Transmedia – it’s about the story, not the tools
I’m on a early flight this morning what made me skip to publish another series of pictures from Iceland but instead use the time and share with you some thoughts on the concept of transmedia I got pretty obsessed about recently after hearing about it. The concept is simple, actually that simple that it barely feels as new information. But I think it is something what we often forget about. And it is also a bit scary when you think of labels like photojournalist.
One of the basic concepts always has been cross-media, what more or less means to take your produced material, let’s say pictures and publish it in as many channels as possible, for instance a book, magazine, newspaper, web, you name it.
Multimedia is now another way of expressing the story. It is web-based what also means it has a lot of limitations in further distributing into other channels. 20 years ago everyone was thinking that pictures for newspapers, that is the deal. Now that changes, but what is in 10 years? But there is also a big chance in multimedia. We might not be able to bring the multimedia stories out of the online world, but we have a whole bunch of material. A audioslideshow without audio is still a great series of pictures, the audiofile maybe still tells the story. Only thing is, each form of media has to be really good in itself to also work in other channels or in other combinations.
The concept of transmedia is exactly about that. Last week i was talking about the chance of multimedia to combine the advantages of each form of media to tell a stronger story. This of course is for stories in the web. For a book words and strong pictures might be the best combination. For radio the audiofile with a good mix of interviews, atmo sounds might do the trick. Transmedia is about different forms of media and but rather than making the format define how we work, for instance taking pictures, we choose the best forms of media to capture and tell the story. At the end this also defines in which channels we are able to tell the story. There might be stories that are to big or deep to get into it that they never find the space in a feature article or a three minute multimedia piece, but they could work in a book for instance. So we adapt how we communicate the story to the structure of the story and then choose the best media, rather than choosing the form of media and adapting the story to it. This is a big and major difference to think about. It is all about looking for the best way to tell the story.
When we do multimedia this is inside of the concept where we decide how to tell the story. Is video for this part of the story best or can the picture tell us more? Does the audio maybe brings the story further the most? We think of the same things. How can we tell the story in the best way, just for the online distribution. Transmedia is taking the needed step further and thinks of what channels are good to tell the story and what tools do I need to do so.
I personally think that times couldn’t be more exciting right now when it comes to things like that. It is for sure hard when you focus on one tool as your storytelling tool, but with the willingness to learn also other tools and their advantages there are many opportunities i think. Even when capturing a story might be more challenging then before as you have to be able to switch between the forms of media constantly. But who said it’s gonna be easy?
3 Comments on "Transmedia – it’s about the story, not the tools"
Thanks Simon, I enjoyed this post and your ‘about’ video; ‘understanding, not pity’. A transmedia approach to storytelling also assists this goal of depth, as each medium has its own specific uses and characteristics.
For example A photograph SHOWS a mountain, statistics DESCRIBE its properties, people’s encounters with the mountain give it NARRATIVE. As we view online media from news, video and social networking sites, we assume a certain amount of ownership and ‘share’ what is not strictly hours, thus taking from and giving to every story.
What i’m getting at is that people are part of a transmedia toolkit too (as well as the story recipients) – not just the video, news, media and social networking platforms – and people UNDERSTAND when given depth of information over headlines.
That, to me, is one reason why transmedia is so fascinating.
I wonder then if ‘capture’ a story is the right approach? Maybe transmedia is a way to ‘open’ [documentary] stories
you might find this slide interesting (not mine)
http://www.slideshare.net/openworld/narrative-fractals-overviewpdf
I think you are right when you say that people are part of the transmedia toolkit (or at least should be). Interactivity with the content, sharing knowledge and so on will be in many ways the future way how we consum in my opinion.
If it is the right approach to ‘capture’ a story instead of ‘opening’ stories depends a lot on the story itself what is a question of access for instance. But in many ways it is an interesting approach to open stories instead of classical storytelling where the reader is only consument, not participant.
[...] que éstos vivan una experiencia de inmersión plena en la historia. Como escribe Simon Sticker, “Transmedia is about the story, not the tools” (el Transmedia se refiere a la historia, no a las [...]