Now that the dust is beginning to settle, one question remains: Was our project a successful transmedia Narrative?
(Thanks to Sam’s awesome post and his elegant summary of Jenkins definition of transmedia)

So how did our Project stand up in the Jenkins Test?

1. Can discrete parts be enjoyed autonomously?
To an extent, obviously by viewing a single aspect there is shallow understanding of the story universe yet the particular artefact makes some sense. In saying this, immersive theatre installation relied upon audiences viewing blog content to then understand some of the more obscure back-story. We tried to curb this by presenting print copies of journals as well as a computer with the ACTIV office so they could go back and check aspects of the story. So I guess the answer is to an extent, you could for instance follow the twitter accounts and see a simplistic story of two opposing forces abusively tweeting one another with some Q&A thrown in for good measure.

  1. Did each medium play to its strengths?
    I think that this was probably the aspect of transmedia that we explored the best. To lure people into the story we placed provoking posters around RMIT with an entrance point into the story. We utilised a twitter account for brief summations of progression of Jeff’s campaign that allowed us to retweet other content that added to the narrative. The video posted on Youtube was shared on both twitter and the blog of ACTIV and allowed people to comment and to move between platforms and finally we had the installation piece, which gave the audience some degree on agency in as they uncovered aspects of the story.
  2. Did it contribute to a greater whole?
    I believe that each element did contribute to the whole but in saying that the whole was somewhat difficult to consume as an audience member. The narrative required some level of engagement throughout the campaign period to fully understand the installation. So I guess the answer is yes. Ned and I developed a narrative that could have been presented as a film or prose piece that we then sliced up and distributed across the different mediums. Consuming each part individually aspects of the narrative were experienced but the whole only become clear when all content was viewed.