1. Transmedia Storytelling
By Robin Low

2. Transmedia Storytelling
What is Transmedia Storytelling?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFo-rR1kQl4&hd=1

3. Transmedia Storytelling
• Transmedia is the technique of telling a single
story or story experience across multiple
platforms and formats using current digital
technologies.
• Transmedia engages the audiences on
multiple platform, and are synchronized to
enhance the story experience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmedia_storytelling

4. Transmedia Storytelling
• Selling toys does not necessary constitute to
Transmedia Storytelling. In
transmedia, elements of a story are dispersed
systematically across multiple media
platforms, each making their own unique
contribution to the whole.
• Transmedia does not necessarily mean
game, and they are definitely not the only
model.

5. Transmedia Storytelling
• Transmedia is a not just a marketing strategy.
The best transmedia allows gifted storytellers
to share their vision to the dedicated fans
through a creative impulse.
• Transmedia does not require a big budget. In
fact, the Blair witch project, a low budget
horror movie was followed by a book, comics
and later a game.
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/research/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Velikovsky-Transmedia.pdf

6. Transmedia Storytelling
• Many stories work well with 1 medium, and
poorly executed transmedia that does not add
to the characters or the world may be seen as
just milking the franchise.
• Transmedia is still used today, even though
many attempts failed. Flash Forward, the
Event has failed to recreate the success of
Heroes and Lost, but The Walking Dead and
many other new initiatives still attract big
audiences.

7. Transmedia Storytelling Framework

8. Some examples
• The Matrix
• Enter the Matrix
• The Animatrix
• Matrix Comics
• The Matrix Online
• The Art of Matrix

9. The Matrix
• The Matrix is a great example of transmedia.
• The series of Animatrix animes greatly
enhanced the world, and fleshing out
characters.
• Enter the Matrix allows the player to play as
side characters which play very small role in
the movie, but important parts.
• The Matrix online allows the players to
immerse into the world of the Matrix

10. Why Tell Stories?
• We tell stories to entertain, to persuade and to
explain.
• Our minds do not like random facts or objects
and so they create their own stories to make
sense of otherwise discrete, isolated events and
items. We naturally and often subconsciously
connect the dots. And dots connected in a
stimulating way we call great stories.
• Great stories win hearts and minds.

11. Why Multiple Media?
• We tell stories across multiple media because no
single media satisfies our curiosity or our lifestyle.
• We are surrounded by an unprecedented ocean
of content, products and leisure opportunities.
The people we wish to tell our stories to have the
technology to navigate the ocean and can choose
to sail on by or stop and listen.

12. Why Multiple Media?
• Technology and free markets have allowed
unprecedented levels of
customization, personalization and
responsiveness such that a policy of “one size
fits all” is no longer expected or acceptable.

13. Opportunities on the Internet
• Technology today allows us to share
experience and engage an audience.
• Social media also allow the audience to give
feedback.
• On multiple platforms, the experience of the
story can become more tangible when the
audience can interact with the world and
understand more about the story.

14. Opportunities on the Internet
• When audience engage, they can also co-
create and feel that they contributed to the
story even when most of the story has already
been conceived. Story can be crowdsourced.
• An Engaged audience will share on the various
platforms and their friends may share as
well, causing story to go viral.

15. Tips for Transmedia Storytelling
1) Think Transmedia from the beginning.
From brainstorming the story, transmedia must
be part of the strategy from day 1.

16. Tips for Transmedia Storytelling
2) Find the concept and...hide it!
Don´t show everything beforehand. Release the
content slowly, always creating calls to actions
to integrate the stories and fidelize the
audience.

17. Tips for Transmedia Storytelling
3) Keep content unique
On the different platforms, match unique story bits
to different platforms. Separate the different
contents and don’t repeat them.
The web specialist will focused on a SEO text and
strategy, the offline editor will create titles and
subtitles, the screen writer will work on a movie
story format. Then, work on an integrated narrative
platform.

18. Tips for Transmedia Storytelling
4) Have a transmedia crew.
Different media requires different specialists and
different skill sets. They will see opportunities
and ways to engage that others don’t

19. Tips for Transmedia Storytelling
5) Interface is king
Because audience engagement is central to this
form of storytelling, make sure whichever
platform you’re using gets readers to interact in
a very simple way. “Interface is king; nothing
kills an ambitious multiplatform effort faster
than a clunky point of entry”

20. Tips for Transmedia Storytelling
6) Let the story flow
A transmedia story has lots of touchpoints:
Internet, cellphone, books, games, music
concerts!
Let the audience decide by themselves, don´t
force them.

21. Tips for Transmedia Storytelling
7) The story is key
Have a good story. This is the secret.
Then, everything goes well. The number of
platforms is not important.
Getting caught up in the bells and whistles and
ignoring storytelling basics could harm your
project. “The story comes first, always,”

22. Seven Principles of Transmedia
Storytelling by Henry Jenkins
• http://henryjenkins.org/2009/12/the_revenge
_of_the_origami_uni.html

23. Transmedia by Jeff Gomez
http://youtu.be/p9SlVedmnw4

24. Transmedia
• Transmedia can be a very exciting way of
storytelling.
• It can be an immersive experience, now made
possible with current technologies.
• By allowing the audience to experience the
story on different platforms, the whole
experience and background of the world and
characters can be much expanded.

25. Contact me at
Twitter: @robin_low
Facebook: facebook.com/socialhub
Special thanks to Gabriela Mafort
@gmafort
gmafort@gmail.com