The Story Lab – Week 3

This week in Story Lab we discussed how franchises can create immersive universes for fans to engage in on a multitude of platforms. This use of multiple platforms and mediums was described in the Henry Jenkin’s reading as transmedia storytelling – the telling of “a narrative so large it cannot be contained within a single medium”. In class we watched some of the Animatrix series, which acted as a prequel for the incredibly popular Matrix series. While I handed seen the films for a while, I could see how the links between these two things can be seen.

I was really interest of the idea of fan theories this week – from the vaguely credible to the wildly ridiculous. When creating an engaging and multifaceted narrative, and the universe in which that narrative, a fan culture is kind of inevitable.

My favourite that I’ve come across recently is the Pixar theory (which can be found at http://www.pixartheory.com), which proposes that all of the films produced by Pixar exist within the same universe, and when arranged in the right order, tell a story in which three distinct groups (humans/animals/machines) are constantly in conflict. It’s an interesting theory (I still haven’t made up my mind about whether or not I think it’s true) but it’s definitely an interesting take on a narrative universe.

My other favourite fan theory I’ve come across recently is much more simple – it’s a narrowing down of which state The Simpsons live. It’s incredibly more simplistic but I think it’s a hilarious. The one I found was (http://funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/2850888/Which/) butI’m sure there are plenty more out there!

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