Its only Week 2 so Why So Serious?

This week in class, we saw a short series called “Everything is Remix”. The short series puts light on the remix culture calling it a ‘Folk Art’ which everyone is able to do it now-a-days. The series gives examples of different music bands in the 1960s and 1970s and how they sampled music to create their own. This sampling of music still exists today. Further in the series it gives examples of different movies that were inspired from books, blogs, plays, etc. The series did raise some questions as to what is ‘original’ and what is not.

We also had a look at the ‘Why so Serious’ an advertising campaign for the Dark Knight. On researching further on the campaign it was clear that the campaign was an ARG – Alternate Reality Game where it mixed the real with reel. Dark Knight was already a brilliant movie, and to discover this genius advertising campaign was another feather in the hat towards the level of planning and marketing that took place along with the movie itself. Only Hollywood can pull this off!

Coming back to class work – all these examples with the readings on remix theory and Transmedia storytelling, I kind of started getting the idea as to what this course would offer. It was interesting to look at these examples be it from a film-making point of view or story-telling point of view. I was introduced to this new concept of Transmedia which I was mesmerised with at first go. It made me look at quite a few films in different perspective after learning about this new concept.

Following on the readings and the new concept introduced. We were split in peer groups and were given 5 cards and were asked to write down a story. Just a short one. After doing that we were asked to change the order of the story i.e., changing the start, middle, and end and to see what the story has become now. This was an interesting exercise as it helps brainstorming new ideas and concepts. After that each members of the peer group was asked to ‘go ahead with the concept’, i.e., to adapt the story on different platforms, i.e., one would write a short story based on the concept and idea we just developed, one would write a screenplay, or a comic strip about the same, other could create a marketing campaign. This was a fun task leading from creating insane stories which turned from bizarre to funny to serious to lame.

This exercise personally, gave me a method to create new concepts for a story. Many a times we get blocked while writing a story, maybe its a work hazard. But it happens to all of us. This is an interesting way to keep the mind working towards the concept in different ways.

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