Designing transmedia for impact

Designing Transmedia for Impact
Sarah Atkinson, King’s College: sarah.atkinson@kcl.ac.uk
Vicki Callahan, University of Southern California: vcallahan@cinema.usc.edu

PART I: KEY ELEMENTS OF DESIGN
Vicki Callahan
vcallahan@cinema.usc.edu

Elements to Consider
•  Issue
•  Objective/Call to Action
•  Platforms Employed,
Duration of Campaign
•  Audience Experience –
include Co-creation
opportunities
•  How does project create
a Trace, Agency, Emotion
for Audience/Co-creators
•  Ethical Considerations/
Best Practices
•  Strengths/Weaknesses
Saving
the
Sierra:
Voices
of
Conserva3on
in
Ac3on,
h6p://www.savingthesierra.org

Issue: Representation
Through a Lens Darkly and Digital Diaspora Roadshow,
Thomas Allen Harris, 2014 http://1world1family.me

Objective: Visibility, Perceptual Shifts, +
Community Expression
•  Two part strategy:
1.  Documentary Film
(Through a Lens…):
Stereotypes/
Received images
and African
American artists’
intervention in
representations of
community
2.  Archive and Public
Events: Digital
Diaspora Roadshow
(community outreach)
Through a Lens Darkly
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/through-a-lens-darkly/

How Story Spreads
•  Live events
•  Website
•  Flickr + Instagram
•  Facebook
•  Documentary film
(screened on PBS, live
events, and available on
video on demand)
•  Lesson Plans on African
American History and
Identity
•  Archive both public and
private

Digital Diaspora Roadshow

Outcomes:

•  Change
the
received
images,
create
new
public
narra3ves
about
the
African
American

experience

• 
Create
archive
of
history
previously
not
valued;
provide
opportunity
for
community
to

connect
their
stories,
deepen
community
bonds

•  Develop
media
literacy
skills
in
community
as
both
creators
and
as
informed
viewers

Issue: Global Women’s Rights
Half the Sky, Maro Chermayeff
(from book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn)
http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

Objectives: Awareness, Behavior/Policy Change
•  Awareness both in
US and Globally
•  Education and
behavioral
changes on issues
of violence,
reproductive
rights, trafficking,
economic/personal
empowerment
•  “nurture” policy
changes
Edna Adan, activist, strategies for education
on issue of female genital mutilation
Half the Sky movement website

How Story Spreads
•  Book
•  Website with rich media for
both US and global context.
Media from local communities/
NGO as well as “celebrities,”
policy makers, activists in West
•  Documentary Film (VOD, PBS)
•  Facebook game and mobile
games targeted to issues and
local communities.
•  Global Engagement initiatives
with NGO educational videos
(free download) and education
guides
Mobile game from Half the Sky movement

Outcomes
•  $5 million raised for
organizations partnering
with Half the Sky
•  1.1 million participants in
Facebook game
•  30+ NGO partners
•  1500 screenings on
campus and communities
with discussion groups
•  US and Global
Educational workshops

Issue: Food Justice/Health
LUNCH
LOVE
COMMUNITY
2010-‐2014,
Helen
De
Michiel

h6p://www.lunchlovecommunity.org/legacy-‐site/

Objectives
•  Awareness of
Berkeley School
food program
•  Food Justice issues,
especially with
regard to schools
and children
•  Community dialogue
through “media
socials”
•  Policy Intervention
LUNCH
LOVE
COMMUNITY,
Helen
De
Michiel

How Story Spread
•  Website
•  Short films on site
and YouTube
•  “Media Socials”
•  DeMichiel writings
and presentations on
project and
renovations of
documentary form

Outcomes
•  Community dialogue
•  Grassroots organizing on
food issues
•  Re-institution of funding for
school program after city
cut off funds (due to ballot
initiative)
•  “Open Space” as
participatory media model,
dialogue, engagement,
rather than “advocacy”
•  12 episode film on dvd for
non-theatrical, educational
market

Issue: Black Masculinity
Question Bridge (2012-present), Chris Johnson, Hank Willis Thomas,
Bayett Ross Smith, Kamal Sinclair http://questionbridge.com/#

Objectives
•  Dialogue
•  Change perceptions
both within and
outside African
American community
•  Show diversity of
experience,
“represent and
redefine black male
identity in US.”
•  Archive stories
Question Bridge website

How Story Spread
•  Video installation
(museums, festivals,
institutions)
•  Online video
•  Mobile app (goal of
200K participants,
“living archive of
black male voices”)
•  Facebook
•  Blueprint
Roundtables
•  High School
curriculum

Outcomes
•  Ongoing project
•  How to gauge
awareness and
perceptual shifts?
•  Creating alternative
media space

Issue: Youth Health
Try
Life,
Paul
Irwin,
h6p://www.trylife.tv

Objectives
•  Awareness and
Behavior
Change for
young people
on key issues of
youth health and
development:
–  Drugs/alcohol
–  Sex
–  Violence
–  Education

Try
Life,
Paul
Irwin,

How Story Spread
•  Website with
interactive videos
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  TryRadio

Outcomes
•  1,679,325
Facebook fans,
160K new fans
this week
•  120,000 plays on
website
•  Received
funding for 3rd
episode
•  Some media
training for youth
– script co-
creation
•  Health resources
on site
Try
Life,
Paul
Irwin,

Issue: “Internet of Things”
(Networked Culture and Smart Objects)
Sherlock
Holmes
and
the
Internet
of
Things,
h6p://sherlockholmes.io

Lance
Weiler,
Nick
Fortugno,
Jorgen
van
der
Sloot

Objectives
•  Consider
human/
tech
interac3ons,

human
at
center,
not

passive

•  Redeﬁne,
reimagine

storytelling

possibili3es

•  Media/Tech
Literacy

•  Build
Networks
and

Community
with
Art

and
Technology

Sherlock
Holmes
and
the
Internet
of
Things

How Story Spread
•  MOOC with over 200
participants on Novoed
•  Open Global
Collaborative Game
•  Organized on Hackpad
•  Live events, Beta tests at
Lincoln Center (NYFF) and
at Power to the Pixel (LFF)
•  Pilot stage for ongoing
project in 2016,
prototypes developed
Sherlock
Holmes
and
the
Internet
of
Things

Outcomes
•  Still ongoing
•  This weekend is the
culmination of MOOC and
Global Challenge with
worldwide meet up events
and an online event.
•  2016 some objects from
Hackpad and MOOC will
be developed
•  Some teams may organize
other events independently

Sherlock
Holmes
and
the
Internet
of
Things

Object
Design
for
Chessboard
for
Group,
THE
LIMINAL
MESSAGES

Sherlock
Holmes
and
the
Internet
of
Things

PART 2: BLENDING FACT AND
FICTION IN SOCIAL CHANGE
Sarah Atkinson
sarah.atkinson@kcl.ac.uk

Fictional techniques

• Many projects bring true realities to the audience as fictional constructs.
• “Purposeful storytelling,” “barely fictional”
• Jane McGonigal argues that in the case of immersive gaming we have one of
‘the first applications poised to harness the increasingly widespread penetration and
convergence of network technologies for collective social and political action.’ (1)
• Kerric Harvey applies the mode of Drama for Conflict Transformation used in
public anthropology as the basis for his proposition of a ‘Walk-In’ documentary. (2)
• I extend this notion to propose a concept of ‘displaced’ fiction. (3)

(1) Jane McGonigal, ‘This Is Not a Game’: Immersive Aesthetics and Collective Play’
(paper presented at the DAC 2003 Streamingworlds Conference. Melbourne), 2.
(2) Kerric Harvey, ‘ “Walk-In Documentary”: New Paradigms for Game-Based Interactive Storytelling and Experiential
Conflict Mediation’, Studies in Documentary Film 6 no. 2, 2012:189–202.
(3) Atkinson, S. (2014) Beyond the Screen: Emerging Cinema and Engaging Audiences, New York: Bloomsbury.

Film: The Dark Knight Rises
•  Why so serious? (2008)
http://www.42entertainment.com/work/whysoserious

Why so serious? (2007-2008)
• Attracted over 11 million ‘unique’ players from over 75 different countries
over the 15-month playing period which preceded the theatrical release
of the film.
• Tasks were launched at the annual ComicCon conference, and a
telephone number was projected onto the sky for audience members to call
• Hidden packages concealed inside cakes purchased at bakeries contained a ‘joker
Phone’
• Real-world events included protestors taking to the streets at various locations against
the fictional character Harvey Dent as part of the campaign’s scene setting of the film’s
back-story exposition
• If the participants of who took to the streets in protest against the election of the
new (fictional) mayor were to channel this level of activism into a campaign of
real-world consequence, then their actions have the potential to take on a far more
purposeful and productive dimension.

Designing transmedia for impact

Conspiracy for Good (2010)

• An ARG-based experience sponsored and ‘powered’ by Nokia
• Created by Tim Kring (Heroes)
• Branded by the makers as a new form of social benefit storytelling.
• A crew of 130 people in five countries were involved with the core activities focused
in London in the spring of 2010. Websites, puzzles, webisodes, social media
elements, texts and mobile games were experienced over the first three months of
the web-based campaign. In July, the experience went live over four weeks of real-
world gaming and instances of street theatre in London.
• Audience members joined the Ancient Secret Society called Conspiracy for Good in
order to uncover the secrets behind Blackwell Briggs, a fictional security firm behind
the disappearance of a cargo of books bound for a library in an Eastern Zambian
village.
• This model of ‘social benefit storytelling’ enabled a type of pseudo-activism,
the outcome of which was an in-built and a predetermined facet of the
experience, which resulted in the funding and establishment of five libraries in
Zambia.
[Video Clip] - http://www.conspiracyforgood.com/wwd.php

Collapsus (2010)

Dir. Tommy Pallotta. Web.

Collapsus

A
reference
to
societal
collapse,
but
also
as
a
reference
to
the
collapse
of
dis3nc3ons

between
media
pla]orms
and
genres.

‘The
energy
risk
conspiracy’
–
which
centres
on
the
impact
of
an
energy
crisis
upon

ten
young
people
who
are
located
throughout
the
world
–
provides
a
simulated

experien3al
premedia3on
of
the
future.

Bruno
Felix
(Producer):
‘It’s
a
documentary
on
the
future.
It’s

very
useful
to
mix
up
ﬁc3on
and
documentary
because
it’s
probably
the
only
way

to
get
a
real
deep
understanding
of
what
the
future
might
look
like’.

Tommy
Pallota
(Director):
‘an
a6empt
to
reach
out
to
a
younger
audience
or
an

audience
that
wouldn’t
normally
watch
a
tradi3onal
documentary’.

h6p://www.submarine.nl/#!/project/collapsus/

Watch

h6p://www.collapsus.com/experience.php

Play

My Sky is Falling (2012)

Evoke
the
‘disorienta3on,
uncertainty,
distrust,
sadness,
anxiety,
and
hope’

experienced
by
children
leaving
the
foster
care
system.

Lance
Weiler:

‘a
new
kind
of
par3cipatory,
purposeful
story’,
within
which
a
science
fic3on
experience

triggers
the
same
types
of
emo3ve
and
affec3ve
responses.

This
experience
–
by
–
proxy
makes
explicit
(for
the
audience)
the
implicit
feelings

(of
the
subject)
through
the
allegorical
interrela3ons
between
the
science
fic3on

layer
and
the
social
issue
layer.

The
findings
of
the
project
revealed
that:

‘People
may
reveal
more
about
their
feelings
and
emo3ons
in
these
rich,

interpersonal
contexts.’

Presented
to
the
United
Na3ons
Congress.

Sarah
Henry,
A
New
Story:
Purposeful
Storytelling
and
Designing
with
Data
(New
York:
Harmony
Ins3tute,
2013),
5.

You
must
make
a
diﬃcult
choice,
right
now.
Give
up
your
name,
iden3ty,
and
sense
of
self

to
be
housed,
fed,
and
clothed.
Or
wander
aimlessly
through
life,
hungry,
in
constant
fear
of

the
unknown,
and
alone—but
in
control
of
who
you
are.

Stop
reading
and
make
that
decision.
Or
someone
will
make
it
for
you.

This
is
the
choice
many
children
face
when
entering
the
large,
and
ojen
chao3c
US
foster

care
system.
It
is
also
the
founda3on
for
My
Sky
Is
Falling.

Ed Zed Omega (2012)

Dir.
Ken
Eklund.

Based
on
the
educa3onal
experiences
of
seven
teenagers
(played

by
actors)
in
Minneapolis,
engaged
in
a
process
of
‘dropping
out
loud’.
They
share

their
experiences
with
others
via
social
media
channels
as
they
consider
whether

or
not
to
return
to
high
school
in
September.

At
the
(real-‐world)
‘Ins3tute
for
the
Future’
‘Futures
of
Learning’
summit
in
Paolo
Alto,

California,
it
is
the
character
of
Lizzie
(not
the
actress
of
Lauren)
who
addresses
the
forum

created
a
new
kind
of
space
for
nego3a3on,
in
which
it
is
the
opinions
and
experiences

of
the
ﬁc3onal
character
that
are
validated
and
are
used
to
inform
real
world
policy
and
ac3on.

Bear 71 (2012)

Set
in
Banﬀ
Na3onal
Park,
the
web-‐based
documentary
enables
the
audience
to
use
surveillance

technologies
to
track
animals
through
their
habitats
within
the
park.
Based
around
the
grizzly

‘Bear
71’
who
was
tagged
at
the
age
of
three
and
monitored
throughout
her
life,
the
project

invokes
themes
of
surveillance
and
conserva3on.

h6ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-‐SQAViDdPk
(documentary)

h6p://bear71.nq.ca/#/bear71
(interact)

Dir.
Leanne
Allison
&

Jeremy
Mendes.

Designing transmedia for impact

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