What is Transmedia? Ask “Star Wars”
Reposting my answer to a Quora topic here.
What is Transmedia?
“Transmedia” is a new word for an old concept: multi-platform storytelling. A great way to look at transmedia is to look at the greatest transmedia success story of all time: Star Wars.
A 2007 Forbes article(1) pegged the total earnings of the franchise at over $22B. A vast majority of this money comes from ancillary products: games, books, toys, role playing products, etc. Last year alone, toy and merchandise sales brought in $510M(2).“He doesn’t like you. I don’t like you either!”
Ok, so Star Wars is big. We know this. But how is it transmedia? From the very beginning, Lucas’ galaxy far, far away was fleshed out through its complimentary products. Early in the movie, a creature in the bar gets his arm cut off by Ben Kenobi’s lightsaber after he accosts Luke. The creature’s first appearance, though, was in the 1976 Alan Dean Foster novelization that predated the movie by a year, and he was still unnamed. He didn’t get a name until 1978, when he action figure identified him as Walrus Man. He stayed as “Walrus Man” until 1989, when West End Games’ role-playing source book Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope gave his name as Ponda Baba, of the Aqualish species and travelling companion to to disgraced and disfigured surgeon Dr. Evazon(3). Since his first screen appearance in 1977, Ponda Baba has been featured in books, video games, comic books, roleplaying games, card games, and a host of other media that takes a character on screen for about 10 seconds and gives him a name and a history.
As audiences flock to digital media, producers of content are exploring multi-platform storytelling techniques to expand the reach of their IPs and fan base. High level interactive engagement through internet media, social media, and video games are high value, high return add-ons for properties when handled well. Transmedia storytelling is big business and has bred a new business model and specialized role in entertainment (in April 2010, the Producer’s Guild of America officially sanctioned and recognized the “Transmedia Producer” credit(4)).
An early leader n this new paradigm is Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment(5), Jeff travels extensively, giving his time and expertise to panels and seminars across the country, and his company has handled the transmedia campaigns for, among other things, James Cameron’s Avatar.
To read Starlight Runner’s take on “What is Transmedia”, go here: http://www.starlightrunner.com/t…
Personally, I work in original online video programming. I’ve seen a significant push even among small independent creators to focus on a multi-platform approach for their stories, revolving around supplementary (and ultimately optional) content orbiting a primary web series release. The range and depth of the supplementary content varies, but even on a small scale it can bring new audience to a project and enhance engagement.
You don’t need to know Ponda Baba’s story - or even his name - to enjoy Star Wars. However, a significant portion of the audience did want to know stuff like that, and have proven it with their wallets, to the tune of over 4x the core six movies’ $4.6B box office take.
1. http://www.forbes.com/2007/05/24…
2. http://www.forbes.com/sites/doro…
3. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/P…
4. http://www.producersguild.org/ne…
5. http://www.starlightrunner.com/
Notes
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