Category: Creative Practice & Strategy

In October 2007, Mediamatic will be running a workshop on ‘Games in Crossmedia’:

Virtual worlds such as Second Life are gaining popularity fast – they are places for acting out fantasies, but also for film making and telling stories. Techniques like machinima offer new possibilities for creating films and television in the 3D worlds of popular computer games – as for instance the BBC and Endemol are doing. There is a huge window of opportunity for media makers interested in the collaboration and exchange between games and other kinds of media.

In this 5-day workshop, Mediamatic will bring professional media makers, producers, broadcasters and production companies up-to-date on game culture and will provide makers with the tools to incorporate game aspects in crossmedia projects. […]

During the workshop, participants will build a prototype of their crossmedia project and develop and visualize its user-scenarios. Participants will learn the basic principles of creating machinima, designing 3D game spaces and developing game play and game rules. Participants will also learn about trends in game culture such as massive multi-player games and new kinds of game interfaces like the Nintendo Wii. Besides this, participants will be updated on the new web culture of creating, matching and sharing user-generated content, which is very influential in game culture. Through the course of the workshop many practical examples of crossmedia projects which feature game technology such as Historic Battles (BBC), and Bamzooki (BBC), Peter Greenaway’s Tulse Luper Suitcases and Endemol’s Second Life projects, will be viewed and analyzed.

Check it out: http://www.mediamatic.net/artefact-17509-en.html

‘Factory Girl’ has started a blog about her research: ‘Game Across media: exploring cross media and play’. Here is some info from her blog birth post:

I am a creative individual who got a serious crush for interactive narrative some years ago and another crush, just as serious, for cross media communication around 2004. My background in films and anthropology (and a bit of new media too) unfortunately didn’t allow me to plunge into these for me new topics immediately, so, after abandoning my old fashioned PhD studies in Anthropology of Communications, I had to take some time to “upgrade”.

Through a lot of effort, heavy conference attendance, internet networking and many many readings (ah, those Amazon bills..) I managed to to feel somehow at ease with a topic that in any case until a couple of years ago didn’t feature in university courses.

Waiting to find an enlightened institution to sponsor my studies, I will post here the advancement of my solitary research, hoping that way it will be less solitary.

Check it out: http://factorygirl.org/gamesacrossmedia/

For the past year almost, I’ve been following the discussion about ‘transmedia planning’ that has been taking place in cyberspace and at conferences. In response to Henry Jenkins’ ‘transmedia storytelling’, Faris Yakob introduced  ‘Transmedia Planning’ in October 2006:

In this model, there would be an evolving non-linear brand narrative. Different channels could be used to communicate different, self-contained elements of the brand narrative that build to create an larger brand world. Consumers then pull different parts of the story together themselves.

Since then there has been alot of discussion about the difference between ‘transmedia planning’ and other approaches such as synergistic, cross-channel, multi-channel, media neutral, integrated and 360. The problem with all of these approaches is that the meaning or intention behind them is not shared. People have been implementing each of these approaches in many different ways. So when someone says A is not B or A = B, both are true. Some people have been implementing what is now regarded as ‘transmedia planning’ and calling it other things, and some people haven’t been implementing it at all and so the concept is an inspiring new one. Indeed, ‘transmedia planning’ doesn’t describe the only way IMHO to implement the use of multiple media platforms, people, storytelling and participation.

If you’re not aware of the debate that has been taking place, follow the cybertrail, and join the Transmedia Facebook Group that was started by Adam Crowe. At present their isn’t any new information on there that readers of this blog wouldn’t know, but I’m sure (hoping) there will be some very interesting links and discussions in the not too distant future.

Join the Transmedia Facebook Group