Month: April 2016

The Pitch…

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Today we presented our pitch for Classified to everyone. I think the actual pitch went quite well and was really well received. It enforced my belief that me and Luke have made a strong story that will hopefully play out well in terms of transmedia story telling. The feedback we received was quite constructive such as understanding that we need to tread carefully when starting a conspiracy theory website and the people we use as our characters. As the story has real world aspects there may be a dangerous element as people may feel it is real and take it on board. So we need to make it quite apparent that it is not real and it is fictional to avoid a potential disaster.

In addition the other thing I found really helpful was the comment that was made to really understand how we are going to deliver the information to the audience, in particular the physical elements. Maybe we should think about mailing it to the audience or ensuring what is delivered in class is done subtly and is of substance and intrigue. This is to keep the audience enticed by actually using subtle hints rather than huge chunks of information. Overall, I am excited to begin the process of producing the material and getting the story going.

Oatway…

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This weeks reading was by Jay Oatway and was called Mastering Story, Community and Influence : How to Use Social Media to Become a Socialeader. I found this quite useful and helpful especially with the project I am doing for this class now. As I have written I have started an Instagram about travel and photos of travel. In it I link the travel category of my blog. The reason I found the reading useful is because it helped in identifying the people and communities you need to be aware of and use to further your involvement in your community and gain traction. He lists the big five as:

  • Bloggers- “the new newsmakers”
  • Professional Groups- “group of experts who often derive some sort of livelihood from that expertise”
  • Topic Chats- “live, public online conversations”
  • Aggregators- “giant beast of curation”
  • Midfluencers- online presence who “hold a disproportionate amount of online influence” – Oatway

These major players are the aim of who to target when building your online presence. He goes into detail about how you can interact with the above so you can exchange “social currency” (Oatway, p99) However, he does emphasise that you shouldn’t always aim for he highest and utilise people who’s content is quality and specific to what you are trying to achieve. This is something I have really resinated with and have tried to implement this into my Instagram. I have tried to follow people with 1000’s of subscribers instead of tens of thousands to actually be able to communicate with them and interact.

References:

Oatway, Jay, Apr 26, 2012, Mastering Story, Community and Influence : How to Use Social Media to Become a Socialeader Wiley, Hoboken. 97-109.

My People…

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This past week I have been quite allusive of my blog and uni in general but I am back and ready to go (mostly). Networked Media is proving to be quite an interesting and complex idea. The online community is more than just being on the web. The next part of the course is to do with community and interacting with community. We have to delve in and immerse ourselves in a particular community. After a few days of actually deciding what I wanted to be apart of, I started to think well what is the best way to get across my ideas and words to a community. Then I thought well I have photos on my blog accompanying my posts so why not start an Instagram. It allows me to post many photos that I have and add comments to them.

So I did. I created an Instagram with the username @just_go_there. I set it to public and I was so surprised at the reception I have been getting. I only have two photos on there but through the use of hashtags and following similar subject accounts I have been getting some good likes and comments. I have been able to interact with the people viewing my content. I suppose the prospect of what I want to do with this Instagram account is actually interact with people who comment on my photos and also comment and communicate with people on their pictures. But for now I am fairly excited.

Classified Statement…

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Upon developing the idea for Classified, the story me and Luke are developing and telling through transmedia, we discovered a lot about our own abilities and techniques that we have developed over the two film courses we have done together. We have been able to single out the importance of certain characteristics of our story and emphasise the way we tell it visually and through text. The added idea of transmedia story telling made a smooth process in figuring out the way our story played out. The first step was to map out our story in pros and get a strong understanding of the events, characters and actions that make up the story. This process was a tad lengthy in itself but it was vital that we ensured we put the most specific and important detail into each statement or story progression. This did help us immensley when we went to figure out our pitch and making the trailer and poster.

We ended up going for a political thriller story about the British monarchy, the Scottish independence vote and a detective figuring out a murder. The best thing we could have done was to narrow it down and focus on the murder of the high leader. By doing this we were able to contain the story from becoming too long winded and more specific and achievable logistically. When it was time to organise the way we were going to divide up roles we decide as there was only two of us that we work on everything together and just change roles on each task to who was actually creating the piece of work. I personally had big involvement in the creating the presentation that will be used during our pitch, half of the work on the poster and the filming of the teaser trailer. I think me and Luke did a great job of dividing up the roles and working fairly. Something that probably has been built up by our couple of years working on projects together. The thing I found most helpful was doing the trailer last because we had the added benefit of organising the pitch first. By doing this it allowed us to get a deeper understanding of the story and what we are trying to say and allowed us to figure out the transmedia platforms we could use to tell it. So when it came to the trailer we organised the shots so they reflected the different importance’s of the story.

Overall, I believe that the story is strong and it has big potential to be a really interesting and smart story to be told over digital and non digital platforms. We can use the different entry points we have created to maximise audience involvement and the mystery of the final outcome. The other aspect that I believe makes the story strong is the twist that we have added at the end that will shock the audience and round the story out with a powerful ending.

Trailer:

The Guild and Transmedia…

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This week we looked at stories that were not big budgeted but achieved the same thing that a big budget movie does. It builds character, story and themes that help move the idea forward. After watching this we worked in pairs to figure out how these stories could become transmedia and work as a transmedia story. We come up with the below:

The Guild
  • Create the game the characters are playing. Open it up to the audience
. Pop ups of the characters discussing the game.
. In game episode
.creating new storylines
  • Spin off the different blog diary webisodes
. Insight into other characters and then how they prepare for the meeting
.Their perspective.
  • Character reviewing games in a podcast format
. Not really furthering story but it gets the group together again and adds a different level of understanding for people not loving the episode comical style but are more focused on the games
  • Website thats interactive where you can track down the main girl with the help of the indian guy 
. The backstory of his journey and the episode and allude to other things that character can do with his knowledge that could come into  play later
  • Graphic novel about them 
.  Could further the stories in the game.
. Adventures.
. Different character development between characters that wouldn’t usually be together.
. Exisiting stories could be furthered without need of actors and can be more imaginative.
  • Comic strip themed of the guild 
. Shorter to consume can entice people to look at the web series after they see the comic strip.
. Can add a more comedic and in-depth element.
.  Could further the stories in the game.
. Adventures.
. Different character development between characters that wouldn’t usually be together.
. Exisiting stories could be furthered without need of actors and can be more imaginative.
  • Animation of them in the game that they are playing 
.  Animated version of the graphic novel.
. People who prefer the animation and want to focus on that rather than real life.
After creating this it really ensured that a story that is strong has infinite possibilities to work as a transmedia piece of work. It made me think about our story that we want to do for our assessments. When thinking of it I can think of a lot of different platforms we could utilise to make get our story across and that made me certain that we have a strong idea.

Amsterdam…

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Untitled 5

Amsterdam is a place that transcends the way we perceive life. They have there on way of life that is free from a lot of stress, maybe to do with a certain something being legal there. The place itself is so mysterious and clean. As you walk through the tight streets and the ageless buildings that seem to be as clean as the day they were built you get an odd sense of freedom. Maybe because it was -3 degrees when I was there and you could smell the marijuana in the air. However, the people themselves are very laid back and carefree probably the reason I really enjoyed the city. As you walk with the river on one side and the buildings on the other you seem to crossover in mere seconds from the bustling of the city into an uncertain calmness that is then followed by the famous red glow. The streets become laced with some questionable characters but also many people there as tourists. Then you see it the women in the windows that everyone talks about. In a way I found it a great experience. It was so interesting to see the way people find the red light district so normal. I am not saying it isn’t but it is something that you don’t see here in Australia and it makes you wonder if we are to closed here and can we be more open like they are in Amsterdam. However, I suppose that is the reason we visit other places to experience new things and understand the identities of others.

Reflection…

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Blogging so far has been a journey of self discovery and trying new things for me. Throughout the past weeks I have seen my writing style change and I am writing with more confidence and distinction than I have recently. The interjection of our personal ideas into the blog is something that has given me confidence and a voice on the online community. I decided to write about my travelling experiences in my life not on a superficial level but in a way that I describe how they made me feel and really accentuate the identities of the places I have been. Examples of this are London Part One and London Part Two.

I have been able to implement the workshops from class into these posts. Particularly the idea of adding media to excite the reader and give them a visual tool. This all has to do with my online identity. This idea of identity in todays society is more prevalent as we deal with such a large medium of the digital world. We no longer are given work to consume then forget and move on. Today through the use of platforms such as the blog we are able to continuously update and reignite the things we write about. It has become more apparent to me the idea Adrian Miles talks about, that we have to give back to the community. The more we take the more we give back, which is essentially the foundation of the networked space. I explain this more in my post Print to Network.

The other major thing I have learned from my experience so far is just how much goes into creating and maintaining a blog. You need determination, organisation and you have to be creative and new all the time. Although we have prompts and readings to write on, starting a blog from scratch is hard work. The most fragile aspect of it though is ensuring that you are careful when it comes to copyright. I have learnt a lot about what it is to copyright and also that you need to protect your own content through the use of creative commons licensing. In a way it is a catch twenty two that you want your content out there for people to read but you don’t want it to be left unmonitored and leave yourself open to being copyrighted illegally. The challenge I face is that I need to use picture as aids for some of my posts but I have come to the conclusion to use my own pictures and ensure that brand names and copyrighted material are not shown in those pictures. I reference the idea of copyrighting in my post Copyright and Creative Commons.

Overall, the experience I have had so far has been a positive one. I could see this as a good creative outlet and a way to keep in touch with the ever-changing online landscape. With the idea of Hypertext and Hypermedia being accessed by the click of a button it is important that we keep up to date for personal and also professional reasons.

Ideas Referenced

Landow, George P. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print. 69-71, 77-85

Miles, Adrian. Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge [online]. Screen Education, No. 45, 2007: 24-30.

http://www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheets/info-sheet/legal-issues-for-bloggers/

Marvel and Transmedia…

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This weeks focus was based around Marvel and the way it uses transmedia to not only progress the films but also the way people experience the universe. Also the best way to make the most money. Looking at it on non-fan level it seems as if these films all follow the same plot lines with the same character in a different costumes. However, if you look into it further an try to consume it on a fan level a whole world of intertwining character, events, objects and so much more is apparent. These things tie together the films and give them all their own unique identity.

In Tuesday’s class we watched the start of Captain America and Agent Carter and in it we saw just how much these stories worked together. It showed the end of the Captain America movie as the start of the Agent Carter show and delves into the world of Peggy Carter. The most interesting thing I found with this show is how much one large overarching storyline can carry over into such a different type of show. I believe by watching the clips and being a marvel fan (not superfan) that the things that connect these movies and make them transmedia are the way characters, organisations and plot lines are continued throughout them.

The main reason I find the Marvel universe so interesting and believe it is transmedia is the way that the films have been adapted from the comic books. Kendall Whitehouse says “Hollywood has nothing on the comic book industry, which is a font of marketing techniques based on clever storytelling techniques. Comic books have explored — and exploited — narrative structure like no other medium.” (Whitehouse, 2012)  This phrase is the crux of why the marvel universe has done so well. They are not afraid to, like the comic books, play with the way story is told and written. The structure is not linear but rather ongoing and continuous. Ultimately, an interesting ploy by Marvel backed with lots of money to create smart and interesting transmedia narrative.

 

Hootsuite and Interactive Posts…

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Today we explored the site Hootsuite. The site allows you to link multiple social media and blog streams into one account. From the dashboard you are able to control and time posts on all of the social media platforms. Not only can you time posts and uploads you are able to navigate and the different platform from this one site. If anything it promotes organisation and professional continuity between your different social media and other media platforms. It allows a continuous and ever-growing online identity. Personally this type of program I believe is catered for businesses and people trying to get there image out there due to it being a simple and user friendly site to manage all their social and promotional events. Personally not being a huge social media contributor I find it simple to navigate my way through the different individual apps. Ultimately, I can understand the benefit of the site but would probably use it in a more professional environment rather than for myself personally.

Also this week we were asked to look through articles and stories that have an interactive element to it. I found the easiest way to relate this task to travel was to do a rather simple and straightforward quiz. I completed the “Whats your travel personality?” quiz (Take the quiz yourself , Buzzfeed). The purpose of why I chose this is because it highlights the elements of the interactive way of connecting with a subject. It gets you thinking of yourself as a person and how that relates to who you are as a traveller. I am happy to report to you I am ‘The Wanderer’. The thing I found most interesting is that once you complete one quiz it doesn’t finish but it suggests other travel quizzes and you get stuck in an endless cycle of finding out everything about the type of travel you do.