Week 3 Story Lab Post

The reading by Henry Jenkins helped to better understand the role of transmedia, in the age of ‘media convergence’. By using a film franchise I was quite familiar with it showed me that the first Matrix film was released to generate interest from the public, but the interest was not limited to the film itself. The film is actually just a part of the Matrix universe since it extended into other mediums such as comics, video games and web series. This helped fill in the gaps that the film couldn’t possibly accomplish in its 150 minute run time. With this much content, the producers expected quite a commitment from the audience as when the second film came around, there was no recap. This kind of universe building is quite intriguing from a narrative point of view as there are many layers on converging stories that affect one another until they reach an ultimate conclusion. I now realise that I have been actively engaging with this kind transmedia universe but instead of the Matrix it’s the Mass Effect video game franchise. The Mass Effect universe can be explored by playing the three main games, the many issues of comics as well as an animated film that all fill in the time jump between each game. This is a way to have multiple mediums to tell the same story that I can actually see myself making, so I’m really glad I read this reading.

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