Transmedia: Storytelling for the Digital Age

Michael Cavna:  "Disney is thinking so far beyond sequels — first with its Marvel Cinematic Universe, next with its Star Wars galaxies — that it is now fully, successfully engaging viewers across interlocking narratives. Each time a film like “Civil War” can land with audiences — building upon and/or introducing a dozen key characters — the universe can move not just linearly, but also multilaterally."

Bogar Alonso:  '“My job is to inspire viewers to make the choices I want them to make,” says [Eric] Darnell. “At my best, I inspire the viewers to look where I want them to look when I want them to look somewhere specific. And when they do, I give them something interesting to focus on and surround that point of interest with other elements that the viewer will naturally compose into the shot that I want them to compose. If I do my job well, ideally, 100 percent of the viewers have the same experience.”'

Liz Nord:  "No matter how you feel about it, virtual reality filmmaking and experiential storytelling is happening. And it's getting better and better. No longer just a gimmick, filmmakers are using the technology to serve the story instead of the other way around."

John Fink:  "We discuss the thrilling multimedia documentary experience at Tribeca, along with select highlights from the festival’s VR arcade."

Shona Ghosh:  "Virtual reality isn't just expensive to produce, it's completely overturned traditional methods of storytelling on film. Here Aardman explains how it's rethinking narrative when the viewer is in control."

Christopher Chabris:  "We play games for many reasons: the thrill of victory, the excitement of competition, the experience of being “in the zone” that comes from complete immersion in a mental challenge. But we also play for the chance to create a story."

Sharang Biswas:  "Will games ever really let us tell our own stories? And if they did-- what would that even look like?"

Charlotte Cullen:  "How will viewers follow a story if they are able to look wherever they want? How will a director make scene cuts without making the user sick?"

Simon Staffans:  "We have all heard the value of getting something to a viral stage and the need for either robust strategies for social media or an enormous amount of good luck to make that virality happen – most often a combination of the two is needed."

Chris Giliberti:  "Since the beginning of time (and the advent of humans), oral storytelling has served a critical role as the sole means of abstracting experiences and emotions in narrative form" ...

Simon Staffans:  "There are trends in today’s world, and there are things that could be better described as mega-trends. One of them is – building on things I’ve discussed in posts on this blog over the past few weeks, months and years – the notion of a creative society."

DRC:  The latest blog post in Simon Staffan's excellent series on storytelling for an evolving audience ....

Leah Lamb:  "Penrose Studios is channeling the history of cinematic storytelling into augmented and virtual reality experiences."

James Clements:  "For years, games have acted as escapism. Life is Strange, however, could be described as the exact opposite. What happens when a game gets you to look at your own life instead? Well, in Life is Strange’s case, an incredibly powerful story that can bring comfort and relatability."

Joe Berkowitz:  "Christopher Markus and Steve McFeely, of Captain America: Civil War and the next Avengers, discuss the Marvel movie long game."

Emily Jenab:  "Is there ever truly an ethical way of presenting someone’s suffering? The ethics of speaking for others, of sharing and benefitting from someone’s own words, is not a definitive set of rules."

[Image via Amazon.com]

Simon Staffans:  "Storytelling and media [...] definitely have a future. It’s just going to be a future that is nothing like what we know now."

Clive Thompson:  "Emoji assist in a peculiarly modern task: conveying emotional nuance in short, online utterances. “They’re trying to solve one of the big problems of writing online, which is that you have the words but you don’t have the tone of voice,” as my friend Gretchen McCulloch, a linguist and author, says."

Scott Beggs:  "Going behind the scenes has become the scene. Trailers have become the true first act of any movie. Casting announcements introduce us to characters now. Filmmakers and showrunners gamble with their creative license when they let loose a cliffhanger."

Megan Carpentier:  "Study lays bare the fact that women are given far less dialogue than male actors – because it’s men who still get to tell the stories that form our cultural narratives" ...

Ben Travers:  "In greenlighting this expansive tentpole from Ryan Murphy, FX executives, the series' showrunners, Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, and key crew members made very specific, very self-aware and very, very smart moves to ensure high awareness and maximize the potential of this project."

James Martin:  "There’s no denying that video is increasingly consumed in vertical, rather than horizontal format — think smartphone apps like Snapchat — to the dismay of some purists."

Brian Moylan:  "Deloitte’s annual Digital Democracy Survey was released and with it came the usual predictions of what it means for the future – but there were some surprises" ...

Jake Muncy:  "ClickHole, the Buzzfeed-parodying offshoot of The Onion's satirical news enterprise, has, improbably, become a small haven for funny text-based games."

Martin Bryant:  "While audiences around the world know the UK’s BBC best for its hit TV shows like Top Gear and Doctor Who, it has been a key force in technological advances since since it first started broadcasting almost a century ago" ....