Screen Australia: Multi-platform Storytelling

A Tale of Two Multiplatform Campaigns - BAFTA winner Anthony Mullins (Creative Director of Hoodlum at the time of this recording) takes us through his company’s process in developing multi platform stories then segues into comparing their campaigns for Salt and Bourne Legacy. Anthony begins by taking us through a range of practical tips from early concepts through to production challenges. Open and closed thinking through to development practice. He advises on how to approach and build story worlds, with or without the clients involvement, and how best to keep up to date with trends. Anthony also talks through all the challenges around understanding an audience, what they do and how best to fulfil their needs through to handling expectations and the issues around lead in times if the transmedia project is promoting a specific release date for a film.

Mobile Movie Mayhem - Jennifer Wilson, a Director at the Project Factory, gives a deeply practical view of mobile for TV and Film extensions and how to deal with the paradox of making mobile apps to market movies but the apps themselves then need to be promoted. She helps orientate listeners around the mobile and tablet ecosystem, how to market apps, movie and TV app case studies, how to deal with App Store Gatekeepers, likely development costs and many more tips and tricks. With 9% more time spent with apps than the general web Jennifer helps us understand the pros and cons of StoryTelling using mobile apps and why it is important to develop new and highly personalized experiences playing on the fact that your mobile is an extension of yourself. She finishes on practical advise for storytellers on how to engage and develop apps.

The Multiplatform Story Ecosystem – Brian Seth Hurst takes us on a whirlwind ride through his four models of transmedia multiplatform storytelling with case studies including Conspiracy for Good, Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, Supernatural. Using his four models (1) Here’s the Story (2) I'm Listening (3) My World and Welcome To It (4) Take It, It’s Yours, Brian looks at the power of fan fiction alongside professionally created canon and how campaigns must always involve users to great or lesser degrees. He begins by painting a broad picture of how to develop storyworlds and map them across a multiplatform ecosystem – while constantly keeping your eye on the franchise as it spreads into user created content.

Playing with Film: Discovering and Shaping Gameplay in a Storyworld – Matt Costello tackles the complex issue of how to carefully meld storytelling and game play. Starting with the philosophy that “Puzzles are the foundation of Story”, he talks about how when writing a book, game or film how they are filled with puzzles for characters, filled with questions. He looks at some of the 70 key puzzle types and how they may be applied to certain genre or types of situations to help make story extensions engaging. Matt talks about the difference of gamification vs puzzlefication around the film story, how to connect with what users are doing, expanding horizons and how they can feed into a film universe. (An edit of a seminar talk and a clinic talk, with some gaps where live participations originally took place.)

Building TV and Film Communities - Laurel Papworth takes us methodically through the various steps to growing communities of interest around film and TV properties but also around the creative forces that drive them and how to make them feel inclusive and involved. She refers to the issues of pushing content at audiences vs making users find, filter and forward content on your behalf and also about the difference between a campaign and a collaborative goal with the users. Laurel touches on crowd-funding using a range of case studies and introduces the seminar with a simple look at how to use Facebook to find some key metrics around brands and keywords and ends on the importance of influencers and building a trusted relationship with your key networks.

The Story of Transmedia Marketing Stories - Brian Cain takes us on a long journey from his early involvement with the poster boys of guerrilla internet marketing around Blair Witch and Art of the Heist through to his creative work with Campfire building multi platform marketing campaigns around major film and TV story brands. He begins by talking about the industry relationships particular how marketing departments can connect effectively with the story tellers and marrying hero's journeys to audience, defined as skimmers, dippers and divers. Brian talks us through some of the thinking behind campaigns such as True Blood and Terminator, how their multi platform transmedia approach respected the psychographic profiles of audience engrossed in the story worlds. He stresses the importance of using appropriate metrics to measure engagement vs traditional quantity based approaches, to really lock down KPIs, build strategic foundations and how to measure the multi platform story success.

Igniting the Imagination of Many – Architecting Story - Lance Weiler looks at new-form storytelling and a less- talked-about attribute: value. He explores how in the attention economy it is important that story has utility and is still entertaining but also has purpose and intention. He reiterates his Pandemic and Head Trauma transmedia case study in the context of social or community exploration and talks further about the balance between hyperlocal and global world building (how local can cause global effect) in reference to Hope is Missing (sci-fi horror) and Laika. Lance shows how his worlds can easily extend to physical space and story-focused shareable objects - where the social connected objects and communication devices connects users to actual characters and draws them into the narrative. He introduces his collaborative social benefit project called Igniting the Imagination of Many - kids problem-solving world issues together - and the importance of having a solid set of design principles before setting out on complex multiplatform story telling. He finishes on 6 key tips to create transmedia story including 'taking time', 'why are you doing it', 'let go of a single point of view' and other crucial words of advice.

Steve Peters (USA), Senior Designer at Fourth Wall Studios, Co-founder No Mimes Media, discusses the role of the Experience Designer in the creation of transmedia storytelling, referring to his work on THE DARK KNIGHT Alternate Reality Game, and his work on WATCHMEN. Subjects discussed include new ways to tell a story outside of film and TV screens, and what the composition of the ideal team might be. This presentation was given on 27 January 2011 as part of ‘Transmedia Victoria’, a two-day event sponsored by Screen Australia, the Australia Council, Film Victoria and others.

Ted Hope discusses the need to stimulate investment in the cultural industries by discovering a new business model that allows creatives to receive revenue while positioning their films on a cross-platform, multi-territory stage. He pushes the importance of finding your audience, measuring your audience and budgeting your films accordingly as well as his hope of establishing a new independent film support infrastructure that takes advantage of the ever-growing pool of online resources. From Screen Australia's 'Hope for Film' workshop, held in Sydney, 28–29 August 2012. ABOUT TED HOPE: Recognised by The Hollywood Reporter and other publications as one of the most influential and powerful people in the US independent film scene, Ted Hope has produced more than 60 films, including 21 Grams, American Splendor, Happiness, The Ice Storm, In the Bedroom and Martha Marcy May Marlene. He co-founded and ran the 90s production and sales powerhouse 'Good Machine', which he and his partners sold to Universal in 2002. He subsequently co-founded the New York production company 'This is That', which produced 18 features in its eight years, receiving numerous awards, including four Academy Award® Best Screenplay nominations.

Legendary US independent producer Ted Hope critiques the current state of the film industry and addresses the paradigm shift created by the overnight dominance of social media, suggesting we need to dramatically shift our approach to marketing and finding audiences. From Screen Australia's 'Hope for Film' workshop, held in Sydney, 28–29 August 2012. ABOUT TED HOPE: Recognised by The Hollywood Reporter and other publications as one of the most influential and powerful people in the US independent film scene, Ted Hope has produced more than 60 films, including 21 Grams, American Splendor, Happiness, The Ice Storm, In the Bedroom and Martha Marcy May Marlene. He co-founded and ran the 90s production and sales powerhouse 'Good Machine', which he and his partners sold to Universal in 2002. He subsequently co-founded the New York production company 'This is That', which produced 18 features in its eight years, receiving numerous awards, including four Academy Award® Best Screenplay nominations.

The Business of Games as Transmedia Brands - A 101 introduction to the games business and how to approach attaching multi million dollar games through to cheap and cheerful casual games to your multi platform story world. The importance of growing your brand and how upfront community and transmedia brand building is the most important factor in making any kind of success. Also some very surprising statistics surrounding entertainments biggest playground. A presentation from Antony Reed, CEO of the GDAA, at the inaugural Screen Australia Digital Ignition Clinic directed by StoryLabs in late November 2011. Podcast recorded by StoryLabs Gary P Hayes. ABOUT ANTONY REED - Antony is a 20-year veteran of the interactive entertainment industry. With global experience in game development and publishing, Antony has been a marketing brain behind some of the world's biggest games franchises, including Command & Conquer, Baldur's Gate, Fallout and too many Star Trek titles, and has won numerous awards for his campaigns. In his publishing days Antony worked for industry heavyweights, Virgin Interactive and Interplay Productions, before turning his attention to game development in 2003. Today, Antony is the CEO of the Game Developers' Association of Australia and is tasked with advocating the interests of the sector to government, educational, financial and commercial institutions as well as heavily promoting Australian game development creativity and talent internationally.

When Participation Becomes Promotion. How to use online participatory and social story to draw users into your IP. Using a film in production this explores the nature of social media as a way to create major interest in your project by getting users involved in the creative process. A presentation from Anthea Foyer (post throat infection!) at the inaugural Screen Australia Digital Ignition Clinic directed by StoryLabs in late November 2011. Podcast recorded by StoryLabs Gary P Hayes. ABOUT ANTHEA FOYER - Anthea is a creative director, producer, visual and new media artist and curator. She has created, advised and mentored on a wide range of critically acclaimed projects including graphic novels, online narratives, wearables, interactive installations, participatory theatre, live events, multi-platform experiences and television and film convergence projects. Anthea is currently co-founder, with Alex Mayhew, and Creative Strategist at The Labs, a creative and strategic consultancy that helps to deliver truly convergent properties that transform multi-platform challenges into opportunities for creative and commercial success.

Making Stories Gameful - Creative IP and designing play: Looking at Rage as a study of how to take IP from game, to book, to film. How to approach original branded IP and creatively develop from story world to game. A presentation from Matt Costello at the inaugural Screen Australia Digital Ignition Clinic directed by StoryLabs held in late November 2011. Podcast recorded by StoryLabs Gary P Hayes. ABOUT MATT COSTELLO - Matt is based in New York, London and LA. He has written ground-breaking and award-winning novels, games and television, including the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 game across all platforms. Rage, a 2011 release from id Software which Matt worked on, won the most Game Critics Awards at this year's E3, including Best Console Game. Just Cause, (co-written with Neil Richards) debuted as the number one game for Xbox 360 in the UK and was named 'Best Adventure Game' at the 2006 E3. Other notable games include: Doom 3, Hercules for Disney, The Dark Half for MGM, Derelict for The Syfy Channel, The Clue Chronicles for Hasbro, Barbie's Riding Adventure for Mattel, Clifford's Reading for Scholastic, Starsky & Hutch for Empire, and The Italian Job for Eidos. His novel Beneath Still Waters was filmed and released by Lionsgate, and Penguin/Putnam published his latest suspense novel, Nowhere. His new novel, Vacation, will be published by St Martin's Press in 2011.

Making Transmedia Make Money - Why you are unlikely to make any money unless you are willing to deal with the small stuff, lots of it. Jennifer explores many digital business models and shows how they can be applied to almost any multi platform and transmedia project. Case studies feature non-commercial projects such as China Heart & Making Australia Happy and how they could have been commercialised. A presentation by Jennifer Wilson at the inaugural Screen Australia Digital Ignition Clinic directed by StoryLabs in late November 2011. Podcast recorded by StoryLabs Gary P Hayes. ABOUT JENNIFER WILSON - Jennifer is a Director of The Project Factory, a multi-platform media company. She is fascinated by the intersection of creative concepts, their technical implementation and the commercial realities that underpins these. Beyond cross-platform - the intelligent exploration of how to generate engagement on the third and fourth screens through social, play, story, sharing and interactivity. She is passionate about mobile (ubiquity); semantic web (understanding), social media (connection) and the need to find engagement at the heart of every interaction. Jennifer teaches courses in multiplatform, trans- and convergent media. She works with emerging leaders across all forms of media to help them understand the connected, networked world. She has authored books and papers aimed at writers and filmmakers covering key concepts, business models, rights issues and new ways of thinking about copyright. Jennifer is a member of SPAA, on the board of AIMIA and chairs the Mobile Industry Group.

Creatively Failing Forward- Using two key properties, Sony XI ARG and Lewis Hamilton Secret Life ARG, this talk looks at the nature of interactive, finding need and developing community thinking. David also refers to his earlier ARG Perplex City and how to choose appropriate platforms for users. A presentation by David Varela at the inaugural Screen Australia Digital Ignition Clinic directed by StoryLabs in late November 2011. Podcast recorded by StoryLabs Gary P Hayes. ABOUT DAVID VERELA - David is a writer and producer who works across a huge range of media. He is currently producing and writing a global ARG sponsored by Reebok and starring Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton. Lewis Hamilton: Secret Life is running in nine languages for eight months, with live events staged in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Prior to that, David wrote and produced the world's first console-based ARG, Xi, based in Sony's virtual world PlayStation Home. David's background is as an award-winning writer for theatre, radio and advertising. His stageplays have been performed at the ICA, the Royal Court, Hampstead Theatre and RADA, and his short films have premiered in Leicester Square and been broadcast on ITV. He has also written several one-off dramas for BBC Radio 4 and BBC7.