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The IFP’s Cross-Media ForumNYC is coming up April 19, and, as it approaches, several of its participants will be blogging for Filmmaker. Today’s first post is from Mark Harris, who will be presenting his new project, The Lost Children, at the event. Click on the link above for more info and tickets.
One of the things that excites me the most about “Cross-media,” “Transmedia” or whatever it is, is the idea of telling a story in many different ways. I know this may not fit into a lot of peoples’ definitions of these terms, but it’s an opportunity, I think.The "Face" on Mars
When I say telling a story in many different ways, I mean using Stanslavsky’s “magic if” in a slightly different way. For instance, the feature film THE LOST CHILDREN, treats the story of Evelyn Hamilton as a documentary. The events in the film are told as if they may all be in the protagonist’s head, and they may not. The “found footage” model is perfect for a case like this, where we want to audience to interpret what they’re seeing on screen. This is what makes things like UFOs, the “Face” on Mars, “Nessy” so exciting to us. These images that are not clearly distinguishable, so our imaginations go to work and build stories around them. That’s what I wanted in the feature film of THE LOST CHILDREN. I wanted to meet the audience half-way, and ask them to bring their imaginations to the table.
So the feature film makes certain assumptions about the universe the story is set in. But, what excites me about ”Cross-media,” “Transmedia” or whatever is that the other platforms you tell a story on, are under no obligation to conform to that universe. One of the things I will talk about at the Cross media forum on April 19th is how we’re going to try having other platforms make entirely different assumptions about the universe of the story. So one platform might assume that it’s all real. Another platform might assume it’s all in people’s heads.
I'm looking forward to hearing more about this one!
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