Transmedia Storytelling is the distribution of narratives across multiple platforms within a pre-defined world.
Transmedia franchising is rapidly becoming a hot topic of conversation in the industry, as Hollywood and media arts professionals attempt to redefine their place in a new world where the consumer anticipates a more immersive and interactive role. Under the traditional Hollywood franchise model, often the same stories are re-purposed and repeated in order to capitalize on the expanded exploitation rights and increase ROI's. And while in the past this model has been successful, there is a limit on the number of times a single story can be told across multiple platforms and still maintain the interest of the consumer market.
Transmedia Storytelling breaks this traditional paradigm by beginning not from a narrative, but by defining a world in which narratives can be revealed across a wealth of platforms. Get the user interested in the world, and the stories will have a hypothetically infinite capacity to engage the end consumer as a viewer, user, and producer of original content.
In the transmedia franchise model, the end user is always at the core, surrounded by narratives told in various media throughout the world. Each transmedia world has rules, parameters, and inhabitants; much like our own world, it is these elements which define it, and allow for a limitless number of interwoven stories to emerge.
It is our feeling that in order to create a transmedia world in which stories can unfold, one must first define the world itself. What does this world look like? How does its natural elements behave? Who are its inhabitants? How do they live? What can and cannot happen in this world? Once the boundaries are set, emergent stories can begin to take shape, intertwined with one another through overlapping elements such as characters, places, and events. These constructed intersecting narratives are then, in the transmedia franchise model, told across multiple platforms. They take shape as movies, games, television serials, merchandise, and other cross-promotional materials.