Point, the First:
If you were not able to attend the Futures of Entertainment 4 conference back in November, you're in luck: the videos are now available thanks to MIT TechTV. You can view the aggregation of videos here, or check out the individual talks and panels linked with their respective videos after the jump.
Point, the Second
If you were able to attend the FoE4 conference, you're probably in post-con withdrawal by now. So, why not push your FoE experience into the transmedia realm? Luis, our excellent artist and designer, has made FoE4 mugs -- featuring the cosplaying girls -- available for purchase here.
Her Excellency, Ana, pimping the FoE4 mug
Point, the Third
Last week, I published to the blog an article entitled Singing in the Living Room: Fueling the Business Model of FOX's Glee, which examines the music of Glee as a transmedia experience and how transmedia factors into Glee's business model. I sent out the link to Nancy Baym via Twitter (@nancybaym), who had questioned the relationship between transmedia and music while at the FoE4 conference. Along with Ana Domb Krauskopf (@anadk) and Xiaochang Li (@xiaochang), Nancy and I (@alexleavitt) responded in quick succession about our thoughts on approaching new and old aspects of transmedia that might inform future approaches to franchise studies. I found the discourse interesting and exploratory, so I've reproduced the conversation after the jump below!
Transmedia Conversation, via Twitter
Participants: Alex Leavitt (C3 Researcher), Ana Domb (C3 Alum), Xiaochang Li (C3 Alum), Nancy Baym (C3 Consulting Researcher)
alexleavitt: @nancybaym This one's for you. Glee & musical transmedia: http://bit.ly/8MymHN 4:45 PM Dec 10th from web
nancybaym: @alexleavitt Excellent! I wonder if there's something to differentiate between other media using music to go transmedia vs starting w music. 6:34 PM Dec 10th from TweetDeck in reply to alexleavitt
nancybaym: @alexleavitt I still wonder -- what if you start with a band. But then I think video, album art, tour... It's all transmedia. 6:41 PM Dec 10th from TweetDeck in reply to alexleavitt
alexleavitt: @nancybaym Then, question: Does transmedia rely on a narrative? If so, how does that apply to a band? Or, to a song? 9:41 PM Dec 10th from web in reply to nancybaym
xiaochang: @alexleavitt @nancybaym Asian Idol culture has many ex of bands as transmedia narrative, framed explicitly as more story than celebrity. 9:46 PM Dec 10th from TweetDeck in reply to alexleavitt
alexleavitt: @xiaochang But the bands revolve around a story, right? How do you make a song imitate a spreadable narrative structure? 9:48 PM Dec 10th from web in reply to xiaochang
nancybaym: @alexleavitt My question is really what it means to detach "transmedia" from "narrative." But also what it might mean for music makers. 9:48 PM Dec 10th from Echofon in reply to alexleavitt
nancybaym: @alexleavitt @xiaochang And does a band have to imitate narrative to be compellingly transmedia? How do we understand "transmedia" if not? 9:54 PM Dec 10th from Echofon in reply to alexleavitt
alexleavitt: @nancybaym Yeah, I haven't read anything about "transmedia storytelling" without the typical narrative re: story... 9:54 PM Dec 10th from web in reply to nancybaym
anadk: @alexleavitt @nancybaym also wether transmedia is noun or adjective. Transmedia storytelling relies on narrative, but there are other forms 9:54 PM Dec 10th from Tweetie in reply to alexleavitt
alexleavitt: @anadk What are examples when it modifies a different noun? Because when transmedia is a noun anyway, it's more cross-platform distribution. 9:56 PM Dec 10th from web in reply to anadk
nancybaym: @alexleavitt A few weeks ago on here I was thinking about Beatles Magical Mystery Tour as music transmedia. Not exactly story, but world? 9:56 PM Dec 10th from Echofon in reply to alexleavitt
xiaochang: @anadk: @alexleavitt @nancybaym I pretty much consider everything in the realm of narrative, storytelling or not. 9:58 PM Dec 10th from TweetDeck
anadk: @alexleavitt well, it can be experiences, branding, that aren't so storytelling driven but that construct a whole through diff platforms 9:59 PM Dec 10th from Tweetie in reply to alexleavitt
nancybaym: @alexleavitt @anadk To me what seems key isn't story/narrative but world building. Worry we put on blinders when we lock it to story. 9:59 PM Dec 10th from Echofon in reply to alexleavitt
xiaochang: @anadk: @alexleavitt @nancybaym also another quandry: do we consider other forms of "trans" -- transgenre, transnational, etc. 9:59 PM Dec 10th from TweetDeck
anadk: @xiaochang agreed 9:59 PM Dec 10th from Tweetie in reply to xiaochang
anadk: @nancybaym maybe not so much about locking but about finding different forms of transmedia. Constructive rather than proscriptive? 10:01 PM Dec 10th from Tweetie in reply to nancybaym
nancybaym: @xiaochang Then what IS narrative if it's everything? What's its use as a concept? 10:01 PM Dec 10th from Echofon in reply to xiaochang
nancybaym: @anadk Yeah just think we need to keep an open eye to the full range of phenomena and neither exclude nor lump together. 10:03 PM Dec 10th from Echofon in reply to anadk
anadk: @nancybaym yep, not easy with so much hype and expectation floating around, but important. 10:04 PM Dec 10th from Tweetie in reply to nancybaym
xiaochang: @nancybaym That's the thing - I don't know that narrative is the most useful term when it comes to transmedia. 10:06 PM Dec 10th from TweetDeck
xiaochang: @nancybaym in part because it focuses solely on the story/brand/world-object, often leaving audience's role out of the question. 10:07 PM Dec 10th from TweetDeck
xiaochang: @anadk @nancybaym can I just say for the record that I'm so up for making up new words to describe stuff? 10:07 PM Dec 10th from TweetDeck
alexleavitt: @xiaochang So, is the area that people haven't really focused on transaudiential? 10:10 PM Dec 10th from web in reply to xiaochang
xiaochang: @alexleavitt I prefer audienceship. I'm gonna make "audienceship" happen. 10:17 PM Dec 10th from TweetDeck in reply to alexleavitt
nancybaym: @alexleavitt @xiaochang Then I come back to Brian Clark's point that from audience POV it's all already integrated. 10:27 PM Dec 10th from Echofon in reply to alexleavitt
Videos from Futures of Entertainment 4
Keynote: Revenge of the Origami Unicorn: Five Key Principles of Transmedia Entertainment
Session 1: Producing Transmedia Experiences: Stories in a Cross-Platform World
Session 2: Changing Audiences, Changing Methodologies
Case Study: Transmedia Design and Conceptualization - The Making of Purefold
Session 3: Transmedia for Social Change
Session 4: The ROI of ROFL: Why Understanding Popular Culture Should Matter to the C-Suite
Session 5: Producing Transmedia Experiences: Participation & Play
Session 6: Unboxing the Medium
Session 7: Free? Contemporary Media Business Models
