Project 3: Where we’re headed

Our transmedia narrative had picked up ever since Farina and I gained an extra 3 members. Essentially we’re still sticking with initial universal setting of an alien species taking over earth – shortly after which a resistance forms in order to overthrow said aliens. We’ve gone much more into detail over the last few weeks – polishing up and discussing certain elements to our narrative such as what kind of platforms are we going to use as well as getting a more detailed narrative synopsis written up.

As a group we’ve also decided rather than delve too deep into the specifics of the narrative plot, since we’ve decided to implement puzzles as a platform, we believed it to be better if we left the narrative to be influenced and changed by the puzzles themselves, as opposed to creating puzzles around a set narrative. We’ve also created roles and schedules/deadlines to do across the duration of the project. Although it’s a group effort, the roles are just a means of designating certain members of the group to ‘supervise’ a particular aspect of the project, e.g. character development, puzzle creation, creative designs, etc.

From what we understand of the project is more or less straight forward. Our objective is simple, to create a transmedia narrative across multiple platforms of digital and analogue forms of media in order to enhance and create a unique story. While the premise of our narrative seems pretty cliched and simple, it’s how we design our universe across these platforms which makes it engaging. Our main transmedia platform for this narrative are puzzles.

We’ve selected puzzles as our main platform because we thought it’d be interesting if we allowed the audience that sense of agency and interactivity when experiencing our narrative. We’ve created 4 characters which are part of the resistance, each played by a member of our group. These characters will present to the audience different types of puzzles and will allow audiences to join together in order to help one of these four characters. Depending on how well the audience manages to solve these puzzles may determine the ending and shaping of our narrative – hence we’re not creating a set plot at the moment.

In terms of roles, I’m in charge of supervising the creation and development of these puzzles. Although there are many other roles we haven’t designated people to supervise simply because we’re not at that stage of development. Although I say supervising, it’s more just keeping things in check as well as providing feedback to the other members as they pursue their own designs/puzzles/narrative ideas etc.

At this stage we’re obviously still designing and keeping an open mind to suggestions and changes but we’ve managed to design and create a poster for our project which Farina created and we all collaborated on:

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Audio Log Trailer Draft:

 

Transmedia Story Idea

For the upcoming projects regarding transmedia storytelling, Farina and I have decided to try and merge our two rough ideas together to create one universe. My idea provided the project with a universe and setting in which to place it. Namely the narrative takes place in a world where aliens have conquered Earth after humanity surrenders and signs an alleged ‘peace treaty’, sparking a new age for humanity.

Farina provided the project with a story line and end goal in which we’ll incorporate into the project. Farina’s initial story for project 1 revolved around a detective paranoid by noises of ticking around him, thinking it’s a bomb that he must find only to find out that the ticking originated from a metronome.

We decided to combine these two aspects of universe/setting and plot together to create a narrative that will revolve around a group of resistance members fighting against the alien forces though covert ops as they find out the true nature of the signed ‘peace treaty.’ This peace treaty while announced to the public that would bring humanity and the alien forces closer together in harmony, was actually signed by the leaders of humanity in order to negotiate the price of peace, that price being black op genetic research conducted in various gene labs located around the world, hidden in plain sight. The main transmedia narrative takes place as the aliens begin to find out that the resistance is closing in on one of their secret gene labs, and have decided to plant an explosive device that’s set to go off in a certain amount of time, making it look like an accident. The resistance members get word of this and plan to stop it before it explodes.

As for how we planned for this to be created as a Transmedia narrative, we planned on using things such as:

  • Journals/Diary Entries
  • Social networking sites
  • Audio/Video Logs
  • Puzzles
  • Posters

(These are just some of the platforms we’ve decided on, so they’re subject to change).

The journals/diary entries and audio/video logs will be used to help establish the characters (members of the resistance); as well as social networks, although we’re not sure at this stage.

Puzzles will be used as an interactive platform the audience an engage in, e.g. solving a encrypted message and posting it on a site/social network where the results of the message could affect the ending of the story.

Posters more just to establish the setting, to create something tangible that reflects the workings and setting of the universe.

That’s the initial idea, obviously this is all subject to change over time based on the complexity of how we want to create this narrative.