Based on the theories, models, and concepts discussed in Week 1 and 2, students will write a 500-word report on an example of narrative that plays with structure, convention, or traditional ideas of what a ‘story’ could/should be. Students might explore an experimental novel (historical or recent), for instance, board game, TV series, or a story that unfolds across several platforms. Note that the case study cannot examine an example that has been set for the studio. Students will present this research to the class in Week 3.

In years past, superhero films from Marvel Studios had been met with limited success, but it wasn’t until Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige realised that Marvel still owned the rights to the core members of The Avengers.  Feige envisioned creating a shared universe of films just as creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had done with their comic books in the early 1960s.

Marvel’s ambitious plan was to mimic the “rhythm” that the original comic books had developed, by releasing individual films for their main characters and then merging them together in Avengers crossover films, which would act as “linchpins” for the films that had come before.  The shared narrative continuity of these films, dubbed by Feige as the “Marvel Cinematic Universe”, has been assigned its own “Alternate Earth” within the continuity of the company’s multiverse.

The franchise has since expanded to include short films, known as Marvel One-Shots, and multiple television series, as well as tie-in comic books, which are also set entirely within movie continuity.  The shared universe, much like the original Marvel Universe in comic books, was established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast and characters.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen multiple cast members and characters appear across its different platforms of media.  Clark Gregg has portrayed Agent Phil Coulson, an original character to the MCU, in four of the franchise’s films, as well as two Marvel One-Shots, before being cast as the lead in the MCU’s television series debut Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..  Samuel L. Jackson has also appeared frequently as S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury in almost all of the MCU films to date, as well as having numerous cameo appearances in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., while Hayley Atwell, who starred as Peggy Carter in the Captain America franchise and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. also spawned her own television series in Agent Carter, following the success of her appearance in a Marvel One-Shot of the same name.  All three characters have also been featured in at least one official tie-in comic.

Marvel Studios had to develop a specific business plan in order to create a cohesive shared universe.  When the studio hired Kenneth Branagh and Joe Johnston to direct Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, respectively, it was made clear that both directors were involved in a part of a shared universe, and that they would have to include certain Avengers plotlines in order to link their films to the eventual assembly of the superhero team and vice-versa.

“You’re constantly pitching out ideas that not only affect your movie, but may have a ripple effect that affects other films.”

–  Joe Russo, co-director of Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Writer and director of The Avengers, and head creative consultant for Marvel Studios, Joss Whedon, described the process of planning a plotline to take place over multiple films; “It’s a dance…  You want to honour the events of the last movie[s] but you don’t want to be beholden to them, because some people will see Avengers: Age of Ultron who did not see any of the movies inbetween – or even The Avengers (1).  [Sometimes] you’re given a bunch of pieces and told to make them fit – even if they don’t.”

“[It’s important to] understand how to take a larger story and wrangle into a moment, yet keep it connected…  There are big pieces that [Feige] knows he wants to build towards, but the way that you get there is open to interpretation and improv….” 

–  Anthony Russo, co-director of Captain America: The Winter Soldier

After the release of The Avengers in May 2012, Tom Russo of Boston.com noted that the idea of a shared universe was almost entirely a new concept, unheard of in Hollywood.  Tuna Amobi, a media analyst for Standard & Poor’s Equity Research Services, stated that in the last three to five years, Hollywood studios began planning ‘mega-franchises’ for years to come, opposed to working one blockbuster at a time.

Speaking about Marvel’s expansion to television, Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times praised Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the integral connections between the films  that ultimately (and dramatically) shaped the series, stating that “never before has television been literally married to film; charged with filling in the back story and creating the connective tissue of an ongoing film franchise”.

Evidently the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a profound impact on popular culture, with the University of Baltimore announcing a course beginning in 2015 which would explore the concepts behind the creation of the MCU.  The course, ‘Media Genres: Media Marvels’, examines “how Marvel’s series of interconnected films and television shows, plus related media and comic book sources… offer important insights into modern culture… [as well as] uncover the unprecedented efforts by Marvel to establish a viable universe of plotlines, characters, and backstories”.

REFERENCES:

Giovagnoli, Max. (2011). ‘Chapter 2: Plan Transmedia.’ In Transmedia Storytelling: Imagery, shapes and techniques, pp. 34-54. Halifax, Canada: ETC Press.

McKee, Robert. (1997). ‘The Substance of Story.’ In Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York, USA: HarperCollins, pp. 135-154.

The Winter Soldier: Has America Changed Too Much for Captain America? – IGN, (2015). The Winter Soldier: Has America Changed Too Much for Captain America? – IGN. Available at:http://au.ign.com/articles/2014/03/06/the-winter-soldier-has-america-changed-too-much-for-captain-america?page=4. [Accessed 13 March 2015].

‘The Avengers’ collects all your favorite Marvel characters in one handy wannabe blockbuster SUPER GROUP  – The Boston Globe, (2015). Available at:http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2012/04/29/the_avengers_collects_all_your_favorite_marvel_

characters_in_one_handy_wannabe_blockbustersuper_groupthe_avengers_assembles_all_your_favorite_

marvel_characters_in_one_handy_wannabe_blockbuster/. [Accessed 13 March 2015].

Inside ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’  – EW.com, (2015). Available at:http://www.ew.com/article/2014/04/08/amazing-spider-man-2-sony-magazine. [Accessed 13 March 2015].

Marvel Cinematic Universe – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2015). Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe#cite_note-ASM2EW-148. [Accessed 15 March 2015].

  What elements of storytelling are being relied upon here?

The image above is meant to loosely relay the narrative from the musical Les Miserables, relying purely on emojis.  For me personally, this example is perfect in evaluating how effectively emojis can convey a narrative, because not only do I have extremely limited prior knowledge of Les Miserables, but also only recently bought myself a smart phone, so my personal emoji databank has only ever consisted of those made up from the 12 button keypad numbers and symbols, such as 🙂 , :’( , 😉 and <3 (and even that last one rarely gets a workout).  So it’s fair to say, that upon first ‘read’, the first line of Les Mis in Emojis read something like this: “locked padlock, sad face, unlocked padlock, happy face, man farts”.  I was clearly interpreting them far too literally.  Cheating a little, after reading the synopsis on Wikipedia, it becomes clear that this is about a character that is released from prison.  Rejuvenated and educated with a new way of thinking, turning back to the collection of emoticons however, proved less fruitful than I’d anticipated.  From the emojis, I could guess Les Mis was a musical judging by the many musical notes emojis (although this is influenced by previous knowledge), and that it was at least partially set in France (but this could be guessed from the musical’s title itself).  Knives, guns, explosions, skulls and crying-smileys (is that a paradox?) hint that there’s probably some death and murder in there too.  It quickly becomes clear that the elements of storytelling that are being relied upon in this instance is that not only does one need to be more cryptically-minded in interpreting the emoji chains, but also more importantly to have actually seen Les Mis, at least to fully appreciate the effort the creator of this piece has gone to.  Les Mis in Emoji is very similar to a project Emoji Dick designed by data engineer Fred Benenson, who translated each line of Moby Dick to emojis.

  To what level is the viewer an actor in this particular media object?

It would be hard to call the audience an actor for this particular media object, largely because I don’t feel as though the audience in this instance are as much a part of the narrative as they are agents of interpreting it.  The audience are given a substantial amount of agency in intervening in this work, with the ability to produce their own narrative; they are participants in the story, as opposed to being a character.

  Is it the story or the plot that’s being told?

After first defining the difference between story and plot, where story indicates a series of events much like a history timeline does, whereas a plot adds dramatic, thematic and emotional significance to the story, it is safe to assume that the Les Mis in Emojis conveys only the musical’s story.  Using the first line as an example, we can establish this character has been freed from some form of captivity, but that is all.  We have no way of knowing for sure whether he is a protagonist or antagonist (if indeed he is male), where he was imprisoned and for what reason, and if he escaped or was released.

  Have/has emoji altered the way we communicate?

It would likely be a stretch to say that outside the world of social media and mobile devices that the emoji has impacted upon or even altered the ways we communicate with those around us.    However, in that world, the emoji has dramatically changed ‘text talk’ at least for the foreseeable future.  Emojis allow us to communicate without typing a single word, as ambiguous as they can be as superficial.  Linguist Ben Zimmer has described the use of emojis as “completely organic”, with people making their own rules up as they go.  Some even believe the emoji has literary potential.  Personally, I just prefer to send a 🙂 rather than implicitly state “I am happy” and sound like the talking dog from the Disney Pixar film Up .

  What cultural customs does the emoji tap into – does it change those customs?

Again, I doubt whether the emoji has changed any significant cultural customs outside of the digital realm.  It’s not as though smiling emojis and love hearts are being attached to the end of wedding invites or crying faces are being engraved into the dead’s tombstones.  Instead, the recent prolific use of the emoji in text speak reflects the rapidity and lack of time most people seem to have to share with others in today’s society, and conversely signifies the ‘Gen Y and Z’ who are just getting lazier.

“Before we can talk about how to make great transmedia projects, we have to clarify what we mean when we say ‘transmedia storytelling’”, Max Giovagnoli begins his chapter in A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling.  It also seems like the perfect way to begin reflecting on this week’s introduction to The Story Lab.  Originally coined by Dr. Marsha Kinder, the term transmedia was later extrapolated by Dr. Henry Jenkins to describe heavily integrated narrative that could be intertwined across different media components such as films, video games and graphic novels, so that “a character can walk offstage in the game and appear in the film in his very next breath”.

Giovagnoli describes the divide between the different types of transmedia as being known as East Coast versus West Coast transmedia.  West Coast transmedia, or Hollywood or franchise transmedia, may consist of larger media platforms, such as feature films and video games, and is grounded in big-business commercial storytelling.  Plotlines and characters are interwoven across the different platforms, although each piece is able to be consumed independently, yet still forms part of its own smaller but complete narrative.  Giovagnoli uses the big-budget examples of Star Wars and The Matrix. East Coast transmedia however, is described as being much more interactive and web-based, incorporating elements of live scavenger hunts, short films and the use of social media.  The plot is so tightly interwoven across the various platforms that a narrative may only become clear after audiences interact with at least a majority of the project.

It is the ideas and criteria behind East Coast transmedia that we will be heavily relying upon when the time comes to create our own transmedia project as the final assessment for The Story Lab course.