What is Transmedia? And how has it aided the expansion of some genres

What is Transmedia? And how has it aided the expansion of some genres

Transmedia storytelling or Transmedia Narrative is a technique where a single story or idea is told over a wide array of media platforms and formats. With the aid of current digital technology this process is able to spread faster into new Medias that both support and enhance the story.

You may not even notice is, but it’s there, transmedia storytelling is in almost in every form and type of media.  Some times its clear to see, other times it is in the little things that link them together. The question is, has transmedia change? Or more precisely has it changed the way we tell the story?

This essay will explore how the TV and game franchise (Doctor Who and Assassins’ Creed) have both used transmedia to their individual advantages. Transmedia entertainment, mainly in film/TV or games is used to expand the given story and expand on it, giving the consumer more background stories, or in the case of Doctor Who, where it gives set target audiences their own show to watch

Transmedia in games

Assassins’ Creed has proven itself to be one of the most successful transmedia projects to date. Since Assassin’s Creed first appeared in November 2007 with its protagonist Altair in the third crusade. The Assassins franchise was born by the end of the game; the audience was left with a lot of unanswered questions. Two years later Assassin’s Creed II was released, with it a new story and protagonist a young nobleman by the name of Ezio Auditore da Firenzeand takes place in 15th Century Florence. However Ubisoft saw an opportunity to use Transmedia to advance the story.

This was done in the form of a 36 minute live-action film. This short film named Lineage is the prequel to Assassin’s Creed II and was released in 3 episodes, one week after each other on Ubisofts YouTube Channel. The short film revolves around Giovanni Auditore (Ezio’s father and Assassin) by the end of the film, Giovanni states “…always remember, we are the Auditore Firenzeand and we are the Assassins” and just before the credits we see a single phrase “the conclusion…is in your hands.”  The game picks up from this point, more or less.

Now following success of Assassins’ Creed II., its franchise has taken full advantage of transmedia story telling following the success of AC2 Lineage. In November 2010 The next short move promo to be releast was for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood named “Ascendance” unlike the first short film, this one took more of an animated still painted images approach [see fig 1] this film served as a small back story to the games plot and Ezio’s development. And just like linage as the film ends, Ezio states “I am Ezio Auditore and Like my father before me, I am Assassin.

Once again, in November 2011 the final game in the Assassin’s Creed 2 series and Ezio’s journey comes to an end with Revelations. Ubisoft produced yet another short film “Assassin's Creed: Embers” released  15 November 2011  , this time it showed Ezio now as an old man on a farm, once again dragged into the Assassin’s fight, this 22 minute animation also introduced the new faction to the Assassin’s brotherhood, a chines faction. And unlock the privies two films, Embers is set after the game rather than before it.

Other than crossing the games over to short films and animations, Assassin’s Creed has produced seven comics/ graphic novels. These graphic novels expand the Assassin’s Creed universe introducing additional characters,   (Assassin) and new common enemy’s (Templars). Some novels include

“The fallen” set in the late 1880’s Russia near the time of the Tunguska event. With Nikolai Orelov as the protagonist.
“The Chain” follows a new character called Daniel Cross, and it also serves as a backstory to the events in Assassin’s Creed III

And finally all the “main games” (Assassin’s Creed 1,2 brotherhood, revelations, 3 and 4) have a  series of books that follow along side of the main series. These books are as follows (order from AC1 to 4)

The Secret Crusade (June 23, 2011)
Renaissance (November 20, 2009) 
Brotherhood (November 25, 2010)
Revelations (November 24, 2011)
Forsaken (December 4, 2012)
Black Flag (November 26, 2013)

Although most of the books did not come out the same time as their game counterpart, each book follows the untold journeys each Assassin faced, most of them focuses more on further back story development and character development rather than adding to the existing story.

Transmedia in TV shows

Much like Assassin’s Creed that went from game, to comic, to mini film, and in between there were graphic novels and books containing backstories and additional plot lines of the games.

Doctor Who took a different approach to using Transmedia, to enhance its popularity and life span. It crossed from a TV series, to audio tapes, and from there, more TV shows, 1 film, a load of graphic novels, and in the past few years games and spin offs (tag talk about torchwood, how it has its own side/back story developments via the books)

Doctor Who is the longest running Science fiction program, it started in 1963 as a slot filler for Tea-Time TV, it Ended in 1989 and was brought back in 1996 but did not become  a weekly series until 2005. As of now 12 actors have played the time lord with the 13^th to start this year, this does not include the two feature films of the 1960’s staring Peter Cushing. Doctor who has numerous spin off franchises, these include books, radio plays, comics, film, mini-series, and TV shows.

Doctor Who was originally aimed towards family audiences and was intended   to be a more Educational program that would use the concept of time travel to visit historical and Scientific events , but it quickly evolved into a Sci-Fi adventure program, the show had captured the attention of the audience and has influenced many generations of views,. But this popularity could have come to a premature end after three years and 134 episodes (29 stories) later when William Hartnell decided to leave the show, due to his poor health which affected his physical and mental performance. In order to keep the show going, the Producers introduced the concept of “Regeneration”, however it was not until the third on-screen regeneration where the concept was explained. A Time Lord can regenerate no more than 12 times. During the regeneration process The Doctor will change his appearance, and also behaviour, “a new face a new man”…

This worked, and Doctor Who was on air for a good 26 years until in December 1989 the program was cancelled. 

Doctor Who on Radio

Throughout these years the BBC would release the audio of the episodes as radio broadcast on BBC Radio 7. This little jump to radio would save some of the “Missing Episodes”. As the name suggest in the early years the BBC never considered how big the franchise would get, and were carless to lose/ re-record over episode and even destroy the only copies. But because they had once broadcast them on BBC radio 7, most of the episodes audio were saved via off-air recordings by the fans. These recordings would later be used to digitally revive lost episodes.

 In May 1996 the BBC tried to revive the service by means of a film, the film stared Paul McGann as the Eight Doctor.  However the film was not a success and due to its failure, Doctor Who slowly started to fade although Paul McGann only played the Doctor for the film, He gave BBC the rights to use his likeness/image for all/any novels that would be made

Doctor Who Novels

The BBC still produced novels and audio versions of older episode well into 2013 as well as some re readings of older episodes/books read by Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor). To keep Doctor Who in the public interest, they started to release “classic” doctor who toys, these would include 6 inch figures (much like the star wars) and radio controlled 22 inch models, these included the black or silver daleks, k-9 and Who-1 (the Doctors Car)

In 2005 Doctor Who came back to BBC with Christopher Eccleston (as the Ninth Doctor), like Paul MCGann (Ninth Doctor) their only job was to revive the program, and get new people, Christopher Eccleston successfully achieved this, and in 2005 he was replaced with David Tennant (tenth Doctor, 2005-2010). Tennants popularity gives BBC a chance to expand the Doctor Who universe once more. This was done with two animated mini-series. 

Doctor Who Mini Animated series

The first is “Scream of the Shalka” aired November 13 – December 18 2003, and un-like the TV series, this was released weekly on BBC.co.uk Doctor Who page. This 6 part mini-series was produced to coincide with the upcoming 40^th anniversary.

The second being “the infant Quest” Aired April 2 to June 30 2007(total of 13 episodes, total running time 45 minutes). The Infant Quest has similarities to the animation/art style used in the lost episodes (flash animation)

The third being “Dreamland” was a CGI 3D animation short series and Aired “1-26 November 2009 (total of 5 episodes, total running time 42 minutes) and is the first fully 3D CGI Doctor Who show

Spin Offs

On December 28^th 1981 (during the original doctor who series. 1963-1989) a Spin off entitled “K.9 and /company” was aired, but there was only one episode made and it was called “A Girls Best Friend” it followed K.9 and Sarah Jane Smith, This episode was to serve as a pilot for the program and lasted 50 minutes. To celebrate the Twentieth Anniversary Sarah Jane Smith and K.9 re-appeared in “The Five Doctors” episode in 1983.

Following the successful revival of Doctor Who in 2005 a number of spin offs appeared. In 2006 Sarah jane Smith and K.9 were Re-Introduced in “School Reunion” in this episode Sarah Jane is investigating some strange activities at the school, when she finds the Doctor’s TARDIS .

In January 2007 the Sarah Jane Adventures started to air, this lasted 5 series (53 episodes) and ended 0ctober 2011. And in 2009 the Tenth Doctor appeared in “The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith”(series 3).
from November  5^th 2007 to November 24^th 2011, 11 audio Adventures of Sarah Jane Adventures were released to CD
From November 1^st 2007- to November 25 2010, 11 Novelisation of some episodes (mainly season one and two) and saw transition from print to E-Books

Once again following the success of 2005’s doctor who, a new character “Captain Jack Hartness” received his own spin off, entitled “Torchwood” whereas Doctor Who is aimed towards both adults and children, Torchwood is aimed mainly to the older audience due to its graphic nature, violence, strong language, adult humour and sexual content.  Torchwood ran for 4 series  (41 episodes) Airing from 22nd October 2006 to 15^th September 2011 In season one and two each episode had its own story, with some character development carrying into other episodes. However series 3 (Children of earth) and series 4 (miracle day) consisted of 6 episodes, that slowly developed a single story line. 

Torchwood has produced some of its own Spin-offs and merchandise. These include a total of 16 comics, short stories that were published in the Doctor Who magazine. A number of Radio Plays set between the 2^nd and 3^rd season. 
Between January 14^th 2007 and September 13^th 2012 a total of 19 Novels were published, each novel consisted of its own story line meaning they can be read in any order, but they do reference events from some episodes in the TV series on occasion.

Between April 2^nd 2007 to September 12 201217 Audio Books were released (only 6 of the novels were adapted into Audio books, the other 11 are Original Exclusive stories).

Doctor  Who Games

With Tennont’s departure, and the Eleventh Doctors (Matt Smith) Arrival the series once again expanded its universe, with a 4 part game series “Doctor Who, The Adventure Game” is a free to play download game with each episode (each level would consist of around 40-50 minutes of game play, much like the running time of the show) was released between June 5^th 20010 – October 13st 2012. The game played as a generic search, Stealth and puzzle game, but with the joy of playing as The Doctor. The game also served as a fact finder for its newer younger audience, via collectables, each would unlock some information about each Doctor and their adventures.

Muchandicing and expanding

In the Recent years Doctor Who has been expanding its grip on the community and expanding its universe with ever growing poularity. For many years now the fandom of Doctor Who have been busy making and creating their own original stories and adaptations of the bace show. Other then small 6 inch

 In the last month, its been announced that Doctor Who Lego has now entered Official Reviewing Phase after reaching 10,000 Supporters [1]. IF Doctor Who does come to LEGO, its guaranteed a Doctor Who: The LEGO  game will also be made down the line

Missing Episodes

As said earlier most, if not all the “old” episodes were released on BBC radio 7 and were recorded by fans, here is where Doctor Who used Transmedia to revive its self If the BBC were unable to recover a decent amount of video for the episode, they would re make the episode in a cartoon. Using any references they could find of the episode in question. In total around 8 missing episodes were animated to the newly Re-mastered audio.  The first lost episode to be animated was in Season 6 (third Doctor) episode 8 part 1 and 4 “the invasion”.  However the process of animating full episodes proved to be too costly to produce, regardless of its success.

With today’s computers becoming more powerful and more animating programs are widely available to the public, many fans have begun making unofficial animations of said missing episodes.

Most of the lost episodes were recovered from outside the UK; this is because most of the episodes were sold by the BBC to foreign TV networks. This would allow doctor who to be seen would wide, thus the world wide appeal of the program grew.

 Even though Doctor Who has technically been  running for 50 years they were still questions that have always been asked and still left un-answered, the main one being in the title itself, “Doctor Who?” who is he? And other questions like it.

Transmedia in Music

There is a small connation between assassin’s creed and music advertising, mainly Ubisoft’s adverts for Assassin’s Creed would usually feature a yet to be released music single by various artist, example of this include:

Assassin’s creed brotherhood- Passout by Tinie Tempah 
Assassin’s Creed Revelations- Iron by Woodkid
Assassin’s Creed 3 - Radioactive by İmagine Dragons

Through the years music artists have been using transmedia in their songs/ videos, this comes in two forms. Some musical artist such as Gorilaz would use 2d/3d characters as digital face for the music. But the main form of transmedia in music here would be how some artists such as Evanescence (Amy Lee) and Eminem (Marshall Mathers ) and how they use transmedia in their music to express themselves,  but mainly to tell a story, their story.

Eminem is more noticeable for this with his songs, most if not all would be related to drug use, alcohol or his kids and family. In addition to this, it clear to see where Eminem is having his ups and downs in life via his music[2] not all of Eminem’s albums are a part of his.

Evanescence has also been known to share her life experiences through her music; most noticeable being “hello” The song details her experience when she was informed at a very young age that her sister died. [3]

“Playground school bell rings again
Rain clouds come to play again
Has no one told you she's not breathing?”   [4]

Conclusion

‘‘How have these two franchises used the form of Transmedia to develop their “universe” and how has it impacted on its consumer/viewer/gamer?’’

The Assassins’ creed franchise showed up in 2007, and since then it has slowly been moving into new medias, it can be seen that Ubisoft is only using transmedia to advertise its games but it has also used transmedia to give some of its bigger fans, the consumer/gamer the opportunity to “get to know the Assassins background” better with the novels that accompany the games. On the other hand it can also be seen that they are using transmedia to gain extra money and that they don’t really care about the fans. Most of the games follow the same familiar, 7 to 9 sequences (chapters) and a number of main missions and targets to kill, once the targets dead, the games over.

Doctor Who used Transmedia, not only to expand its universe but to keep it “alive” even though the TV series stopped. Most of Doctor Who’s spin-offs were made with the idea of its audience. Doctor Who is for both younger and older audience, whereas The Sarah Jane Adventures is aimed primarily to the younger audience, and Torchwood is targeted explicitly to the older mature audience

Can one been to be more successful than the other, if so why?.

The answer is yes; Assassin’s Creed only used transmedia to give the consumer some additional back stories to the already existing universe. Regardless to the comics that take place in different countries. 


But as said Doctor Who used it, not only to keep its brand alive for 50 years and to expand their universe’s to attract different audiences, another way to see this confusion is, Assassin’s creed’s story must come to an end soon, since its main character (Demand) died, and the purpose of the games is to uncover the truth of the Templars, (which is getting closer to its conclusion with every game). On the other hand Doctor Who will always survive, 50 years later and we have more questions than answers and an ever expanding universe in multiple forms.

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Comics for film, games, and animation: using comics to construct your transmedia storyworld.  /  Weaver, Tyler  (2012)

Convergence Culture, where old and new media collide/  Jenkins Henry 2006

[
1] http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/lego-doctor-who-up-for-review-61718.htm March 14 2014, Accessed March 22 2014

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/feb/10/super-bowl-black-eyed-peas-transmedia Fembuary 10 2011, Accessed March 20 2014

[3] http://www.lyricinterpretations.com/Evanescence/Hello  December 9 2006, Accessed 21 march 2014

[4] http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/evanescence/hello.html  Accessed 21 March 2014