Transmedia Victoria

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!