There are ways to approach transmedia storytelling, you can ''create a story that can be told across multiple platforms or you take a story from one medium and add other media to it to deepen the world created in the focus medium.'' (Weaver, 2012, 8)
I have posted case studies on my blog about stories that have used transmedia storytelling to further expand the world the characters live in, such as Batman.
Transmedia storytelling does not mean ''breaking up a movie or game into multiple pieces'' (Weaver, 2012, 10) The idea is that these stories can be crossed with one another. Interplay and depth are regarded as the elements of transmedia storytelling.
The story in its medium should be able to experienced on its own without needing to research into previous works done. However, make sure that the stories are not confusing because this will cause problems if there ever needs to be a gap bridged one another.
The other important factor is giving your audience the choice to explore the story more instead of telling them to, they should be the ones wanting to seek out the information. Choice is regarded as another element for storytelling.
A story is ''a narrative construction in which ideas and themes are communicated in entertaining, persuasive, or educational ways.'' (Weaver, 2012, 14)
Artists, writers, animators and filmmakers tell stories for different reasons but they fit among the category of entertaining, persuading, educating and creating an understanding.
Entertaining stories speak for themselves, they are meant to entertain you which is the important point, regardless of any other categories, these stories need to entertain. Persuading stories can be considered from a political point because they are trying to change your opinions using facts, educating stories can fall in the same category, but they might have less bias opinions and more facts.
Understanding stories can be used as ''some sort of story truth-telling.'' (Weaver, 2012, 15)
There are five elements of storytelling which are ''character, conflict, risk, place & theme'. (Weaver, 2012, 20)
There are two types of audiences when it comes to allowing the audience to have the choice of exploring more information, these are passive and absorptive.
It speaks for itself, the absorbers ''will seek out each and every piece of your story, but they will only do so if they have an emotional connection to your world'' (Weaver, 2012, 37)
The passive audience can be grouped as those that ''want to watch a film, read a comic, play a videogame or read a book.'' (Weaver, 2012, 37) but they do not seek out the whole series, play all the games, seek out the creators of the work. This could be dependent on the time they have.
If your story has a theme this means that it can also fall under a category and it can be the principles you stick to when you add characters, conflict, a place or risk. These elements combined together give the story a rounded edge and if it needs to be crossed to another medium, there will be events in the story that can be used for that.
Transmedia is becoming more common with the advancement of technology.
Technology advancing has made
a huge difference, because since the increased use of smartphones, tablet PCs
and Ipads, this means that the audience can be on the move and still engage in
the game or film they like.
Most content can be downloaded
and this means that instead of some audience needing to go to the shop to buy a
book, there needs to be a e-book version available.
This has allowed companies to expand their resources, for example, the channel E4 have provided the option of catching up with episodes missed on live TV on their Youtube channel, this means that they can attract audiences that might have been too busy to sit and watch live TV. It also lets passive viewers watch their TV shows are their own pace.
Going back to the idea of transmedia storytelling, the channel E4 brand has taken their logo and created a 3D character and it not seem new but now this 3D character is animated in realistic situations. This creates another way for the audience to remember their brand even more and even move on to create toy merchandise for it.
http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/motion-graphics/mpc-details-its-design-of-e4-ident-robot-eefer/
The link above explains how the company MPC designed the character for the channel. E4 has taken their logo and made into a character that goes on casual adventures but this is an example of transmedia storytelling even though the general audience may not know what it is. It is also an advertising campaign in itself.
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