#tmwhof

[transmediawriting]

TMW Hall of Fame: E.A.R.T.H Organized

By the time she entered my class, Keren Green had already fleshed out her original sci-fi storyworld quite a bit, expanding it from a short story, “Pancakes,” into a TV pilot script with accompanying story bible, called Back on Earth.

For her Transmedia Writing Hall of Fame project, E.A.R.T.H Organized, Keren brought her original story’s fictional UFO conspiracist Charlie Wyze to life via his own YouTube channel, website (which contains an interactive map in the “Reports” section) and Facebook Page (where you’ll also hear “captured” audio and see Charlie’s fictional friends Henry Morgan and Anita Gower joining the conversations.)

[transmediawriting]

TMW Hall of Fame: The Zero O’Clock Hour

My former student (and current writer, producer and actor) Alix Maria Taulbee joins the Transmedia Writing Hall of Fame with this multi-platform expansion of her original horror short story, The Zero O’Clock Hour.

Treating the events of the original period piece as if they were real, Alix created this impressively authentic-looking “VHS footage” that’s allegedly been dormant since the 1980s, when it was banned by the freaked-out citizens of Whispering Pines. The in-story production company “American Classic Horror Films” finally uncovered this footage and released some of it to the public — there’s a bonus link in their YouTube channel that expands their fictional web presence even more.

[transmediawriting]

Some of you may know about the Transmedia Writing Hall of Fame, where I give props to some of the best student projects in my class at Full Sail University.

For a while, the class project was done in small groups, with each team of Creative Writing BFA students working together to adapt a public-domain story into an immersive, interactive, transmedia experience. (Anything you see published before this post, tagged #TMWHOF, will be one of those group projects.)

Nowadays, each Transmedia Writing student works on their own individual project, taking an original story they wrote in another class and expanding it onto two or more additional platforms, making it “come alive” for their audience. 

The posts published after this one, tagged #TMWHOF, will be those newer projects — each produced by a single student in just three weeks.

I’ll be posting some of the best of these new individual projects soon — please join me in congratulating these Transmedia Writing Hall of Famers!

[transmediawriting]

TMW Hall of Fame: Cooking With You: A White Horse Adventure

“Within this adventure you are the elusive ace reporter White Horse searching for that next big story. A possible lead comes your way when you retrieve your new messages. Let the adventure begin!”

This latest student project to join the Transmedia Writing Hall of Fame was inspired by Charles Dickens’ Captain Murderer (which some literary historians believe was an early inspiration for Sweeney Todd, if that gives you faint-of-heart folks a clue where this entertainingly twisted story experience is headed....)

The creators of Cooking with You weave an expansive and immersive storyworld using multiple websites (including the “virtual office” of titular reporter “White Horse,” played by YOU), blogs, phone calls, and a simulated “video chat” in which you determine the ultimate outcome of the story.

Congratulations to my former students and new TMW Hall-of-Famers Heidi Bromund, Lisa Di Nuzzo, Darren Manzie, Anthony Redgrave, and Julie Robinson!

[transmediawriting]

TMW Hall of Fame: Maria

Your immersive, interactive journey begins on the corporate website of Metropolis Industrial Design, where you get a vague sense of the fictional company’s techno-futurist optimism...but it’s not until you contact the company via email that you really begin to go down the rabbit hole, and discover that their latest A.I. project may be more problematic than their seemingly earnest CEO has been letting on....

This latest student project in the Transmedia Writing Hall of Fame was inspired by Thea von Harbou’s 1925 sci-fi novel Metropolis (later adapted by her husband Fritz Lang into the iconic silent film of the same name.) It uses a slew of digital platforms to weave its impressively expansive storyworld, including websites, emails, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, and a ThingLink interactive map. It even lets you determine the ultimate outcome of the story, using an interactive video built with Eko (formerly Interlude Treehouse).

If that all sounds like a lot to navigate, not to worry, as the storytellers have kindly added a step-by-step walkthrough in case you’re not sure what to do next — check the “Support” section of the Metropolis corporate site.

Congratulations to my former students and current TMW Hall of Famers Nico Durham, Kyle Roach, Shelby Bettes, Alex Diaz, and Cameron Sultzer!