What is Transmedia?

I was privileged to have attended a Transmedia storytelling masterclass conducted by Kate McCallum, in conduction with the Asia Festival of Children's Content Media Summit in Singapore. Details of the masterclass can be found here .

I had a hazy picture of what Transmedia was about and was not exactly motivated to do my 'homework' with the advertisement-cluttered website. In short, it was one of those 'stumbled-upon-gold-when-least-expected' moment.

In a nutshell (not that I am an expert now), Transmedia is immersive storytelling with content re-contextualized across platforms and cultures. A potentially ambitious and powerful one if you have a right concoction. In fact, the biggest non-fiction transmedia project to-date is the Obama campaign. Transmedia is as relevant in entertainment and branding or in education and learning and basically anything that has the potential of creating meaningful engagements with the target audience.

The video on Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins basically sets the context of transmedia. I find the following words particularly exciting: 1:45.

"Convergence culture is a world where every story, sound, brand, image, relationship plays itself out across the maximum number of media channels, It is shaped as much by the decisions made in teenagers better than it is by the decisions made in the Viacom boardroom." - Henry Jenkins

More on Transmedia, case-studies and moving forward with a sustainable industry.

In all, the biggest affirmation is that collaboration is ever more imperative in order for each specialist to shine. We should all work towards the whole than the sum of parts.