Transmedia Storytelling
Transmedia Storytelling is the use of media to tell a story on different platforms and formats of current technology. Through the use of HTML 5 and Web 2.0 the overall passive audience that was a majority of consumers has been changed dramatically, consumers are now becoming their own producers through the installation of YouTube and Vimeo on the web. This is where transmedia storytelling takes this new step in technological advancements in the media just a little bit further, as consumers are becoming producers, they can now have an effect on how stories and narratives actually play out. This is a fantastic publicity tool to gain popularity and more of an audience, because it gives the consumer the power to create and control the story.
A perfect example of using HTML5 in transmedia storytelling is 'Brandon Generator', created by Internet Explorer, written by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) and narrated by Julian Barret (The Mighty Boosh). The idea is simple, create a character and have an audience literally dictate what he does and how the story will pan out and the audience can see how their creation will pan out. The character Brandon is loosely based on Edgar Wright himself a coffee drinking writer suffering writers block. |  |
The thing that makes this idea so clever and popular is the simple fact that the audience can get involved in the whole world of Brandon. From everything like the creation of the animation, the idea of the set, behind the scenes features like entering Brandon's loft, you can read Brandon's notes and diary. Literally everything about the creation of these webisodes are online and available to it's audience. It also says on the site to get involved through Facebook and Twitter and to send in ideas through these social media sites, utilising web 2.0 well through promotion as it is such an easy tool to exploit and gain publicity.
Photography and Photoshop
Photoshop work by Pierre Beteille
A french photographer who has talented skills in photo manipulation, he was an art director for 10 years and works now as a photographer specialising in photo manipulation. He states "I am not an artist or a photographer, I just make images". He mainly focuses on portraits and self portraits in which he focuses on photo manipulation. However with his landscape and still photography he only uses creative retouching, enhancing bold colours, skin smoothing etc.
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Creation and Analysis:
- This is a clever use of the patch tool and warping on Photoshop. To remove the side of his body you would duplicate the image and hide on layer, you would delete the side of his body leaving the hidden layer as normal and then use the patch tool to copy parts of the wall to fill in the blanks. To create the pictures you would import a picture of a blank polaroid photo and warp it to create different dynamic shapes and angles for each photo. Then remove the inside of polaroids to only leave the frames, create a separate layer for each part of the face and body (from the hidden layer) that is shown through the polaroid and warp it so that i matches the shape of the frame so it appears that each part of the face is on the photo. Then you would group all the polaroids once edited and duplicate them, darken them until black, drop the opacity to 15-30% to create the shadow, then finally distort the shadow in transform mode to make it appear it is on the wall.
- He says that he only makes images and that he is not an artist (much like Banksy), rendering his work without context and history. But from a third party perspective this photo above is ripe with contextual information. The sole fact he believes he "just makes images" is present in this photo, the verisimilitude is showing that deconstructing his work deconstructs himself as his photos are what he is made out of; as they fade away he will be nothing.
DOCUMENTARIES
Superheroes (2011) Mike Barnett Superheroes is a hilarious, thought provoking and extremely stylish expository piece. Blending reality and fiction through the use of marvel comic strips. To tell the stories of each character they created a marvel style animation to fit with the words of the narration from the characters involved. A very aesthetically pleasing technique, appropriate to the style as well, it is a technique I would like to apply to our documentary. Through the film these characters are portrayed as funny, out of shape, laughable, old Americans who take comics too seriously. We see them attacking mannequins with bizarre 'karate' moves which resemble no form of training and all the strange weapons and 'powers' they possess. Mr Extreme states that he has enhanced speed and super strength. However towards the end of the documentary it changes, we see that the so called 'Superheroes' go out and help the homeless, the needy and the less fortunate, by giving them essentials that no one else thinks to give them i.e. food, deodorant and loo roll. | - -  |
The only thing I find disappointing about this documentary is that there was no added depth, when we see the heroes helping the homeless there could be a narrative that poses the question "What does it take to be a hero? Can anyone be a hero?".
There are many things we can take from this documentary to help our own, but also many aspects we can add to better it i.e.
- Participatory mode as well expository, we actually create our own superhero.
- We challenge the audience and make them think, what it takes to be a superhero, the fact we do not need special powers to help those around us, why does a mask or a costume separate the superheroes from the everyday heroes?
- We involve re-enactments of vigilantism with hired actors and choreographed fighting to get around the rules and regulations of filming real vigilantism.
Grizzly Man (2005) Werner Herzog This is a masterful piece of expository documentary intertwining the use of pre recorded footage (Timothy Treadwell's video diary) to explore the protagonist's days spent with the grizzly bears, up to the final hours of his life and filming his family and friends as they talk about his life and the person he was. The story is told exceptionally well with the narration from Werner Herzog himself to explore the depths of human nature comparing it to the natural animalistic habits of the bears. It is such an interesting concept of expository documentary where the protagonist's only companion and confidant is the camera, where he expresses everything from his drug problems, memories and woman problems. The photography is second to none from Timothy as we see footage rarely seen of bears. In their natural habitat acting totally unprovoked. |  |
I can only aspire to create something as thought provoking as this piece, Herzog did a spectacular job piecing it together, using 85+ hours of recorded footage from Timothy. His narration is well scripted and using the bears as a metaphor for human nature is quite brilliant. It is also a wonderful juxtaposition between Timothy Treadwell and Werner Herzog, Treadwell being the 'over-the-top' enthusiast ranting at the camera endlessly, with the dulcet and calming voice of Herzog, we get entranced with Treadwell's passion mixed with the footage it almost seems we are there with the bears with him. However the opposing tone of Herzog brings s back to the cold reality that these bears are killers when their homes are disturbed.
