Hollywood will kill Transmedia' post generating thought provoking discussion in the form of hundreds of comments. Most of the transmediarati (did I just coin that? :) were present including @imbri @gmdclark @mikemonello @vipsteve @lanceweiler @robpratten @goonth @garyphayes and @4dfiction
These guys really know their stuff with many of them behind some of the most progressive entertainment and digital marketing projects over the last decade. However, there doesn't appear to be a general agreement on what is and isn't transmedia between them and I suppose that's partly down to
- storytelling as an activity is used by different vertical and horizontal market sectors, although mainly in entertainment and marketing
- the term is fairly new and therefore open to interpretation and manipulation
- people are using the following terms interchangeably; media, media channel, media platform, media properties (I've produced a diagram that outlines the differences, which I'll post if people would find it useful)
Remember Web 2.0? Maybe it would of been easier if Henry Jenkins had used the term Entertainment 2.0 instead :P
So, one of the aspects of the discussion appears to be about should the definition for transmedia be nailed down, be more specific and maybe closer to what Henry Jenkins first outlined or can it be broader and through some criteria or classification could it include various types of output.
Working with leading film studios and game publishers to launch their titles across UK and Europe it's maybe not surprising that I would like to see the later, as the transmedia party looks pretty good and I'd like in on it. I also see the huge benefits of baking the marketing into the product (I'll leave that for another post). So, I thought I'd have a stab at creating something which would provide this criteria and I ended up using 3 lenses. My thinking has been shaped in no small part by the transmediarati (most of them mentioned above) plus @christydena
As you can see below I'm suggesting there are three lenses, Origination, Purpose and Architectural. My thinking is that any output would meet one criteria from each lens. So for example 'Star Wars' would be Brownfield, Franchise and Storyworld. Why So Serious? would be Greenfield, Marcoms and Story.
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