On the 1st of April 2006, Foreign Media Group opened a cross medial publishing house in Amsterdam. Very exciting, it is this sort of studio approach that lends itself to true cross-media production. But it only works if talented people are also located in the same building, rather than being distributed across companies, in different countries!
The building is to become the home of the publishing companies Pimento, Rothschild and Bach, Uitgeverij 521, TM Publishers, Truth and Dare, HvR (Heleen van Royen) and Carry Slee, and of the magazine publishers Foreign Media Magazines and the music publishers Foreign Media Music (both classic music labels as well as pop music labels). In addition, the licensing and merchandising company LicenseConnection and Foreign Media Group will be housed in the Amsterdam establishment.
Foreign Media Group will open its own theatre in the basement of the new property. Foreign Media GroupÂ’s publishing companies will stage theatre performances, film-viewings, music evenings, and other events in this theatre.
Foreign Media Group is an international publishers group that operates in various fields of the media. Foreign Media Books has a unique position in the market with sixteen publishing companies, each with its own expertise. Reading, looking and listening in all possible genres from classic to contemporary and aimed at both children and grown-ups – Foreign Media Group focuses on a wide range of media products. The publications of Foreign Media Books are music CD’s, books, audio books, magazines, feature films, DVD’s, documentaries, games, and CD-ROM’s.
The publishing vision anticipates different media products and possible combinations. Foreign Media Group sets itself the target of investing as deeply as possible in creativity and rights and publishing platform independently.
Australian MMOG platform creator, BigWorld Technology, announced in March an adjunct to their suite that allows a virtual world to be played on a mobile phone. Using their technology you can create a MMOG especially for a phone or make your existing one also available on the mobile. Exciting. It would be good if you could get video calls from in-game mates from a mobile object in the virtual world, rather than trying to navigate a vast landscape on a small screen. Affordances and limitations.
The Da Vinci Code opening weekend raked in $77million, “the second biggest opening weekend ever among adult-geared pictures behind The Passion of the Christ” (source: Box Office Mojo). The $125 million film is of course an adaptation of Dan Brown’s novel that sold between 40-60 million copies worldwide, depending on what article you read. The film is an adaptation. Now, as a recap, I’ll republish 😉 my term-friendly guide (I’ve got a big-and-multi-word-version for academia) to cross-media content:
Repurposing: republishing the same content on each platform
Altering: commissioning, editing and redesigning content, in the same style as the “original content” according to the affordances and limitations of each platform
Adaptation: providing version of your property/storyworld in different formats on different platforms
Augmentation: providing additional, complementary and contradictory information in different platforms
Stretching: distributing a plot/message across platforms
Now, I won’t get into a lengthy explanation of this here. I just wanted to point out that there are other options beyond adaptation. The Da Vinci Code elements of puzzle solving, conspiracy, murder, suspense and so on provide alot of key elements that different producers and the same producer can have fun with over multiple platforms and formats. It has action and the motivation for action at its core, and this urge can be transported to the reader. The producers (lets call them franchise managers) have indeed indulged: the Google Quest I’ve mentioned before; the various workbooks, websites and so on and so on. Just check out the wikipedia entry. Wikipedia is, incidently, fullfilling the important function that I have spoken about many times: providing a pivot point, a one-stop guide to everything in your cross-media universe. The franchise has repurposing, altering and adaptation but little augmentation and stretching. Is this a problem? Yes.
Most critics have canned the film. Among the many reasons to not like the film is the fact that it is a faithful adaptation of the novel. Since 40-60 million people have read the novel, that is 40-60 million people (and more, counting the people who find out details through the plethora of information out there) that already know what is going to happen. Since the film doesn’t provide, as far as I know, much individual directorial flair (discourse), then we’re left with a story we know and a film that puts the story above the aesthetics. This is an important distinction. A film can be a faithful adaptation of the story but provide new information through its presentation. Dan Brown’s book is written in the style of a film, it isn’t linguistically unique. J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is linguistically unique and so Peter Jackson’s faithful (to a point, he had to exclude alot) adaptation still works because it is different enough on the presentation side. So, back to Da Vinci. A large part of the audience (those that know the story) is left, well, with an unsatisfying entertainment experience. But Brandon Gray, of Box Office Mojo, reports:
Sony’s exit polling indicated that 53 percent of the audience was under 30 years old and 52 percent was female. Nearly half of moviegoers had not read the book.
Nearly half had not read the book. Well there it is folks. The writer (Akiva Goldsman) needed to employ what I call polymorphic narrative techniques to recognise the needs of the multiple audiences. There needed to be enough of the same information to keep the newcomers to the story included and uptodate and enough of new information to satisfy those educated with it: adapt and augment. I am continually surprised by producers that don’t reward their current audiences. But, oftentimes it isn’t about providing a good entertainment experience. It is just about getting that opening weekend number.
“The book became more than a book and the movie became more than a movie,” said Valerie Van Galder, Columbia’s president of domestic marketing. “It became a perfect storm.” (quoted in The Australian)
A perfect marketing storm, the surround-sound effect (of bombarding your message to your audience on every platform) does get the money in. Hmmm. The upcoming game, however, seems to be offering some original content. It is based on the book, but apparently offers locations not listed in the book or the film. Thank God for the gamers. I’ll be speaking more about gamers and polymorphic narrative soon. But that is another post. For now, I just wanted to highlight with this perfect example, how it is so easy for producers to employ the lower end of cross-media techniques and not the others. I guess the others require skill to recognise and employ, something that we’re all learning to do.