As movie brands land in cell phones, video games and websites, a whole new discipline emerges in Hollywood — transmedia –which is planting film properties in places besides the silver screen.
A “Los Angeles Times” article by Ben Fritz examines the transmedia process with Jeff Gomez and Mark Pensavalle, who are co-founders of specialist marketing agency Starlight Runner Entertainment.
The process includes drafting a bible of 100 to 400 pages that fleshes out characters and concepts in greater detail than they are presented in the movies themselves. The bibles also facilitate creating original stories, but that are true to the film.
“On ‘Tron: Legacy’ and the second and third ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ films, the six-person team at Starlight, based in New York, served as a bridge between the filmmakers and the people behind the theme park attractions, games and cruise line shows,” says the “LA Times” article.
“The Starlight team helped flesh out storylines for spinoffs that fit the movies and came up with moments to connect the different incarnations,” the article continues. “In one such ‘transmedia tip,’ Olivia Wilde’s character in ‘Tron: Legacy’ discusses how she was saved from death. Players of the video game ‘Tron: Evolution’ — a prequel to the movie — would recognize the reference, since they are the ones who rescue her at the end of the game.”
Hollywood’s Producers Guild of America actually codified the transmedia credit, reflecting its importance and making sure film credits accurately reflect who contributed.
The PGA defines this as a “project or franchise of one that consists of three (or more) narrative storylines existing within the same fictional universe on any of the following platforms: Film, Television, Short Film, Broadband, Publishing, Comics, Animation, Mobile, Special Venues, DVD/Blu-ray/CD-ROM, Narrative Commercial and Marketing rollouts, and other technologies that may or may not currently exist. These narrative extensions are NOT the same as repurposing material from one platform to be cut or repurposed to different platforms.”
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