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I’m reading Christy Dena’s work on transmedia/crossmedia projects and her June 2007 ““Filmmakers That Think Outside the Film” is a terrific overview of how “Filmmakers are now thinking beyond cinema and DVD to include the web, theatre, books and mobile technology in their canvas.” Dena details some of the stand-out trans/cross media projects of the last decade, Peter Greenaway’s The Tulse Luper Project and the online game, The Tulse Luper Journey, the Wachowski Brothers’ transmedia storyworld generated by The Matrix, and The Blair Witch Project to name a few. She gives numerous examples of the extension of film assets across media platforms and remixing by audiences and directors. For those who are delving into the complexity of transmedia production, her essay provides numerous examples, links and details of trans/crossmedia campaigns.
One point she raises that I have not seen in other current discussions of transmedia storytelling that has been central to my own critical engagement with interactive narratives, is what she describes as the “treatment of the web as an expressive medium” where:
“works augment the film, providing a poetic rendition, but they also stand on their own as a work of art. They are at times a specifically designed prologue and epilogue. Indeed, some filmmakers push administrative detail to the side and instead prefer the films website to be a meditation on the theme.”
(source here: Lance Weiler’s Workbook Project - http://bit.ly/YjD3x)
The first three sites she refers to in this context, Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000); Christopher Nolan’s Momento (2000); Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko (2001), are the sites that started me thinking about the importance of identifying the core themes of a given work when adapting or extending a project into an interactive environment.
What I would add to this idea is that in designing an interactive adaptation or extension of a novel/film/ or other medium specific project, theme is one half of the designer(s)’ framing paradigm as the other half is defining the nature of the experience for the participant. Throughout the last decade the design company who created Requiem for a Dream and Donnie Darko, Hi-res, have redefined what a website experience can be when the aim is not on the commercial distribution of a brand and ancillary product. Designed to create immersive experiences for those who are already familiar with the primary works, Hi-res’ sites take an experiential essence of each work into our engagement with the websites.
So, in the case of Requiem for A Dream, the film’s excoriating examination of the desire for the instant fix and the psychic disintegration of those pursuing their desires is realized in the website’s resistant interface whose seeming crashes and escalating audio feedback are designed to frustrate our expectations of instant response and ease of use in the digital realm.
While Dena’s focus here is on filmmakers creating storyworlds that can “persist” (great word!) across media platforms, the reality of creation in the digital sphere points to the central importance of collaboration between the different realms of media production, which the extended world of The Matrix exemplifies. As Henry Jenkins details in Convergence Culture, while the Wachowski brothers created a story world rich enough to support multiple extensions, in some instances they did cede authorship of new content to their collaborators. Yoshiaki Kawajiri, the animator of Program. describes being given “complete freedom” to play in the Matrix world, a gift indeed! And, in the example of Requiem, the designer team Florian Schmitt and Alexandra Jugovic, watched the film once and then were given stills and the audio track of the film to work with. Their website arguably turned constraints into innovations and defined the design template that are hallmarks of Hi-Res’ production style. Now, I fully expect that when I read more of Christy’s work, I’m going to see variations of these ideas and new ones I haven’t thought of!
Last thought? The rise of participatory culture continues to alter how we perceive and engage with stories and storyworlds, though paradoxically, participation will continue to depend on the creative genius and dedication of those storytellers who can change our worlds.
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