Transmedia Victoria

Wohoo! We have two special guests in town from the USA and UK, who are keen to meetup with Transmedia Victoria folk this Monday 28th November.

Story architect Lance Weiler (USA) and digital writer and producer David Varela (UK) are here for Screen Australia’s “Multiplatform Storytelling” event on Tuesday) – Tickets are still available!

Lance Weiler wrote, experience designed and directed the feature film Head Trauma and its accompanying alternate reality game and theatre experience; as well as the alternate reality game Pandemic, which was selected for the Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontiers program. He runs DIYDays.com, a roving conference for indies and his latest project is Robot Heart Stories, a participatory storytelling project for kids. http://www.lanceweiler.com/

David Varela is a TV and Alternate Reality Game producer and writer. He has worked on alternate reality games such as Sony Xi, Perplex City and Lewis Hamilton: Secret Life for Nike. Two of the latest projects he is part of have been crowdfunded, Balance of Powers and Clockwork Watch: The Arrival. http://www.davidvarela.com/

It is so good they’re both in town – so make the most of this opportunity to chat with two highly experienced and generous creatives.

Event starts at 7pm, talks at 8pm. It is at The Loop Bar, 23 Meyers Place, Melbourne. Here is the Facebook event page – sign up so we know numbers!

One of the aims of Transmedia Victoria is to activate and facilitate an ongoing transmedia community in Victoria (and Australia-wide). This is to continue the sharing of knowledge and enable everyone to find collaborators. Finding collaborators isn’t always easy when you work in transmedia because you may need a writer, producer, director, designer or developer from any number of different industries.

So I came up with the idea of Travelling Meetups. Instead of creating our own night, existing communities from different industries host a transmedia night. That way we ensure some great networking and spread the knowledge further. So last week the first travelling meetup was hosted by IGDAMelbourne (details here). I invited two speakers, both accomplished in their respective fields: Jarrad Trudgen (Lead Designer, Iron Monkey) from gaming; and Carl Nilsson-Polias (Artistic Associate, The Hayloft Project) from theatre. Great stuff! Now to lessons learned.

• The turnout was off-the-chart with over 180 people attending. Wow. It was mainly game developers, many of whom haven’t been to the meetup for a while, and some newcomers, as well as non-gaming folk. This was great news for both the IGDA and for Transmedia Victoria, and attests to the appeal of strong speakers, teaming with a strong existing community, and joining communities.
• The large turn-out also made the event less intimate for those expecting a casual meetup. But there was opportunity for networking and catching up before and after the talks (which were generously hosted by the State Library of Victoria’s Experimedia space) at the local bar (Cho Gao).
• I know of a few new collaborations fostered, and at least one transmedia person who looks to have a freelance job at a gaming company now.
• The mix of speakers from gaming and theatre was interesting and inspiring to many. That was good. But it was clear that since the majority of game developers in attendance preferred to just hear about games. One of the goals of Transmedia Victoria is to expose everyone to different creative processes. But the difference between running your own transmedia meetup and a travelling one is that the former choose to be exposed to cross-fertilisation while the latter doesn’t. Since transmedia people are in the minority (most people prefer to work in one medium or industry), I realise now that it would be better to match the speakers to the interests of the host meetup community. Those that are interested in hearing about “other” industries are therefore the ones from other communities that choose to turn up. Aha, easy. Got it.

But it was a great night. And I’m thrilled the IGDAMelbourne were so generous to host this event and it was so well attended. Thank you for Giselle Rosman (especially), Craig Peebles, and Tom Killen for this. Yay!

As for the latest videos from the original event? USA-based Flint Dille, who has worked on Transformers (writer on Transformers: The Movie), G.I. Joe, James Bond, Mission: Impossible, Tiny Toons, Batman: Rise of Sin Tsu, Superman, Dungeons & Dragons, American Tail, Teen Titans, and others, talks about the process of conceiving transmedia franchises. And Australia-based award-winning producer Sue Maslin talks about the obstacles to the digital, film, and TV industries working together.

1. Flint Dille presentation
2. Sue Maslin presentation

The full list of videos now online is available here. Enjoy!

Wohoo! We finally have some videos of the Conference Day online for your viewing pleasure. More are coming, but we’ve got a great collection already. All videos and slides are linked to from the main Media Page, but direct links for those online now are also here (in the order they appeared on the day):

• Steve Peters on “Experience Designer: The Next Generation Film Director?”
• Andra Sheffer on “Lessons Learned: Best Practices in Collaboration, Quality and Business“
• Mick Liubinskas on “Best Practices in Customer-Driven Processes and Business Models”
• Michel Reilhac on “Just because everything is different does not mean anything is changed”

Hello everyone! As many of you would be aware, there is a slight venue change for the first TMV travelling meetup. Since there are so many people that have RSVPed, the presentations will be held at 7pm the Experimedia space at the State Library of Victoria. We’ll still meet before-hand, and afterwards, at Cho-Gao for networking and drinks. Time and place details below, full details of the speakers in this post, and further info and RSVP on the IGDAMelbourne Facebook Event page.

Details: Tuesday 5th April. 6.30pm onwards 6pm-6.50pm at Cho Gao, Level 3, Melbourne Central. Up escalators at the corner of La Trobe & Swanston Street, Melbourne. Then at 6.50pm we’ll go across the road to hear the presentations at the Experimedia space at the State Library of Victoria (how to get there). After presentation drinks will then happen at Cho Gao.

We now have photos online from the Conference Day. They were taken by the lovely Georgia Laughton of Logic Bunny. You can see them in the sidebar on this site, but also directly in the Transmedia Victoria set in Flickr. Feel free to tag yourself!

We’ve had some technical difficulties with the videos from the main event. But all is looking good now and so they will be online soon. In the meantime, here is another short video from an award-winning transmedia writing and director who shares some of his tips about working in this space.

The fifth in our series of short interviews with transmedia creators who weren’t able to be a part of the event features Anthony Mullins. The projects Anthony has written and directed have won numerous international awards including a Primetime Emmy, an International Digital Emmy, two BAFTAs and three Australian Writers Guild awards. He has been the creative director on several award-winning interactive projects for major film and television productions including LOST, Spooks, Primeval, Flash Forward and SALT.

Meet Anthony Mullins from Transmedia Victoria on Vimeo.

Anthony is the fifth in our short series of videos with new and experienced transmedia artists. See also Morgan Jaffit, Lance Weiler, Richard James Allen and Josephine Emery.

I’m very happy to announce the first official post-event meetup is happening on Tuesday 5th April. Many of you wanted to meet up with more game developers, and were quite inspired by Tassos Steven’s performance talk. And so, the first meetup delivers more of these two things!

The Melbourne chapter of the International Game Developers’ Association is generously hosting the first TMV meetup. Giselle of the IGDA has affectionately called it the Transmedia IGDAM Mashup (aka Tim).

The night to be a mini-TMV event, where you be able to connect with potential partners in gaming, TV, film, theatre, and digital sectors; hear war stories and strategies on how to work with other industries; and be inspired by wildly different creative processes. To help make this happen, I’ve arranged for two great speakers to come along:

Carl Nilsson-Polias (Artistic Associate, The Hayloft Project) will begin the night by sharing insights into the collaborative theatre-making process of award-winning theatre company The Hayloft Project.

Carl Nilsson-Polias is Artistic Associate at The Hayloft Project. He is an acting graduate from the Victorian College of the Arts working in theatre, radio and film. In 2010, he appeared in Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Richard III, Casablanca for ABC Radio National and The Nest for The Hayloft Project. In 2009, he produced 3xSisters, Spring Awakening, The Only Child and B.C. for The Hayloft Project. He is the founding editor of Spark Online and his writings on theatre, dance and film have been appearing in RealTime Magazine since 2008.

Jarrad Trudgen (Lead Designer, Iron Monkey) will then delve into the design issues, decisions and processes in creating iOS games for existing global franchises (EA games), such as Deadspace, Need for Speed, Mirror’s Edge, and The Sims.

Details: Tuesday 5th April. 6.30pm onwards 6pm-6.50pm at Cho Gao, Level 3, Melbourne Central. Up escalators at the corner of La Trobe & Swanston Street, Melbourne. Then at 6.50pm we’ll go across the road to hear the presentations at the Experimedia space at the State Library of Victoria (how to get there). After presentation drinks will then happen at Cho Gao.

If you’re in FB, add yourself to the special Facebook event page!

A big thank you to the IGDA Melbourne chapter, Giselle Rosman (yay!), Carl Nilsson-Polias and Jarrad Trudgen for contributing your awesome time and expertise. I look forward to seeing you all there!

Wow, well we had a great time at Transmedia Victoria. Thank you all for being a part of it.

• For those that didn’t fill in the survey, we (and the sponsors) would really appreciate if you could take a moment to do it here

• We’ve put the slides online, with pictures and videos to follow, here

• Lastly, all future messages, such as info about the ‘travelling meetups’ will be in our new Google Group. You should of received an invite to it, but anyone is welcome to join (and there is a handy subscribe box in the sidebar of this site).

We’re actually here folks! One more sleep until Transmedia Victoria! Here is the last update of news before we collectively jump into the sweet unknown:

• Registration for the Conference Day (tomorrow – Thursday at ACMI) opens at 9.30am, and we start at 10am sharp
• Feel free to bring any pamphlets or postcards you may have and put them on the registration table for publicity of your own projects and companies.
• The full run-down for the Conference Day is online here. Note, there will be networking drinks at the end of the day from about 6-8pm.
• There are two changes to the program – Jackie Turnure has rushed off to a job in the USA (great stuff). But we have the Commercial Director of Hoodlum Kerrin McNeil coming. She takes care of all the high-level stuff at Hoodlum (from negotiating with clients to getting their proprietary technology licensed), so some juicy knowledge will be shared! Phil Morle’s business partner Mick Liubinskas will be taking Phil’s place (due to some other great news for Pollenizer). Mick is an insightful and highly entertaining speaker – so this will be a joy!
• Those of you who have been accepted into workshops and meetings (you would of been notified by email), have your own times for the Workshop Day on Friday at the State Library of Victoria.
• To help facilitate networking, we’ve put the list of everyone who will be at Transmedia Victoria online here – what an outstanding bunch you are.
• We’d also like to officially welcome on board as a supporter the Melbourne chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). Yay! They’ve been a great supporter of this event, and are actually running the Melbourne Global Game Jam this weekend after TMV – which should be a blast.

We’re really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at the Conference Day, and on Friday at the Workshop Day. Share your thoughts, ideas and discoveries in Twitter with the #transvic hashtag (and follow us on @transmediavic). Wohoo!

Yes, applications are closed and everyone who has applied has been notified of their place. Those that applied for workshops and meetings have been informed too! It is such a great bunch of people coming. We’ll post the list of attendees shortly! Wohoo!

The first round applicants (those who applied before midnight on 23rd December), have now been notified on the outcome of their application. There is a truly excellent selection of people from the film, TV, theatre, gaming, digital, literature and music fields. A handful have also been awarded a single client pass. We will be notifying people of the workshops soon. For those who are hoping to attend, you must get your applications in by Weds Jan 12th. We have very limited places left, so hurry!