Transmedia Essay

Transmedia storytelling is a way of showing what you have across multiple platforms whether it be an animation to start with going to a game or a documentary going to an animation. Henry Jenkins stated “The coordinated use of storytelling across multiple platforms can make the characters more compelling” This could be true as you are telling more of a story about a character that is already known in the media industry, if it is a popular character form an animation for instance “Woody” from Toy Story the audience is already interested and will love to see more about the character from a different platform. They would also want to know what happened next after the animation. Quite often transmedia storytelling is not based on the individual character or specific stories but more on the complex fictional worlds which can sustain various characters and plots within it. Not only can you extend various worlds between gaming and television, you can also extend them across radio shows and books for example the BBC extended the Dr Who series across the radio by telling dramas to keep the audience interested. Comics and books are commonly extended across multiple platforms such as the Marvel Comics series have progressed onto making films and games, The Avengers is one of their successful movies produced from the comic series.  The Hunger Games have also been broadening their platforms by making movies which have been quite successful. Transmedia storytelling requires a high coordination in order to contact people from other platforms such as you might contact Microsoft if you want to make a game for the Xbox platform from your original film or whatever it may be.  This then requires you to network a lot. To expand a universe more and to get the audience connect to the media you could release figures of characters from the media you are broadcasting, this would then get a lot more people interested in the franchise. This also then encourages children to make their own stories up about the characters. Transmedia storytelling does not include sequels, it is simply using the same world on a different platform.  

The brief that I chose meant that I could make an animation based on casual animal movements. It is mainly about advertising The National Trust. There were many ways that could go about in advertising the National Trust, my first thought was to make a poster, but I wanted to include animation as that is the field I want to go in to. I would like to broadcast my idea across multiple platforms. There are many ways I could do this, one of them might be to make a full feature length animation telling a story about the animal, maybe about a family of rabbits overcoming human like problems like what Watership Down did. The way I would do this is by creating multiple characters of the same basic concept and inputting a story with them. There would be a lot of additional things to do as I would need separate sprite sheets for each character and I would need to incorporate mouth movements to represent them talking. I don’t think it will be possible for me on my own to create a full feature length film, I would need additional help such as a scriptwriter, animator, editor, producer and director. I would probably need more. In order for me to make something like this by myself I’d need a lot of time and even then I would probably only be able to make shorts.However shorts could be another idea as it could be a TV series like The Simpsons. Even then I would need additional help.  The idea is coming away from advertising The National Trust, however I could make the family of rabbits have a problem about losing their habitat/ home to people wanting to build on it, then the National trust can come and rescue their home. This would then advertise National Trust as being something like heroes.  Another idea for a different platform could be a game. This idea consists of playing as a rabbit (anthropomorphism) through a first person perspective and then explore the surroundings uncovering new National Trust locations. You could possibly have tasks such as helping to renovate the buildings alongside National Trust people. This also helps to advertise the National Trust for the buildings and the animals. There is also the possibility of meeting other characters that are animals and you could complete other missions that include problem solving like point and click puzzle games. You could also have additional missions that include new locations like map packs that you could get after getting the game, this would have replay ability status and keep people interested in the game with the side missions after the main story.  Another way I could expand the brief is to make a animated documentary about the National Trust. The characters could be the ones telling the facts about the National Trust and they would be jumping from scenery to scenery to show off the National Trust buildings whilst talking about them. You could then make this a short TV series show that reveals a new exciting place each show and the characters could tell the audience what the National Trust has done to preserve the locations and how it has helped the historic building and the animals. They could also tell the audience what they plan to do next and what locations they have planned for renovating. There are loads of ways I could expand my universe, my favourite idea would be to make an animated documentary TV show as there are many ways of telling the facts and many different characters I could use.