PGA NMC East member Jeff Gomez featured on forbes.com
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/03/jeff-gomez-advertising-leadership-cmo-network_starlight_runner.html
On the Record with…
JEFF GOMEZ
The Power of Transmedia
Interview by Laurie Burkitt
Though these may be dark economic times, there are certain executives with extraordinary insight and unique approaches who are achieving striking results for their companies. Each week, Forbes.CMO will spotlight one of these visionaries and fire off questions designed to keep you ahead of the curve.
Transmedia is a word that has been buzzing both Hollywood and Madison Avenue, but very few seem to have a handle on what it means, or the potential of its value proposition. For our premiere column, we turn to Jeff Gomez, CEO of New York-based Starlight Runner Entertainment for answers.
A self-described “transmedia storyteller,” Gomez is a producer who specializes in developing and extending entertainment and advertising properties across multiple media platforms. His clients include The Walt Disney Company, Microsoft, Hasbro and perhaps most notably, the Coca-Cola Company.
What exactly is transmedia and how did you become interested in it?
Simply put, transmedia is the art of conveying a rich message, theme or storyline to a mass audience using multiple media platforms in concert. Each part of the story is unique and plays to the strengths of each medium, and the audience is often invited to participate and somehow interact with the narrative. We first saw the term used in this way by M.I.T. professor Henry Jenkins in his book Convergence Culture.
In today’s interconnected world, young adults, teens and even kids have become so comfortable with media technology that they seem to flow from one platform to the next. The problem is that their content is not flowing with them. As a discipline, transmedia provides us with a foundation for the development, production and rollout of entertainment properties or consumer brands across all of these platforms. Transmedia creates the flow.
As a mass audience we’re too savvy and too impatient to experience the same content over and over again. There’s too much out there to enjoy. Repurposing sucks! I actually learned this as a kid living in Hawaii in the 1970s, and being exposed to psychedelic Japanese pop culture. The creators of cartoons and kidvid like Ultra 7, Kikaida and Galaxy Express 999 were allowed to turn their stories into animated TV series, toy lines, live events and feature films.
But instead of repeating the plots over and over again for each medium, the creators would continue and expanded their storylines, generating dazzling mythologies and complex narratives. The act of chasing, collecting and searching for new parts of the story made me a participant. I became immersed in these worlds. This was early transmedia storytelling, and man, I knew right there what I wanted to do when I grew up!
Well, it turns out that yesterday’s “cult” is today’s cool.
What gives transmedia its unique power? How do you distinguish it from concepts such as branded entertainment?
What’s so powerful about transmedia implementation is that it maximizes the potential of your story or message, while both building intense brand loyalty and opening up multiple revenue streams.
The loyalty is derived from giving fans more of what they want from your story: more character background, more story mythology, more opportunities to dialog with the story’s creators and with one another. When you know that Samuel L. Jackson will be playing Nick Fury in the next nine Marvel super hero movies, you’re delighted because this ties that whole universe together. It’s a richer and deeper entertainment experience for the fan.
Revenues may be increased dramatically, because you are furnishing fans with more product. The storylines of major films like The Dark Knight, Wolverine and Watchmen are being supplemented by direct-to-DVD animation releases, each of which are selling quite well. The Watchmen videogame serves as a prequel to the movie and contains “valuable” story developments that fans want to know about. New stories set in the same world are alluring, as opposed to repurposed content, so the products become more attractive and in many cases more lucrative.
We’ve seen this with such properties as Hannah Montana, Lost and Heroes, but we’re also seeing it with Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. It’s a growth industry, and it’s an exciting time to be a part of it.
I think it’s important to point out that transmedia storytelling is not branded entertainment. Branded entertainment drives product awareness by sort of tacking the brand onto something else, like whatever brands you’re seeing on The Apprentice. On the other hand, transmedia builds brand mythology, placing the brand front and center and building narrative around it, like the various tie-ins we saw around The Matrix franchise several years ago. Branded entertainment comes and goes in a flash, but transmedia storylines are timeless because they are built on a foundation of classic narrative structure. They’re good stories. Finally, the owner of the brand pays for branded content, but transmedia entertainment is designed to generate revenue because it’s content that the audience wants.
What’s the short history of transmedia?
After the Industrial Revolution, the printing press allowed for ideas and stories to be spread to much larger populations. Thousands of people were reading Stoker’s Dracula or Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. With radio, new elements were introduced into the mythos of these narratives. Perry White, Kryptonite and the term “faster than a speeding bullet,” for example, all became a part of Superman from the 1938 radio serial.
After World War II, the Japanese government promoted the cooperation of manufacturers, suppliers and distributors to spur economic recovery. They called this keiretsu. This is what allowed for popular comic strip characters to easily jump across various kinds of media in a concerted fashion. By the ‘60s and ‘70s, this became a sleek machine that exported pop entertainment globally from Godzilla to Gigantor to Speed Racer.
I wouldn’t be the only one to be turned onto this. George Lucas has often acknowledged Japanese cinema for inspiring Star Wars, but I dare say he was also fascinated by keiretsu and Nippon’s pension for celebrating and rewarding creators of cross-platform story epics. He shrewdly held back the rights to his characters and merchandising from 20th Century Fox and launched what would become the prototype for transmedia storytelling in America.
But the true actualization of transmedia arrived in 1998 with a weird website called The Blair Witch Project, nearly a year before the release of the film. Was it real? A hoax? Our curiosity and our dialog made us participants in the narrative, and the whole thing exploded, making the film one of the most profitable in history. Transmedia requires an interactive component.
Transmedia has often been used to promote TV shows and movies, things that already have a story built into them, but how does it work with products?
It’s true, since Blair Witch we’ve seen some progressive television and film execs and producers use transmedia techniques to engage mass audiences. JJ Abrams used the Internet, books and comics to build on the storylines of Lost and Cloverfield, as did Tim Kring on Heroes and Warner Bros. on The Dark Knight. All of these had strong stories to start with, and fans were offered (and often paid for) a “deeper dive” with this additional content.
We’ve also seen companies like Procter & Gamble use transmedia techniques such as extending soap opera narrative. In 2007, P&G commissioned Guiding Light: Jonathan’s Story, a novel that revealed the adventures of a major character that had been mysteriously absent from the show. The book was a media sensation and became a New York Times best seller.
But we’re also seeing transmedia elements in the marketing of consumer products and advertising. With “The King” campaign from Burger King a few years back, for example, audiences became engaged with this bizarre character, watching the commercials, purchasing and playing the videogames. Profits soared for the chain.
Then there’s Victoria’s Secret, a somewhat looser but still quite valid example of transmedia narrative. We start with the mystique of the original catalog, but then the models take on personas all their own. We follow their glamorous and sometimes scandalous lives through the tabloids, on the web and on television. Like living fantasies they’re adorned with the iconography of the angel wings in print ads and commercials. We follow them into their own annual TV specials, and ultimately back into the catalogs and retail stores. A thriving empire has been built here not so much on lingerie, but on story.
In 2002, my company Starlight Runner was tasked to create a storyline around 35 die-cast metal Hot Wheels cars for Mattel in tandem with the line’s 35th anniversary. It had never really been done before. We worked with the company to discern the essence of the brand and watched how kids played with the toys before inventing an elaborate racing universe and driver characters that embodied the messages and themes of the brand. The story was successful, sales across the entire line increased dramatically, and over the next three years five computer-animated movies were released, a videogame, a comic book series, new playsets and an elaborate web site.
How do you know transmedia works? What numbers do you have to prove it?
Well, Mattel sold an awful lot of Hot Wheels DVDs! The entire product line derived a significant revenue bump over those three years. These are hundreds of millions of additional dollars for a franchise that had frankly gotten a bit dusty in the past decade.
Heroes 360, the online component of the Heroes TV series multi-platform campaign, generated an additional $50 million in advertising revenue for NBC-Universal, according to Fast Company magazine, and that doesn’t include sales of hundreds of thousands of hard copy graphic novels and prose fiction all set in the universe of the show.
Then there is Happiness Factory from the Coca-Cola Company. A few years back, Coke consolidated its global advertising with Wieden+Kennedy. The agency’s Amsterdam office came up with “The Coke Side of Life” campaign and one of the commercials featured a wild fantasy world of characters and creatures that existed inside a Coke machine. The computer animation by PsyOp was gorgeous, hilarious and a tiny bit subversive.
The commercial was called Happiness Factory and it was the highest rated Coke commercial in history. People loved it, and Coke wanted to somehow continue working with the premise. Starlight Runner was called in to do some of this creative development and generate multiple touchpoints for the property. Coke had us come up with a transmedia storyline designed to last for years.
The initial rollout in the later half of 2007 was a smash. A second, extra-long commercial was created that vastly expanded the world of Happiness Factory and gave us characters we could connect with. We worked on an elaborate international web site with AKQA that allowed you to become an employee of the factory. Coke joined with its distributors in countries around the world to customize the way people would connect to the property based on culture and budget. There were comics in Brazil, mechanical installations at shopping malls in Denmark, costumed characters lumbering around in Japanese supermarkets, all tied into “event” airings of the four-minute narrative on television.
At last year’s Media 360 conference keynote, Jonathan Mildenhall, Coke’s VP Global Advertising and Creative Excellence, announced the campaign had boosted global volume sales of Coke by 4% and Coca-Cola’s share price from $42 to $60 over Happiness Factory’s initial transmedia rollout period. Although “The Coke Side of Life” campaign is now over, Happiness Factory is tapped to play a central role in the company’s new “Open Happiness” campaign. So the Kissy Puppies will be back!
[Editor’s note: You can see the Happiness Factory commercials at http://www.coca-cola.com/hf]
Why was Coke interested in transmedia?
Mildenhall has said that he was searching for ways move away from brand interruption and boost brand engagement for his company’s flagship product. After the original Happiness Factory scored so well, he started looking for ways to extend the property. But right now, advertising is not built to stretch a story beyond a minute or two.
After learning about our work, Mildenhall had Starlight Runner present our “Blockbuster Worlds” seminar to his exec team in Atlanta, and he immediately embraced transmedia as a strategy for Coca-Cola. The results have made him one of the most vocal and articulate advocates of the process.
Tell us about your work for Coca-Cola and where it is going. How are we going to see Coke’s narrative develop and in what forms of media?
Working on Happiness Factory for Coke was both challenging and quite a thrill. All we had to start with was the commercial, and we were tasked with building an entire fictional universe around it, with a rich history, dozens of characters and wild adventures yet to come.
Starlight Runner has a proprietary technology that facilitates the rapid development and implementation of transmedia properties, and we put it to use on all fronts here. Our first task was to immerse ourselves in the brand. Coke is a part of Americana, with its own archetype and mythos. We needed to make certain that was reflected in all aspects of the narrative. Wieden+Kennedy then showed us about how their “Coke Side of Life” campaign romanced the brand, and we took those themes and imagery into account.
As with most of our clients, our first major milestone for Coke was a franchise Mythology. This is a visually impressive guide to the people, places, history and devices of the fictional universe. We get into the cultures and mysticism, messages and themes, everything you need to know to produce dozens, even hundreds of hours of content from this world.
For Coke we also produced a transmedia rollout “blueprint,” strategizing how Happiness Factory can play across comic books, videogames, outdoor interactive ads and other media across the globe over the course of the next several years. We’re only scratching the surface so far, but the vision is truly ambitious. I’m also hoping we’ll see a stronger presence here in the U.S. soon.
Where else are we likely to see your work in the future?
We’re tremendously fortunate to be working with some of the biggest properties in the world. We’ve worked on Avatar, the upcoming James Cameron science fiction, which is going to blow people away. We have a great client in Disney, where we’re working on the Bruckheimer film Prince of Persia and will hopefully be returning to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise with the fourth film. There is Halo for Microsoft.
Starlight Runner is also expanding its consumer product work. We’ll be speaking with the CMO’s of major brand owners, as well as with the big agencies here in New York as more of them convince their clients that transmedia narrative is both inevitable and, if done right, can be hugely profitable.
As for the future of transmedia storytelling, I think it’s going to become a true art form. If movies are a grand piano, that’s fantastic, you can create beautiful concertos with that one instrument. But if you take movies, television, the Internet, and any combination of other media, you are assembling an orchestra of sorts. The symphonies you can create are almost beyond imagination. To me this is the true potential of transmedia.
Monday, March 9, 2009
The Power of Transmedia
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Use the Force
All fans are equal but some are more equal than others. For any given property, you've got fans… and then you've got superfans. Superfans make up a small percentage of the audience, but can have an impact far greater than their numbers. They're a loyal band of dedicated individuals whose focus and intention can make extraordinary things happen. In cult media terms, they're the Jedis of the fan world. As a transmedia producer your job is to get them to use their power for good and keep them from going to the dark side.
Winning over superfans is the first step toward attracting a mass audience. "But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they." Avoid sparking these emotions at all costs. Honor and respect the property that they hold so dear. Do not underestimate the power of the dark side.
Jenkins: What are the risks involved in alienating the base of your audience?
Gomez: Franchises are built on the energy and loyalty of their hardcore fan bases. While these bases are often a fraction of the size of the total audience, they are indispensable, because they are vocal, passionate and active. A tiny fraction of the genre television series Jericho sent tons of jars of peanuts to the network that had just cancelled the program--moving them to reinstate the series. A small group of fans that gathered at conventions and shared amateur publications centered on the original Star Trek series managed to bridge the period between that series' cancellation and the Star Wars-inspired relaunch of the franchise in the late 1970s.
When the producers of the television series Enterprise publicly stated that the show was being designed for a much wider audience than previous incarnations of Star Trek, and exhibited this intention by altering the shows music cues, pandering to sexual titillation and (perhaps most egregiously) ignoring at will the established continuity and thematic tone of the fictional universe, the result was a gradual erosion of the franchise's core fan base. Without the approval and loyalty of "Trekkers" there would be no reason for the greater audience to stick around.
The original Crow graphic novel and feature film generated an extremely loyal fan base. But with the second feature, producers chose to ignore the fictional rules and tenets set down by the original work, and so the franchise experienced the first of what would become many fractures. Dubbing the property an "anthology franchise" that could be wildly altered based on the vision of individual artists and storytellers, the producers continued to build and deconstruct The Crow into smaller and smaller pieces, each with its own dwindling following. They chose to place the needs of their artists above the integrity of the mythology of the universe--a mythology that the fan base deeply cared about. The property now languishes in limbo.
Jenkins: What do you see as the downsides of generating such passionate consumers?
Gomez: On the other hand, passion can be blind and judgmental. Fan zeal can threaten to "box in" a property, potentially stunting its growth. It can generate negative "buzz" around a project, which can leak into media coverage and plant seeds of doubt in the general audience base. For example, Warner Brother's upcoming "Justice League" feature film has been the target of fan criticism around story and casting issues. Since then, script and casting choices have been amended. Whether or not this will help the production remains to be seen.
Jenkins: As some of these genres have become more commercially viable, the San Diego Comic Con has emerged as an important media marketplace. Can you speak to the role this gathering plays in the marketing of your properties?
Gomez: Comic Con International in San Diego plays a more and more pivotal role in heralding, marketing and launching new genre efforts. In the midst of negotiating with executives at The Walt Disney Company for a job working with one of their largest franchises, Starlight Runner took them on a tour of the Comic Con exhibition floor. Many of the "worlds" we helped to develop were on spectacular display: Mattel's Hot Wheels universe, the fantasy realms of Magic: The Gathering, high priced back issues of Valiant Comics, and the announcements for new video games and comic books based on Turok and our own "Team GoRizer" at Disney's own booth! Suffice to say, a deal was quickly sealed!
Each year, Comic Con attracts well over 100,000 "gatekeepers," fans of niche, cult or genre entertainment who make it their business to spread the word about the newest and coolest content to their friends and acquaintances both in their home communities and on the Internet. It used to be that one of these gatekeepers would have a circle of five to ten contacts back home to whom he or she would convey what was best about the convention. Now in the age of social networking and pop culture web portals, that number has multiplied exponentially. Add to this the mass media coverage given to Comic Con and content producers can reach untold millions through it.
previous Jeff Gomez post
Jeff Gomez (jeff@starlightrunner.com), is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc., a developer and producer of highly successful trans-media projects whose clients include The Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, the Coca-Cola Company, Mattel and Hasbro.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Do No Harm
"First, do no harm." This phrase, typically associated with medical professionals, should also be heeded by transmedia producers. In his correspondence with Professor Henry Jenkins, Jeff Gomez asserts that transmedia executions must not compromise the core viewing experience.
Jenkins: What do you see as the challenges of generating content that appeals to both niche and mass publics at the same time?
Gomez: Like any good story, content designed for genre-lovers or niche markets should contain strong characters, evocative issues and clear, accessible through lines. Story arcs must be designed from the outset to feel complete and deliver on their promise.
Also importantly, the audience needs to be able to appreciate and enjoy the content as it is presented solely on the driving platform of the trans-media production. With Heroes, for example, the driving platform is the television series. Much of the success of the franchise hinges on the audience finding the show exciting, intelligible and complete.
What the producers of Heroes are doing quite well is in providing fans of the show with a far more expansive experience of the fictional universe of the show on the complementary or orbiting platforms of the trans-media production. This additional content is presented in the form of web sites, graphic novels, prose fiction, etc., and this material all takes place within the canon of the Heroes chronology. So fans are provided with the level of depth, verisimilitude, sophistication and complexity that they crave, but casual viewers are not required to seek it out to enjoy the show.
When the two approaches cross over, we have seen the potential for pop culture phenomena. The media's coverage of "The Lost Experience" for example, conveyed the fact that there was a greater architecture to the fictional universe of the Lost TV series than was originally suspected. The excitement generated by the trans-media components of the show helped to boost broad interest in it. The same can be said of similar approaches for both the Batman: The Dark Knight and Cloverfield feature films.
Also powerful on the home front, as families gather to watch Heroes, a teen fan of the show might recognize a peripheral character making her first appearance on a given night's episode as one he originally read about in the online comic. So our fan takes on the role of gatekeeper for the show, filling in family and friends on the back story of the character, and giving them a greater appreciation of the show with his "exclusive" knowledge, and making the whole experience more entertaining. In short, depth and complexity are built around the show, rather than weighing it down by presenting it front and center.
Jenkins: What kinds of trade-offs have to occur in order to broaden the appeal of media properties?
Gomez: Studios and entertainment companies are now learning that fewer and fewer trade-offs are necessary to broaden the appeal of niche or "cult media" properties. Contemporary audiences are now primed for high quality genre entertainment across all media platforms. So long as marketing efforts place focus on a driving platform, the launch platform and complementary content can be used to build anticipation, educate audience "gatekeepers" about the property, and enrich the overall experience.
There may be trade-offs, however, when it comes to the level of depth and complexity of the core property and how interdependent the driving platform content is with complementary content. The Wachowski Brothers ran into difficulty with the mass audience reception of the second and third Matrix films, because the films were hard to understand without a working familiarity with the characters and storylines of the orbiting platforms (graphic novels, video games, direct-to-video animation). Hence, at this point in the evolution of transmedia storytelling, it is still vital to present a full and complete entertainment experience within each component of the rollout.
It should be noted that niche productions such as alternate reality games don't tend to bother with these distinctions, trusting the sophistication and intense loyalty of their audience to follow plotlines and story nodes back and forth across multiple media platforms almost indiscriminately. I believe that some day soon, web-based alternate reality games and experiences will evolve into much more accessible and dynamic productions, playing a vital role in transmedia storytelling.
previous Jeff Gomez post
Jeff Gomez (jeff@starlightrunner.com), is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc., a developer and producer of highly successful trans-media projects whose clients include The Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, the Coca-Cola Company, Mattel and Hasbro
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Transmedia Crossover
Like any pop culture junkie, there’s nothing I like better than a good crossover – when characters from different realities step into each other’s world. Like when Laverne & Shirley or The Big Ragu appeared on Happy Days. Or when Batman and Spiderman teamed up to take on the Joker.
Crossovers happen in real life too. This past fall, I witnessed one of my favorites when Jeff Gomez and Henry Jenkins met at the Future of Entertainment Conference. Seeing these two transmedia giants interact was as epic and entertaining as any fictional crossover.
Prior to the panel discussion, Professor Jenkins had distributed a set of questions to the speakers to help them prepare. Gomez recently decided to revisit these questions and sent his current thoughts back to Jenkins. Events in the transmedia space have progressed so rapidly that he felt it would be valuable to keep the dialog moving ahead.
Over the next few days, we’ll be rolling out portions of the correspondence between these two transmedia heavyweights… it will be as entertaining as when the doctors from St. Elswhere crossed over onto Cheers for a drink.
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Jenkins: Let's start by examining the concept of "cult media." What does this phrase mean to you, and do you think it accurately describes the kinds of projects you've worked on? Why or why not?
Gomez: To me "cult media" is exemplified by the slow crumbling of traditional media content aimed at huge swathes of the population, down to the more contemporary approach of designing content to engage subsections of that population or even smaller "niches."
My company Starlight Runner works on "cult media" in that we work on projects that already have mass appeal or have the potential to reach mass appeal, but what those projects always have to begin with is a specific genre appeal that almost guarantees an extremely loyal core "niche" audience.
Starlight Runner also consults with movie studios, comic book and fiction publishers, and videogame developers to take their niche or "cult" content and prepare it for extension across multiple media platforms. In this case, we are acting as transmedia storytellers, developing and producing "cult" properties for exposure to a much larger audience.
Jenkins: The idea of cult media historically referred to films that appealed to a fairly small niche of consumers. But many genres, which once were regarded as cult -- fantasy, science fiction, superheroes -- have emerged as increasingly mainstream. What's changing? What accounts for the mainstreaming of niche media?
Gomez: There are five factors that seem to be contributing to the "coming out" of cult media:
1. Baby boomers and gen-X'ers weaned on the explosion of pop culture spurred by the proliferation of television and movies in the aftermath of World War II have come of age and taken control of the entertainment industry. Naturally, they have a strong desire to recreate what they loved and share it with others who've had similar cultural experiences.
2. Genre product such as science fiction serials and horror films, which had been relegated to Saturday matinees and second or third billing in movie theaters, could now be given A-list treatment. The new moguls and visionaries could now apply top grade production value to this content, and hire marquee talent for it, secure in the knowledge that genre fare is more than likely to turn a profit. In the international market, a growing hunger for action and genre content could boost domestic failures into profitability.
3. Attention to quality extended to storytelling. Filmmakers, comic book writers, genre novelists and their ilk were better educated and more interested in stories that conveyed better character development and stronger verisimilitude. Star Wars was fueled by the work of Joseph Campbell.
4. Genre content became more reflective of the mood and politics of the time, and therefore resonated more powerfully with mass audiences. Note the nuclear spawned monsters of the 1950s, the "acid trip" sci-fi of the '60s, the terrifying "evil children" of the early '70s, the "gee whiz" hope of Star Wars and Close Encounters later that decade, the political morass and moral ambiguity of Battlestar Galactica currently.
5. Like no other time in history, devotees of this type of content have complete access to one another via the Internet. Fans whose imaginations are fired by these stories make a deep and lasting connection with them. They become "specialists," intensely knowledgeable of the property, the way that sports fanatics memorize the accomplishments and statistics of their favorite teams. These fans become "apostles" for the property, devoting time, effort and creativity in celebrating the story and characters, collecting ephemera and licensed extensions of the brand, celebrating it with others of their ilk. They form the property's core fan base, which in turn fuels the continued success of the brand.
Jeff Gomez (jeff@starlightrunner.com), is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc., a developer and producer of highly successful trans-media projects whose clients include The Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, the Coca-Cola Company, Mattel and Hasbro.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Getting Everyone on the Same Page
THE BIRTH OF CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
Adventures in Storytelling pt. 8 - Getting Everyone on the Same Page
By Brian Seth Hurst
The network, the creators, producers and writers and the cross media producers all need to start in the same place. Call it mutual education in which the cross media folks learn in depth about the show and the show folks learn what is possible across platforms. Lines of communication and approvals must be established right away. If this is truly going to be distributed story telling that works, then no one can work in isolation. During preproduction, the Cross Media producers should be briefed and then either go away and come back with a fistful of prioritized executable ideas or what I consider to be the most fun a brainstorming session with producers where the possibilities are thrown on the table, vetted and prioritized.
Ideally the Executive Producer Cross Media should ride shotgun with the producers of the show. The story arc, plot twists and turns, and character development are just a few of the things that will provide foundation for cross media ideas.
Cross-platform strategies can vary significantly according to producer Patrick Crowe. “In the Fallen Alternate Reality Game, the TV production provided the framework for the game world,” explains Crowe. “However, we had enormous freedom to develop the game plot and characters provided these remained consistent with the themes of the TV mini-series. By contrast, in our previous ARG for the TV drama ReGenesis, we worked directly with the writing team of the TV series, planting interactive events into every single episode. Sometimes these clues even influenced the plot of the TV drama.”
What should you consider in the process of building a cross media proposition? The process is deep but exciting. A book or even a manual could be written on it. It is both an art and a science, but briefly you should keep the following factors in mind:
The Show
The Audience
The Platforms
The Business Models
The Vendors
The Production
Previous "Birth of Cross Media Production" post
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Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of the Opportunity Management Company, Inc. a cross media strategy and production company. Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Cross Media Methodologies
THE BIRTH OF CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
Adventures in Storytelling pt. 7 - Cross Media Methodologies
By Brian Seth Hurst
“Welcome back.” A phrase that has been used in television since it began. But these days it has a whole new meaning when it relates to a persistent active and dynamic community built around a television property. When the show is not on the air, its life and the life of its fans can continue across a number of distribution platforms.
Previous posts presented examples of cross media production includingNBC’s Heroes 360 Experience, The Jericho Experience, ABC Family’s Primetime Emmy® winning Fallen Alternate Reality Game, and Showtime’s The L World. These examples are really just the beginning of a growing trend that may actually provide new programming genres: part drama, part interactive mystery, part game, part social network. And, though these examples are anchored in television, new and compelling storytelling can begin on any platform -- Comedy Central’s Lil' Bush was born on mobile and there are many examples of original programming born or reborn as both linear and cross media programming on broadband including Prom Queen, Kate Modern and Quarterlife.
Mapping out and producing cross media programming is a challenge. And, just as television production companies specialize in producing television, there are new cross media production companies teaming with television and film producers that are the experts in the planning and production of cross platform storytelling. It is challenging, but as production processes in film and television have become standardized over time, so too will cross media methodologies.
In most cases now, it is a chaotic world of experimentation - like the early days of any medium - but speaking for cross media producers I can say that we are rapidly and of necessity quickly finding our way. We are responsible for defining not only what is possible on each platform but what story or content will live on those platforms while remaining true to the creator’s and producer’s vision and the audience. After all, the audience has to have an authentic and engaging experience regardless of platform. If it’s too complicated, or not complex enough, not true to the story, not organic, or they feel manipulated we will lose them. We have to be more audience-centric than your traditional television producer. We really need to know who they are and how they behave with technology and each other. We are profilers of a sort, mapping and predicting their behavior with content, technology and each other. Finally we are responsible for selecting the right technologies, partners and best of breed vendors to execute the vision. And like any production we must remain on time and on budget.
When dealing with a specific show we begin the process with a strategy. Traditional producers might call it preproduction, but to Cross Media producers it’s that and more. It’s blueprinting. It is an audience experience “flowchart” of how fans will move through and interact with the story. We found it necessary to create a workflow methodology that maximizes efficiency, facilitates integration, communication and quality assurance... but leaves plenty of room for creativity and the “secret sauce” that makes it delicious to the audience. And so our planning stage -- whether we are coming in before a show has even been produced or coming in after the fact -- has to have a process.
Previous "Birth of Cross Media Production" post
Next "Birth of Cross Media Production" post
Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of the Opportunity Management Company, Inc. a cross media strategy and production company. Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Welcome to Cube One
THE BIRTH OF CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
Adventures in Storytelling pt. 6 - Welcome to Cube One
By Brian Seth Hurst
In recent posts we’ve explored some of 2007’s stand out best cross media executions.
Heroes 360 Experience
The Jericho Experience
Fallen
The L World
These are really just the beginning. And, just as television production companies specialize in producing television, there are new cross media production companies that are the experts in the planning and production of cross platform storytelling.
It isn’t easy right now, but just as production processes in film and television have become standardized over time, so too will cross media methodologies. In most cases now, it is a chaotic world of experimentation - like the early days of any medium - but speaking for cross media producers I can say that we are rapidly, and of necessity, finding our way. We are responsible for defining not only what is possible on each platform but what story or content will live on those platforms while remaining true to the creator’s and producer’s vision and the audience. After all, the audience has to have an authentic and engaging experience regardless of platform. If it’s too complicated, or not complex enough, not true to the story, not organic, or they feel manipulated we will lose them. Finally we are responsible for selecting the right technologies, partners and best of breed vendors to execute the vision. And like any production we must remain on time and on budget.
So, how do we do it? We’ll talk about the nuts and bolts of cross media production including the strategy, the business models, production integration and implementation in the upcoming posts.
This is one of the most exciting times in the history of storytelling. In fact, Cross Media storytelling is becoming a genre all unto itself. And, the participation of the audience is blurring the boundaries between fiction and non fiction, providing fertile ground for new ways to tell stories to a new “interactive” generation. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination and the imagination of your audience. So, in the multidimensional world of cross media you are not really at square one -- you are really at cube one. Cross Media producers are here to help to turn those cubes into building blocks for a remarkable audience experience.
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Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of the Opportunity Management Company, Inc. a cross media strategy and production company. Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The L Word
THE BIRTH OF CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
Adventures in Storytelling pt. 5 - The L Word
By Brian Seth Hurst
Though not in 2007's Emmy® crop, Showtime’s cross media programming for The L Word is another wonderful example of a brilliantly executed cross media property rooted deeply in the culture and social behavior of its audience. The approach taken by Showtime’s Digital Media Group and Senior Vice President and General Manager Rob Hayes seemed to achieve the perfect balance of promotion for the on air show and cross platform story telling.
It began by making the show available for download on iTunes, Movielink, Cinema Now etc. so that viewers, even those not subscribed to Showtime, could have access anytime and anywhere. Fans were passionate, and a community formed online instantly. Showtime became a part of that community and then literally gave ownership of the show brand over to the fans.
First, through a company called FanLib, the community had a chance to take the characters of the show and write their own stories and situations. Known as fan fiction (a growing industry unto itself) the stories are based on the original work. According to FanLib Founder and CEO Chris M. Williams, this season an actual fan scripted scene will be shot and incorporated into an episode. It is the first time this has ever been done. The show also has a MySpace page, and clips available on Youtube, and other video sharing sites, and fans building their own tribute pages.
But, the best playground was yet to come- L-Word in Second Life. A virtual world with all the locations, characters, parties - everything you need to live the L-Life. Like any virtual world, fans choose an avatar and an identity and enter the world that was established by Showtime but that they now own and create. And, Showtime has now entered the world of social media with “Our Chart” , a Web 2.0 network for the lesbian community. Showtime watched the trends among their demographic and simply integrated itself into those trends.
We do need to tip our hats to non-fiction producers for breaking down the forth wall and allowing viewers to participate in the telling of the story. Back in 2004, FX’s ToddTV offered the audience the chance to control Todd’s life through their T-Mobile phones. The hook wasn’t enough and the show tanked. But bigger brands with bigger audiences can succeed where smaller ones cannot. Flash forward to this season on CBS’ Big Brother 8 and “America’s Player”. Housemate Eric was handed tasks to complete in each episode by the viewers votes at CBS.com or via text messaging. And, each task completed not only affected proceedings in the house but earned Eric $10,000. As of this writing Eric has completed 20 out of 27 tasks and has one task left - to cast America’s vote for who should be the winner. Additionally, CBS gave fans more - the Big Brother broadband talk show House Calls and, for the things that you can’t show on network television, Big Brother After Dark on Showtime Too.
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Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of the Opportunity Management Company, Inc. a cross media strategy and production company. Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA.
Fallen
THE BIRTH OF CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
Adventures in Storytelling pt. 4 - Fallen
By Brian Seth Hurst
ABC Family’s Fallen was a 6 hour miniseries that told the story of fallen angels loosely based on the four volume fantasy novel “The Fallen” by Thomas E. Sniegoski. The extension of Fallen would be an alternate reality game or ARG.
An ARG is a story that takes place over time and actually has a beginning, middle and end as opposed to a “persistent world” created in virtual reality games. The devices (platforms) of storytelling vary but the hallmark of an ARG is the audience’s ability to interact with the character(s) and each other - thus blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
The Fallen Alternate Reality Game, 2007's Emmy® winner for Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Television, gave fans the opportunity to immerse themselves in a clue-based universe of emails, chats, video, live online events, and clues embedded into the television show. Here the viewser enters the brilliantly contrived, designed and executed online world through a device called “The Oculus”. A runic puzzle that must continually be solved in order to reveal story elements, working the Oculus will help to ultimately reveal the origins of Faith Arella, the main character in the experience.
Once you are playing, The Fallen ARG is no more difficult than any video game but you have to know the television program. Again, this is something to be experienced. After all, to get to know how to use these platforms and devices to reach your audience, you have to know what’s possible.
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Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of the Opportunity Management Company, Inc. a cross media strategy and production company. Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
The Jericho Experience
THE BIRTH OF CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
Adventures in Storytelling pt. 3 - The Jericho Experience
By Brian Seth Hurst
CBS Interactive’s The Jericho Experience at http://www.whodroppedthebomb.com also had a deeply interactive audience that lived across platforms. Rich with features that grew over time, the experience included an original prequel “webumentary” called Countdown which took viewers through the expected real world consequences of a nuclear bomb drop. Executive Producers Stephen Chbosky, Carol Barbee and Jon Turtletaub were intimately involved in the process with Turtletaub writing scripts for the online community experience. As in the case of Heroes, a character was introduced on the web with a storyline and videos, who eventually crossed over to television. Though the site launched as promotion, it morphed into a Web 2.0 social community, and sustained the audience’s involvement during a 9 week winter hiatus.
Again the power of an interactive community was evident, especially when fans sent 50,000 pounds of nuts to CBS executives to protest the cancellation of the show. CBS then ordered seven additional episodes warning fans that ratings on TV must increase. But, if you were the creator or the producer of the world of Jericho, you might have to ask yourself… if that community is so active... is the television show as we know it really needed or was it just the flash point for a community that would congregate in a virtual Jericho world or a massive multiplayer online Jericho game either supported through subscription or in game advertising and product placement. This is where storytelling and opportunity converge.
But before we get into how you define those opportunities, there is a brilliant example of a well thought out cross media strategy and execution that is redefining what a television experience can be. You will notice that both the Heroes and Jericho examples use the word experience. That is the essence of the cross media challenge. To involve the audience through the creation of deeper richer experiences of the story, the characters and the community that builds itself around them. Then, both the story and the audience evolve together. Rather than the audience being passive they become your active partners. And hopefully passionate and loyal partners.
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Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of the Opportunity Management Company, Inc. a cross media strategy and production company. Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Heroes 360 Experience
THE BIRTH OF CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
Adventures in Storytelling pt. 2 - The Heroes Experience
By Brian Seth Hurst
The seeds of cross media programming and production may have begun in non fiction, but now, the real innovation is actually happening in fiction. As a matter of fact, some of this activity is blurring the line between the drama of the programming and the non-fiction reality participation of the community. And, though it doesn’t break the “forth wall” down per se, it bends it, twists it and distorts it into compelling interactive audience experiences among loyal fan bases. There could be some valuable inspiration and learning available for non-fiction producers of television by digging into what is happening in the fiction cross media world. We’ll talk more about how all television producers can master cross media in later posts but first, I wanted to give you a few examples. I can write about them but it is like trying to describe a brilliant VFX moment in a movie. You really have to see it. Or in this case you really have to be “in” it. So I urge you after reading this article to go play!
2007’s crop of Emmy® finalists for Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Television are pioneers, masters of cross media production pushing the frontiers and drawing audiences into the worlds they have created by extending environments, characters and plot onto platforms that are part of their viewers everyday lives: broadband, mobile, gaming, social networking and more. This trend has given rise to a new term - “distributed storytelling” and new titles: Executive Producer Cross Media and Producer Cross Media.
NBC’s Heroes 360 Experience knew that their audience of science fiction fans would be an active online community. They wrangled them through the introduction of the character of Hana Gitelman exclusively on-line. Hana became the bridge between what was on television and the opportunity for viewsers to become more deeply involved and therefore have more at stake emotionally in the show. Through emails and text messages to those registered (providing a valuable fan database) she interacted with them on a daily basis, urged them to build profiles, do research, and explore. She began by telling them how to hack into the fictitious Primatech Paper web site where they could find hidden messages, clues, voicemails, etc. that extended the shows plot lines compelling them to solve the mysteries. Later when Hana’s character appeared in the television show, the online community already knew who she was and why she was there. And yet, those who only watched the television show had no feeling of being left out. When Hero’s was off the air, the experience kept fans engaged in the Heroes universe. Between January 22 and March 22 of 2007 the Heros 360 Experience had over 48 million page views and 27 million video downloads testifying to the power of great storytelling and the ability to move an audience back and forth between platforms. (NBC.Com delivers with 'Heroes360'The Futon Critic. 2007-03-22).
Calling this season a dry-run, Co-executive producer and writer Jesse Alexander has promised that this season the 360 Experience will be even bigger. (WWLA: Loeb & Co Talk “Heroes” (Comicbookresources.com March 17,2007) This is a great example of not only knowing your audience but anticipating their needs and desires and giving them content and interactivity that is deeply and richly engaging. It is satisfying a hunger.
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Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of the Opportunity Management Company, Inc. a cross media strategy and production company. Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Adventures in Storytelling
THE BIRTH OF CROSS MEDIA PRODUCTION
Adventures in Storytelling
By Brian Seth Hurst
Not long ago I received a call from a television producer of dramas. “I know television, I mean I really know television but when it comes to this cross platform stuff… well… that’s why I am calling you. I am at square one. I have no idea where to begin.” Welcome to the new world; a world where the audience is demanding more from television programming; where fans can become a powerful interactive community that actually exercises influence over each other and even over network decisions; a world that is virtual, that is mobile, that extends across a myriad of devices and activities. We have moved from network entertainment (traditional broadcasting) to the era of networked entertainment where a piece of content becomes the gateway to a web of connectivity that becomes both personal and communal. This is the Web 2.0 and it presents television producers with new opportunities to involve and evolve the audience, to extend the brand and even to create new revenue streams.
Mastering this world for traditional producers really isn’t that difficult because, save some revolutionary tools, it is still storytelling. Cross media is built on four foundational pillars: technology, distribution, content and social behavior. Yesterday’s kids weaned on video games, born with a mouse in their hand are now today’s viewsers. They just don’t view television they “use” it and literally can become a part of it. We’ll talk more about how to master cross media in future posts but first, I wanted to give you a few examples. I can write about them... but it is like trying to describe a brilliant VFX moment in a movie. You really have to see it. Or in this case you really have to be “in” it. So I urge you after reading this post to go play!
This “new world” actually started in non-fiction programming which stimulated people to interact with the shows and each other. Perhaps the best known example is American Idol where in version 1.0 fans got on cell phones and landlines to make sure their favorites continued to the next round. But those same fans got on the net and built discussion groups, fan sites, and blogs fighting to turn their favorites into stars. As the seasons progressed, the producers of Idol began to give that community a place to gather, a town hall if you will, where all those visits to the net would come under the fox.com domain and eventually americanidol.com. This is a place where fans play alongside Idol’s advertisers rather than being outside the tent on their own. Over the years more features and ancillary content were added to the site and now of course there are the requisite mobile applications, behind the scenes, downloads etc. During Season 6, producers of Idol motivated that same community for “Idol Gives Back” raising over $75 million for children’s charities in the US and Africa. CBS’s “Big Brother” with its robust Big Brother Goes Mobile, “House Calls” talk show on the net, wikis, message boards and, of course, full episode viewing at CBS.com is a good illustration of what most non-fiction producers are doing to extend their show brands. At BravoTV.com, which covers all of Bravo’s original programming, virtually the same bill of fare is available albeit very well done.
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Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of the Opportunity Management Company, Inc. a cross media strategy and production company. Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The Wright Stuff
The Wright Stuff
by Greg Weinstein
Principle #1 of Jeff Gomez's 8 Defining Principles of Trans-media: "Content must be originated by one or very few visionaries." Or, as my grandmother liked to say, "Too many cooks spoil the broth."
This principle, of course, holds true for most creative pursuits. DaVinci didn't bring in a team to help paint The Last Supper. Rodin did not rely upon focus groups to sculpt The Thinker. And Bach did not leave it up to his orchestra members to write their own parts.
Frank Lloyd Wright is another fantastic example of an artist who exerted full control over his projects. Wright's vision extended far beyond simply designing structures... he crafted complete environments, putting his stamp on virtually every detail -- both external and internal. He managed macro level decisions like community planning and site layout, and narrowed his focus down to the finest details -- designing carpets, lamps, doors, windows, even silverware. Walk into any one of his buildings and the effect is immediately apparent. Because everything sprung from the mind of Wright himself, it all works in harmony.
Chances are you've seen architecture that's not quite as harmonious as Wright's work. Some of the most striking examples can be seen in homes that have undergone renovations. More often than not, renovations are dictated by personal taste or budgetary constraints... not by honoring the designs of the original visionary. Picture a turn of the century Victorian with a 1950's car port, or a modest Cape adorned with stately Greek columns. Ill conceived design can leave you with the subtle feeling that something isn't quite right. Psychologists might describe this feeling as "visual dissonance" -- psychological tension caused by a discrepancy between what you expect to see and what's actually there.
Building extensions onto a media property is not unlike building an addition onto a house. Fans will know what looks right and what doesn't. Get it wrong, and the resulting dissonance will pull even the most casual audience member out of the story and ultimately weaken the franchise. Get it right and you've 
increased the value of the property exponentially.
Frank Lloyd Wright understood the value of balance, harmony, and consistency. Successful trans-media architects understand that these principles are just as important in cross-platform story-telling.
Monday, January 21, 2008
"Cult Media" MIT Style
"Cult Media" MIT Style
Jeff was joined on the “Cult Media” panel by Jesse Alexander (co-EP and writer, Heroes), Danny Bilson (Film/TV writer/director, Game Producer) and Gordon Tichell (EVP of Business Development, Walden Media). The discussion was moderated by one of the leading voices in trans-media, Professor Henry Jenkins (Director, MIT Comparative Media Studies Program) http://www.henryjenkins.org/index.html
The three hour conversation flew by faster than an action-packed episode of Alias (one of the shows Jesse Alexander cut his trans-media teeth on before Heroes). When Alexander and fellow Alias writers began building out storylines across multiple platforms they had never heard the term “trans-media.” For them it was primarily an exercise in creative self-expression. Today, the Heroes staff approaches multiplatform extensions more formally, with what could be the first team on a network show dedicated to trans-media. This team provides oversight on all things related to the Heroes fictional universe. Their work, ranging from online comic books to “Create Your Own Hero” contests, has been wildly successful.
So why are shows like Heroes, Alias and Lost so popular today? The panel had a number of interesting insights. These shows draw heavily upon elements from Comic Books, Science Fiction and Horror. In the past these were not considered legitimate genres and relegated to B-status. But kids loved this stuff and now they’re grown up and calling the shots. They’ve combined the best features of these genres with top flight talent and story-telling techniques to bring them into the mainstream.
The shows appeal to a mass audience on one level and a niche audience on another. Archetypal characters allow the broad audience to easily recognize and identify with their stories. But beneath these archetypes lie a deeper and more complex universe for hard core fans to discover. Technology is the great enabler here… helping fans connect in ways never before possible. DVRs and DVDs allow viewers to watch and analyze dense storylines over and over again -- discovering details they might have otherwise missed. And the internet provides an ideal outlet for fans to share knowledge and interact with additional content.
But low tech trans-media can be just as effective, as Alexander pointed out. When his team was approached by a toy company to license and sell a Heroes sword, they saw a trans-media opportunity. Writers created a comic book story for the back of box that told the story of the sword’s origins – contributing even more detail to the Heroes canon.
Using a variety of platforms to flesh out a property's universe is an important component of trans-media, encouraging participation is another. Once kids crack that box open and start creating their own Heroes adventures, they're connecting to the property in a significant and meaningful way. Jeff Gomez, in one of the most thought provoking statements of the afternoon, asserted that next generation story telling will harness the energy of fan participation and feed it back into the eco-system. Fans will become part of the story and their participation will be rewarded by moving them closer to the center of the action. The result will be more dynamic and engaging entertainment than anything we’ve seen from mass media to date.
The experts on the “Cult Media” panel expressed a wide array of opinions on trans-media story telling. Yet they all agreed upon one thing: for trans-media to be successful, the core property must be treated with a deep level of passion, integrity and respect. Fans will accept nothing less.
Friday, December 14, 2007
The Visionaries Continued: Halo & Madonna
8 Defining Principles of Trans-Media Production
Part II: The Visionaries Continued: Halo & Madonna
By Jeff Gomez
Many of today’s visionaries operate on a global scale, the products of their muse rolling out across vast swathes of the media landscape. The challenge they’re facing right now is rooted not so much in the content of their message, but in how that message is going to be formed and reformed to provide a unique and satisfying experience no matter what the distribution platform may be.
The best of these artists are coming to understand that what is least satisfying to audiences in the digital age is repurposed content. They’re also learning that the best alternative to milking the cow ‘til it’s dead lays in generating a strategy that extends their message in a variety of ways—a strategy that is carefully coordinated, a plan that is equal parts creatively inspired and tech savvy.
This is the challenge currently being faced by two disparate but powerful mavens of pop culture: Madonna and the development team behind Microsoft’s Halo video game franchise.
Since 2001, Halo has propelled itself from console video games to local access networks and onto the Internet. The complex storyline of the game was expanded upon in novels, web sites and comic books. The releases of Halo 2 and Halo 3 were received with fanfare normally only devoted to major blockbuster movies (or Harry Potter book releases!).
The franchise has generated hundreds of millions of dollars, and it’s now invading everything from YouTube to G4 TV shows thanks to the developers’ ingenious application of a playback and editing mode in the game that allows players to capture and direct their in-game antics as if they were creating big-budget sci-fi film clips.
But a few million video game enthusiasts do not make for a truly global property. In order to do that, Microsoft and developer Bungie Studios will have to realize some of the remaining principles of trans-media storytelling and production. They’ll have to examine their rich universe and carefully extend the characters and narrative in such a way as to make them accessible to a much greater audience. The key lays in their ability to engage people on an emotional level at least half as well as they did with great gameplay. Having a visionary like Peter Jackson on their side will certainly take them a long way, because ultimately story drives great trans-media properties.
Madonna’s latest venture will prove to be no exception. In a grand experiment that will only prove risky if the former Material Girl decides to become an avant garde performer for the next five years, Madonna has sealed a remarkable deal with mega-concert promoter Live Nation. The deal reportedly advances her $17.5 million, then pays her $50 million for performances, gives her 90% of ticket sales, roughly $20 million for each of three new albums, and partners with her on licensing deals and new ventures.
The challenge Madonna faces—particularly in light of the current state of the music industry as well as the fact that she’s entered the autumn of her career when most of her peers bailed in mid-summer—are myriad. One thing is for certain—endlessly repurposing music and concert footage simply won’t fly.
Then again, if she’s anything Madonna is an innovator. She understands how to recruit talent to her causes, and in this case savvy producers can make a huge difference. But will these creatives truly be able to help her build a rich, persistent, compelling and participative narrative that weaves what she envisions across an array of audiovisual outlets?
They will, but some alchemy will be needed to pull it off. These producers will have to possess a fundamental understanding of how people have come to integrate their media into their daily lives. More so, they must fully fathom the core messages and themes of this visionary’s new work. Only then will they know how to orchestrate these images, icons, sounds and narratives into a symphony of platform-specific content that engages, entertains and inspires.
I wish her luck.
Next Up: Jeff takes on the second principle of trans-media production when he discusses those special projects that plan their cross-platform rollouts from inception.
Never Surrender!
Jeff Gomez (jeff@starlightrunner.com), is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc., a developer and producer of highly successful trans-media projects whose clients include The Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, the Coca-Cola Company, Mattel and Hasbro. Over the next few weeks he’ll be sharing his expertise on the white hot trans-media industry – exploring its fascinating history and expanding upon the 8 Defining Principles of Trans-Media Production
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Sunday, December 9, 2007
The Visionaries
8 Defining Principles of Trans-Media Production
Part I: The Visionaries
By Jeff Gomez
If you really give some thought to the great artists throughout history, you push beyond their iconic images and sculptures, concertos and films and you start to consider their messages, their obsessions…their visions.
Often they gravitated to a specific medium and flourished there, but if that platform were to be blocked off or somehow no longer satisfying, the artist would make a jump. Sometimes, if the vision was powerful enough, the medium no longer mattered.
Today, thanks to technology, most professional story telling tools and methodologies are also available to any kid who can access a computer. And it seems that experienced creators can learn a thing or two from the young ones.
At colleges across the country, students are turning in term paper “kits” consisting of hard copy overviews, DVDs containing narrated motion videos illustrating their research, video blogs, animated charts, specially created web sites, even digital bibliographies. Some of their professors don’t even know how to read these things!
What’s vital for every film, television and new media producer to understand is that these students aren’t even aware of the fact that what they are doing is extraordinary! This is how they live, how they experience life, and this is how it’s going to be. We are going to have to catch up with them and give them what they want, or someone else is going to.
When I was a kid, I was fascinated with Japanese pop culture. I always admired the manga-ka. These were the artists, whose visions were realized in phonebook-thick volumes of black and white comic book art. If the books proved popular (like Gundam or Space Cruiser Yamato), they would be adapted as television series, sequelized as direct to video featurettes, then immortalized as theatrical films.
But those artists don’t act alone. They call upon trusted producers to help them develop and extend their central vision across multiple media platforms while ensuring consistent quality and integrity. As producers we can take a cue from the Japanese and do the same in tandem with our own visionaries.
To do this, we’ll need to sharpen our skills and embrace new approaches and newer perspectives. Some of us have already started to do just that, and the results are some of the most exciting and dynamic projects coming out of the entertainment industry today.
In my upcoming entries, I’ll move through each of the 8 Defining Principals of Trans-Media Production to briefly examine what it takes to conceive, develop, produce and distribute this kind of content, whether we’re talking about a tent pole franchise or a modest indie film.
Next Up: Jeff gets specific with the vision thing when he takes on Halo and…Madonna?
Jeff Gomez (jeff@starlightrunner.com), is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc., a developer and producer of highly successful trans-media projects whose clients include The Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, the Coca-Cola Company, Mattel and Hasbro. Over the next few weeks he’ll be sharing his expertise on the white hot trans-media industry – exploring its fascinating history and expanding upon the 8 Defining Principles of Trans-Media Production
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Sunday, November 18, 2007
Trans-Media enters the 21st Century
Trans-Media enters the 21st Century
By PGA NMC member Jeff Gomez
The age of true, premeditated trans-media storytelling was arguably kicked off in October of 2005, when Bob Iger took command at Disney. A spry Boomer to Michael Eisner’s stately Greatest Generation, Iger knows from worlds and he also understands technology. He has a firm grip on 
how we as consumers use the web as a colossal hub for pursuing our interests and connecting with one another over things we enjoy. By extending the worlds created by The Walt Disney Company (everything from High School Musical to Fairies and Pirates of the Caribbean) onto the Internet, he isn’t simply advertising them — he’s growing them at an exponential rate.
This way original movies will premiere with built-in fan bases, fans will get text messages from fictional characters, you’ll be able to start exploring the massive worlds of tent pole pictures in 3D environments before they hit theaters, and each novel, toy and webisode will live up to the standard of quality and consistency that makes the film memorable. It stands to reason that other companies, large and small, are following suit right now.
Jeff Gomez (jeff@starlightrunner.com), is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc., a developer and producer of highly successful trans-media projects whose clients include The Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, the Coca-Cola Company, Mattel and Hasbro. Over the next few weeks he’ll be sharing his expertise on the white hot trans-media industry – exploring its fascinating history and expanding upon the 8 Defining Principles of Trans-Media Production
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Internet Explosion
The Internet Explosion
Trans-media storytelling would come into its own with phenomenal success of The Blair Witch Project. It’s important to note the distinction in the relationship here: as opposed to a piece of
licensing or other afterthought spin-off, the Blair Witch website existed as a precursor to the film. It laid down the mythology of the film’s world, even expanding on it, in a way that was scary cool. By spreading the word about this site, you were getting a charge out of letting someone else in on a weird secret.You were validated and celebrated for your participation in the Blair Witch happening, right there, on the fly, in real time. You and your friends could connect, theorize, and explore this world to the point where the movie became far more than a self-contained piece of entertainment. It was simply a component in a greater experience, and that made it magical. The hip execs like John Hegeman and the folks at Artisan Entertainment took a fascinating risk, and the studio and filmmakers made a fortune.
For savvy marketers like Gordon Paddison at New Line Cinema and on-the-ball filmmakers like Peter Jackson, the web became a platform to launch the fictional universes around which their film franchises would be built. Bob Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, would continue to innovate with major trans-media endeavors based on an array of Disney properties, such as Lost, Pirates of the Caribbean and High School Musical. For fans, these web sites were portals into a philosophy and way of life that they could not find in their local communities. “I love your world,” they seemed to be saying, “and for at least a few minutes every day, I want to live in it.”
The Blair Witch Project is a textbook trans-media execution, adhering to all
The Blair Witch visionaries, in a very Orson Welles War of the Worlds kind of way, hijacked media platforms of their day to position a fictional story as real. They employed a number of innovative techniques: Shooting cinéma-vérité style -- on home video cameras with no script. Releasing a television “documentary” Curse of the Blair Witch – claiming to explore the legend. And, of course, seeding the internet with a rich detailed back story that reinforced the air of believability.
Both The Blair Witch Project and War of the Worlds played off humans’ deep-seated emotions related to the supernatural... but the internet gave the Blair Witch audience an outlet for those emotions. The combination of great storytelling... sparking powerful emotions... and providing multiple avenues for expression/exploration results in a truly transformative entertainment experience. This is what trans-media is all about.
- Greg Weinstein
Jeff Gomez (jeff@starlightrunner.com), is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc., a developer and producer of highly successful trans-media projects whose clients include The Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, the Coca-Cola Company, Mattel and Hasbro. Over the next few weeks he’ll be sharing his expertise on the white hot trans-media industry – exploring its fascinating history and expanding upon the 8 Defining Principles of Trans-Media Production
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Clone Wars
The Clone Wars
By PGA NMC member Jeff Gomez
Obi-Wan is alluding to the events of another time, filled with knights and clones and the great wars and betrayals between them. Though the lines are never brought up again in the original Star Wars, they fire our imagination by adding depth and poignancy to the drama at hand. For nearly a quarter century after that moment, a generation of young people wanted to be told that story – when even visionary George Lucas had only the slightest inkling of how it went himself. J.R.R. Tolkien would call such exchanges “distant mountains,” details added to stories that created a sense of intrigue and history. They are the lightning bolts with which creators make universes come to life.Jeff shares a healthy respect for the power of mythology with Tolkien and Lucas. In future posts, we’ll explore how a well defined mythology is the cornerstone of any successful trans-media effort.
Jeff Gomez (jeff@starlightrunner.com), is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc., a developer and producer of highly successful trans-media projects whose clients include The Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, the Coca-Cola Company, Mattel and Hasbro. Over the next few weeks he’ll be sharing his expertise on the white hot trans-media industry – exploring its fascinating history and expanding upon the 8 Defining Principles of Trans-Media Production