The Future of the Storytelling Biz

I’ve just returned from Europe where I gave a keynote at EIFF as part of the Digital Frontier Program. There was much talk of transmedia storytelling in Europe.

I found this today:

Now that the franchise has replaced the blockbuster as Hollywood’s holy grail, a new tool has emerged to help those who want to extend film and TV properties across multiple platforms.

The tool — transmedia storytelling — is capable of performing such feats as the recent revival of the Batman franchise, which helped propel “The Dark Knight” to the second-highest box office numbers in history, after “Titanic.” READ MORE

Evolution of Storytelling

This morning I did a remote discussion around transmedia and the “evolution of storytelling” for a number of European TV writers. The discussion covered a range of topics such as how to craft stories for new emerging platforms, the impact of media consumption habits and the changing role of authorship.

The view from Cardiff, Wales

Futures of the doc

I’m in SF this weekend for BAVC’s Producers Institute for New Media Technologies conference. I’m speaking on a panel entitled “The Future of Visual Storytelling: Content-Driven Technologies and the New Documentary Movement.” Here’s the description:

There is no question that the way people consume content has fundamentally changed over the last several years. Whether online, on mobile devices, DVD/BluRay, or in physical spaces, the way we tell stories is also changing. What is the future of documentary filmmaking, with the reality of shorter attention spans, laptop culture and evolving technology that enables new ways to interact with narrative content? This panel will explore the emerging developments, new opportunities and technical challenges in the field – is interactivity the end of traditional narrativity?

I believe that some of the answers to the above will come from transmedia experimentation. Transmedia what? Check out the following video for a description.

Henry Jenkins on Transmedia – November 2009 from niko on Vimeo.