Throughout the collection practical work that has been created I have attempted (whilst keeping the media and techniques appropriate to the IP) to incorporate and demonstrate as many techniques that can be seen in transmedia storytelling as I could. The way a stories contained within a fictional universe can branch off in multiple directions means that techniques need to be used to allow the different stories to take place. The inclusion of character back stories is a good way to provide context for a character and also provide some information about the universe in a different time frame - whether that is a short or long time from the present timeline. Taking The Walking Dead as an example, several back stories or diverted time frames are used to provide context and further develop characters within the world. The Governor, Morgan, Glenn and various relationships have all been unpacked within the franchise to add depth and a larger worldly element to the franchise. Again, this also employing the technique of familiarity in respect to the nature of people whilst also satisfying audiences curiosity and filling in a blank space so to speak with a given character. In my practical investigation I chose to utilise this technique and write a character called 'Jakob'. The first and main entry point into the universe was chosen to be in the form of a graphic novel because its ability to function as both a visual and written document that is easy to access and distribute on a budget. The character Jakob, is only seen once in the first issue until his planned introduction in the second issue via radio communication with the main group. The intention from this point is that he becomes a main character, with this, the opportunity to provide his character with some backstory, satisfying the audience regarding his history and what happened to him at the time of the event. One of the key components of the nature of this story is seeing how different people react and deal with this kind of catastrophic scenario. The backstory provides another example of this, but also in a way demonstrating who he was before the event and peeling back another layer to a hopefully complex character. This will details details that otherwise can't be obtained, such as what his wife was like and what happened to her that means they aren't together at the point he is introduced.
Converse to the implementation of backstories and jumping around a fictional timeline to fill in information gaps, a look into the future can have a similar effect. For the purpose of a practical investigation I attempted to have a broad range of media across a broad timeline within in the context of this particular apocalyptic story. Aside from the present time the story is set, the past and future are relevant to developing the world and appeals to the audience in terms of finding out further information about the unknown. Stories set in the future of the story world I created are quite important to demonstrate the difference between the pre-event and post event world to varying degrees. The past is shown as a normal world, identical to reality, shortly after the world changing event takes place the world all of a sudden looks very different and new concepts are introduced to the audience to demonstrate this face - with no power, what do people eat? How do they get clean water or communicate? How do they stay warm? And so forth. This change is what shapes the world, and the characters that inhabit it. So looking even further past the immediate time after the event where the world looks even more different from reality - a world that has been decimated by having to endure several decades of a nuclear winter style climate. Short stories, illustrations and physical artifacts are things that I thought would work well within the small-scale project I was creating to use this technique and allow the audience to piece together the idea of this particular story world for themselves. In particular, showing a main character or main characters years in the future could be an interesting way to continue their story.
Of course, one of the aims of a fictional world is to make it as detailed and layered as possible to emulate reality in its perceived complexity. To incorporate this into my own example of transmedia storytelling, I chose to use the audio from several phone calls taking place at the same time that the event occurs. Through this the loss of communications is illustrated, but there is a more interesting aspect to this approach. I chose to layer several conversations on top of each other so that bits and pieces of each conversation break through at a given time. Within the scripts there are subtle clues that allude to the nature of the apocalyptic event but also are consistent with various visuals and descriptions across the other media that mentions or includes the event. This was also an attempt to incorporate aspects of ARGs where real world platforms such as phone conversations or newspaper articles are used to further the story, and in terms of marketing these audio files could be included or combined with other media to provide some more information about the world without handing it to them directly. Similar to the way that Henry Jenkins talked about the audience members acting as hunters and gatherers, seeking information to further and enrich their experience.
Finally, I have attempted to use physical artifacts to develop scenes, key events and show alternative viewpoints. These are in the form of Polaroids, taken by one of the main characters who acquires a Polaroid in the graphic novel outlet of the story world. This was an attempt to bring certain small aspects of the story to real life and create depth and immersion this way. Furthermore, the creation of a house plan to show the layout of the main characters' house was included for fun, and another piece of information for the audience to take, similar to the way a map of a fictional world may be included to show the locations of various places. This could be used by the audience and compared to scenes throughout different media showing the house, or simply just another layer of information within the story world.
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