Transmedia Storytelling as: NEW DIGITAL FORM

 

Transmedia storytelling as it is emerging right now is made possible by digital storytelling.

 

Digital storytelling is making deep changes in what stories get told, whose stories get told, what an audience "does.” Digital storytelling is turning audiences into storytellers. It makes new story forms possible:
interactive storytelling
user-generated stories
collaborative storytelling
transmedia storytelling

 

In the last few years, Digital storytelling has evolved into an international movement. It grew out of the first generation of consumer level digital tools that appeared in the 1990’s and has blossomed into a rich genre of multi-media work that lives on the web. Read more:

 

Transmedia Storytelling through Digital Storytelling

 

Serial television programming has episodes. These air in broadcast or cablecast, one show a week. Webisodes are available at any time via the Internet. Because bandwidth is still pretty precious and download times can be long, Internet serials (webisodes) tend to be short – usually less than five minutes long.

 

There is a distinct aesthetic of made-for-the-Internet webisodes. Shooting is handheld and with natural light. This simulates the “authentic” and “non-professional” look of Lonelgirl15 and reality television. But the character of the form is different at every level.

 

It’s alluring to think of transmedia storytelling as a purely digital domain, born of the internet and a new consciousness. But the ancestry goes back quite far. Sherlock Holmes, Dracula and Superman stories are all properties that moved between movies, radio, comics and stage plays. In the 1960’s Astro Boy and Speed Racer established powerful links between toys and animation.

 

Starting in 1968, the "story" of Planet of the Apes eventually travelled across five movies and a line of comics. The Blair Witch Project was one of the first film projects to leverage the Internet. An online buzz was created before the movie was launched.

 

From the POV of the US entertainment industry, transmedia storytelling exhibits these distinguishing features:
1. Created by small teams of creators. But not “committee” writing, either.
2. Cross media roll-out is planned early.
3. Distribution is established on three or more platforms.
4. Creators work hard to avoid fractures. Story, character, background are all unified.
5. Audience participation is baked in via social networks and UGC (user generated content).

 

In the last few years, digital storytelling has evolved into an international movement. It grew out of the first generation of consumer level digital tools that appeared in the 1990’s and has blossomed into a rich genre of multi-media work that lives on the web.

It is a distinct genre that usually features a first-person monolog written and recorded by the storyteller himself or herself. Images are strategically placed against these spoken words. Sometimes archival sources are used --- old photographs or printed materials that have been scanned. Often original photographs are shot with a digital still camera.

Digital storytelling is generally undertaken with a simple visual pallet. However there is lots of room for aesthetic experimentation, including image editing via Photoshop, use of simple animation and motion graphics, and the occasional integration of short clips of live-action footage.

Digital storytelling provides an excellent opportunity to explore and apply the elements and principles of media design. Furthermore, this deceptively simple genre is particularly well suited for tapping into one’s emotional-filled memories and related sources of creativity.

 

Digital storytelling builds off the fact that every single person alive has a wealth of stories that he or she tells again and again. Often such stories recount an important moment from youth. Digital stories can be sweet -- for example, how a couple first met - or they can recount a harrowing experience. There are funny stories. There are cautionary tales. Often these well worn narratives contain "old chestnuts" -- adages of folk wisdom that are polished by years of retelling.

 

These are the characteristics of such personal stories:
- first person authenticity (instant credibility because it really happened to the teller)
- extraneous detail has been eliminated via the editing that comes with repeated telling
- those remaining descriptions signify deeply
- there are few characters (but those we meet are dimensionalized and complex)
- oft told stories exhibit dramatic pay-off (they have evolved a satisfying ending)
- there is built-in wisdom with a “lesson” that is sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit
- from the very start, the inherent power of narrative takes over, leaving us to ask, "What happened next?"

The pieces below have been selected to show off a wide creative range of digital storytelling. These include animation, live-action and motion graphics.

What remains constant is emphasis on first person narratives that recount true experiences. The variety of visualization techniques should suggest how wide open this form is for innovation.

 

 

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