MIT TechTV – Case Study: Transmedia Design and Conceptualization – The Making of Purefold

via techtv.mit.edu

Last June Ridley & Tony Scott as 'Free Scott' announced they would be developing a transmedia narrative called Purefold with Ag8 and the original buzz seemed to be that this would be a story extension of Blade Runner. And after that initial info, not much has been heard. This Dec. 2009 MIT Future of Entertainment panel finally provides a bit more info with four of the creators behind the project: David Bausola & Tom Himpe – Co-founders of Ag8; Mauricio Mota – Chief Storytelling Officer, co-founder The Alchemists; & Leo Sa – Petrobras, the brand partner working in development.

The presentation runs you through the following:

- introduction to the history of Purefold
- use of narrative filters to harvest the web
- near future setting (but not an extension of Bladerunner specifically)
- will use networked storytelling
- will use an open license

Right off the top, David poses the key question: ‘how can you take this interactive transmedia storytelling production thingy & give it real deep human resonance?’

and he turns to the engine of social media - empathy as a core experience motivating networked communication.

Outlining the project, some of the key points are:

- creative commons will be key in terms of generating an audience’s stake in the project allowing for repacking & remixing
- following this, Purefold will play with an ‘open media franchise’ meaning that the near future setting of 2-3 years will allow the episodes to play with possible futures, drawn in some part from imaginings of the audience.
- Their plans here seem to be long term with episodes rolling out over a number of years after launch
- Brands will function as THE financial partners and brand placement will be of future prototypes not existing products, allowing for audience feedback on the products placed within these near future stories - brilliant
- they site the idea: “innovation is listening to the unexpected”
- listening will then be the aggregation of data from audience feedback & chat then looping that info back into story development
- The series will run with an overarching narrative to Purefold & each of the brands has its own character representing the brand

Each episode will have 2 parts
- a proposition = what the advertiser wants to explore
- a synopsis = the character’s story is used to explore that
proposition

One example might be the mining of data around electric cars of interest to a brand partner, where the tags from that data might then become part of the inspiration for the writers.

David offers the fascinating idea that their social media aggregator, ‘Friendfeed, helps us dream, looking about the memories of what a episode should be.  The best rises to the top, which lets the writers focus on the things. The writers can chose what they want.'

This is going to be one wild and wooly ride for the creators and fascinating for those who want to participate and/or watch!

Posted via web from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales