We’re drafting a GLBT transmedia narrative with the Emmy-winning sudser Peter Brash. So in order to smarten up on soaps, I’ve been reading the writings of our pal Sam Ford.
While at MIT, Sam’s studies focused on the worlds of soap operas and professional wrestling – two highly sophisticated narrative structures that are all too often looked at askance.
These two worlds provide an unparalleled on/offline space for fan immersion into narrative. One of the best examples I’ve ever seen is described below, cribbed from his thesis As The World Turns in a Convergence Culture
The most interesting of these interactive extensions…launched in late March 2007. Brad and Katie, two characters on As The World Turns who host a (within text) show called Oakdale Now, decided to have a contest where viewers would write in explaining why Brad and Katie should come to their home and help them complete their least favorite household chore….
Brad and Katie then choose one of the entries for a cash prize and would also go to their home to do the chore, with the cameras rolling. The twist, though, is that the contest was actually opened to ATWT viewers, with the winning essay getting a $5,000 cash prize and a visit from Brad and Katie to do the promised chore, with the actors actually coming out to the winning fan’s home in character.
The show aired them doing the chore as a segment filmed for their Oakdale Now show, making one of the fansâ€â€and their homeâ€â€part of the narrative world. As opposed to the other interactive forms of content, this Oakdale Now contest [actually] invited viewers to become part of the narrative.
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Fiction intermixing with Game Show, Reality and News Magazine structures. Note that Brad says they got 25,000 entries. Pure Genius.
ARGs have traditionally been built for the heavy user – Audi’s Art of the Heist, Halo’s I Love Bees, Batman’s Dark Knight. They all rely on the curiosity and narrative diligence found within the networked smarts of fandom. The payoff may be an invite to an exclusive pre-screening, but that’s not the true ROI for hours invested, it’s the joy of participation and the thrill of the hunt.
While this space has historically been the turf of a small, dedicated group, this model proffers new territory for product placement within film and tv narratives. It draws on the new behavior patterns of a lean-forward life – one in which videogames are surpassing films for screentime. Brand integration can dance with our 2.0 impulse to search and to win, and can reach far further than just hardcore fans. Again, thru the rabbit hole framework of Fall Down, Walk Up, this is an idea we’ve been mulling in our lab.
So. Imagine if our protagonist Alex Tyler is standing outside a SoHo loft, talking with a potential client. A wheatpasted concert poster is in the background, either with the name of a band or a URL. I’ll wager that even casually curious viewers will Google the name while watching – presenting a chance to steer them toward a website, to reward them. In traditional transmedia or ARG, this would further the narrative (a la Lost) – but what about this being an opportunity for a giveaway? The first XYZ people who land on the site win – a gift certificate to iTunes, a round-trip from JetBlue, an exclusive shirt from the Gap. Multiple brands could participate throughout the text, and degrees of difficulty would correspond to the prizes. To keep people trying – stagger the victories, every 20th person, a la the days of calling a radio station for concert tickets.
This type of living product placement was (kinda) experimented with by KFC. But the reward was minimal, and it was an interruptive effort to make you watch a dull spot. If this type of content is alive within good narrative, game on. It plays with our impulse to poke signs and symbols – for ‘real’ reward. DVDs could even have different cookies than the content as seen in the first go round.
Content needs financing and brands need engagement – I see opportunity herein. Over the past few years there has always been talk about inserting hypertext into film and video narrative – you roll over the dress worn by a Gossip Girl and are then fed info and a link. While this makes sense on paper, and seems to mimic current behavior, it’s banal. We wanna hunt and kill our prey. We are unwitting gamers, hoping to challenge and reward our inner detective, even if only for five minutes.
A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole. -Henry Jenkins
I saw the below vid last week and can’t get it off my mind cause it portends where transmedia planning could go. There is still so much space that narrative has not yet intersected with our everyday life. People’s Court and Quiz Shows were the 1st step, Real World and Survivor was the 2nd and now the space of ARGs is slowing beginning the 3rd, one which blurs the genres of narrative/gameshow/reality.
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At Desedo we’ve penned a single-camera narrative series through which to explore this framework, below are some notes from our whiteboard, would welcome feedback (perpetual beta, of course).
Fall Down, Walk Up
Alex Tyler, a 33-year-old law grad who never passed the bar, has spent the last eight years job-hopping and playing second fiddle to her Wall Street husband. To date it’s been a posh but empty life. When her marriage implodes, Alex winds up broke, humiliated and living in a seedy midtown apt. Now at the bottom of the NYC food chain, she stumbles her way back up working in the billion-dollar maze of Manhattan real estate.
How far could this go? What if Lost‘s Hanso Foundation actually existed? Or you could hire the law firm from Boston Legal? Or buy property from the Fall Down, Walk Up real estate brokerage?
Alex Tyler’s brand association with real estate would not just be a form of product placement – the actress playing her would either be integrated into the fabric of an actual company, or we could create a ‘real’ real estate company through which she would host open houses and sell property – off camera, wholly legal (real), yet within narrative (fake).
Once we jump offscreen and into the physical landscape of NYC, Fall Down, Walk Up further enables the casual viewer to interact with narrative. Thanks to Seinfeld, thousands of tourists visit Tom’s Diner on the Upper West Side. Imagine if, as part of Jason Alexander’s contract with NBC, he ate three meals each year at the diner in character as George Costanza. No cameras, just a blurry world in which neither the media nor the fans know what is ‘real’. People would approach him as Jason, yet he would respond as George. Within this territory of incredulity and confusion, once captured and sent via cameraphone/text/ twitter, you would further draw people into the narrative – and the following week George commenting to Jerry about the strange people calling him Jason.
Like Jason Alexander at Tom’s Diner, NYC locations could be populated with characters in ‘reality’ from Fall Down, Walk Up – Alex’s co-workers, her coffee shop, her dog run. The waiter at Nobu on whom she is crushing would also actually work at Nobu. Talent would be hired to remain in character not just on set, but 24/7, and like Lonely Girl, the talent would have to begin as unknowns. Slowly it could create a space in which people can intersect with and potentially influence the narrative.
IMHO, this is a next step, beyond Pimp My Ride, voting on American Idol or spoiling Survivor. Beyond the technical intricacies and legal loops, it ultimately relies upon participation, so is this fertile ground for real fans?
*
It’s a Friday night and Alex Tyler is at her local bar. A young man asks “Aren’t you an actress on that series?” Alex responds with a sly look “No…I sell real estate; but wanna buy me drink?”
— (HT to Yianni for the vid)
