For our transmedia project, we have decided to base our story on a young teenager named Connor who is essentially an isolated and anti-social young man. Conner is unsettling and weird and doesn’t know how to socialise or how to fit. He has a large sense of entitlement and believes deep down he is so much better than others, but not in an arrogant way (rather a delusional one). Audiences may identify with his sense of isolation and indifference, and it is important for them to be able to find something within Connor to root for, as the audience needs to care for our transmedia project to be a success.

The complexity of Connor lies within his introverted personality. He is the type of guy who has the potential to simply snap. And where this transmedia story starts is at the very cusp of his self titled “retribution”. Connor, after 6 years at the same high school, in a non-cliche way, isn’t invited to another house party. At this point, he decides to go the party and kill as many people as he can with his bare hands. He uses whatever he can as a weapon, and people are so drunk that they don’t question whether the girl in the bush passed out from too much alcohol. Everyone is having too much fun to realise Conner has drowned someone in the pool. Conner is trying to be smart and subtle about his murders and leaves the party without raising any attention.

Actor Thomas Bowman doing a screen test for an online video blog as Connor.

There is a specific sequence of how events will unfold. Connor’s story exists within the world that is created inside three online video webisodes (released in a specific order on Vimeo). The first webisode will be from the point of view of the neighbour who observes Connor as he comes to and from school. The neighbour may have a certain limitation which prevents him from leaving home thus excessively noticing little details and behaviour of the people around him. At some point, the neighbour observes Connor through his bedroom window, talking to himself at his computer. This is a push off point for audience members who can connect the clues and realise that Connor has an online video blog. The second webisode will be from the point of the view of the mum who may snoop around Connors room and find his diary in which he writes his inner most, darkest, twisted thoughts. This is a push-off point for our tangible transmedia object, Connor’s diary.

In between what happens in the second and third webisodes, Connor has cracked, and has turned up to the house party and murdered some of his peers. At this house party, there is a photographer who is taking photos of the people and highlights of the party. Another transmedia item will be the first of two newspaper articles: this article will be the initial reports of the murders at the party, simply speculating the murderer, victims, and what happened. The next day will be the release of the photo album in which there are photos where Connor is ‘lurking’ in the background, hinting that he was there during the sinister activities and could possibly be the murderer. Links to comments on the photos in the album can lead audiences to Connors Facebook page, and in turn, his youtube account. This will reveal to audiences his true backstory and what caused his ‘snap’.

The final transmedia objects to be released will be the third webisode and the second of the newspaper articles, which will reveal Connor as the murderer, and exactly how he killed his victims. Within the webisode and newspaper article, Connor’s full name and YouTube account will be uncovered so that audiences are directly lead to the online videos. Additionally, interviews with students from Connor’s school will reveal that they all think “he is a freak” and it “doesn’t surprise them that weirdo is the murderer” – revealing again, that the students still lack the empathy to understand Connor’s situation.

What has been considered is whether or not we need the final transmedia element: Connor’s online vlogs – perhaps the story could be more unique if audiences were to put their own idea of who the murderer is. Maybe the hunt for the murderer could be open for speculation amongst audiences based on visual clues in the Facebook photos and webisodes. This is something we will further discuss, as we have realised we do have quite a number of elements to this project; there are 5 of us but we may need to cut down somewhere to improve quality. We will all put in an even amount of work and definitely play to our strengths. A number of us are great with the technical side of production work, and others are better at pre and post production. Roles will be assigned according to these strengths. Persomally I am interested in doing the cinematography and photography for the webisodes and Facebook photos as I think constructing a story and implying certain ideas to audiences through only ‘showing’ is a fascinating area of storytelling.