Transmedia Next Day 2 + 3 #tnx12

Summary of the last two days of Transmedia Next training in London 2012.

One week ago, Transmedia Next  took place in London. It’s an exclusive training-event for transmedia organised by Anita Ondine and her team. On three days, four trainers – Inga von Staden, Jonathan Marshall, Anita Ondine, and Lance Weiler, guide the participants through the main topics in transmedia storytelling and production. It’s a very hands-on, insightful, learning-by-doing workshop, with great tips enabling us to look behind the scenes of projects like Robot Heart Stories, Pandemic 1.0, or interactive BBC programms (to name a few).

These are impressions and notes of day two and three (more on Day 1).

User experience

Jonathan Marshalls‘ tips: it’s all about the user!

• Keep it simple,
• provide consistency
• know your audience
• provide a visual hierarchy,
• be honest,
• incorporate user feedback
• meet the requirements in the brief
• wow-effect

Media architecture

Inga von Staden on the main points of different media in building your transmedia story-world

• Films can create an awareness for a story
• Games are better in showing complexity, you get a deeper understanding. Action games train skill sets, other games activate collaboration,…
• Internet platforms can empower you – make a change in the real world
• Mobile content: puts you into context with people around you

You need to visualize your story! How do you address your audience for your complex transmedia story understandable and simple? Trailer for multiplatform projects work fine e.g. When you pitch your project you need to know the different people, their language and the markets for all the different platforms – it changes your pitch.

No experts

A general rule for all of us working in the field: „Step down from being an expert“ (Inga von Staden on her philosophy in transmedia). Everybody has to learn from each other and the other disciplines that are part of a transmedia production. That also means that producers have to be part of the creative process to understand it. Content is a dialogue today – its not about marketing anymore, its conversation. „I coach dialogue. By asking the right questions I bring people to talk to each other“ – Inga von Staden describing her magic in the storyfinding process of Team Hero.

Besides all the incredible people I met there (the team, the trainers, Robert, Karine, Christine, Nina,…) it was very rewarding to hear people talk about their projects. e.g. Why did „Robot Heart Stories“ work so well? Because it was so simple and it applied to an emotion, which could be shared easily. Kids understood intuitively what they had to do, to move Laika further. They worked together in helping her fill up her heartmeter so she could move. And parents got involved, too. What started as a family project by Lance, his son, and his mother, became a family project for a lot of participants.

There would be a lot more to tell, although I missed the last part of day 3 due to my traveling schedule completely. There are still tweets available (Hashtag: #tnx12), and you can find more presentations here (e.g. by Anita Ondine about integrating game mechanics into story-worlds or about financing). Thanks a lot to the incredible team and to all the participants of #tnx12, it was great!