Convergence Media Teamwork Detailed Plan

It has took us a few weeks but we have finally came up with a fully detailed plan for our transmedia story. I find that it is best to take your time on working out a full plan for every piece of work I do because it makes actually tackling the work so much easier. 

Our story is going to be linear however as it progresses from section to section, a mini story will take place so it is like the user is travelling from different worlds to worlds. We chose this so that the user wouldn't get bored and just stop using the transmedia story. 

After deciding we wanted a common ground through the story that would play a major part in the character going from world to world, we decided to have a number of paintings that the character would travel to as every painting tells a story and this would allow us to be imaginative by creating a whole story for that one particular painting. We wanted to use well known paintings to add familiarity to the user. 

I don't want to ruin the whole story but it begins with the girl clearing out her dead grandmother's attic. She sees the painting of 'American Gothic' and is mesmerised it and walks towards it, as she reaches out to touch it she is pulled into that world, finding herself in 1930's Iowa. She proceeds to travel through more paintings with a twist at the end and that is all I will tell you!

Here is a list of the different multi platforms we will use:

• We will start the story with a series of weird 'Missing' posters focusing on that girl disappearing from her life
• This will lead to a viral missing campaign leading to the website which a base for the entire story, people will find this site through a QR code
• We will create a weird symbol within the story and use it through all of our platforms, including making a wiki page about this, and this will be key to the story - it will also enable interaction amongst the audience as they can speculate over what it means
• Social networking pages for the main character such as twitter, facebook and instagram documenting her journey and asking the audience for help
• An app allowing the audience to track her journey
• A google map linking all the locations she is travelling to 
• Viral videos of news story of her missing and campaign to find her

Applied Media Research Report

So in a week's time we have a BIG deadline: a 3000 word report about all of our research for this module.

This seems like an extraordinary challenge I have got ahead and I'm very nervous about this. Word counts always scare me as no matter what the number is, I never think that I will be able to write that much. However when it comes down to it, I seem to have a skill at managing to write the perfect amount, never too much or too little which shocks me to the core. 

After meeting with the lecturer, Sarah, and planning what the structure of the report is, I feel immediately more comfortable with the prospect of the essay. I basically need to create an amazing introduction and conclusion, then just talk about the 3 case studies that we talked about in the presentation. However I am going to do X Factor, Million Pound Drop and Hollyoaks (instead of Embarrassing Bodies) as I've done a lot of research on Hollyoaks and don't really want it to go to waste. I will also talk about the focus groups and questionnaire results. I think it will go well because once I put all my research in it that I've included in this blog, and analyse it a bit deeper then I will basically be finished! 

Planning this report has definitely made me realise the importance of doing work as you go because if I didn't have all this research to include then I would be starting from scratch and that would be a big effort. 

The key thing that I will mention in my conclusion, and the thing that has really stood out for me in doing all this research, is the way watching television has changed from when I was a child only a few years ago. The use of having a 'Second Screen' is so prevalent in today's society with everyone tweeting and doing Facebook statuses about whatever they are watching (me especially!) that programme makers should strive to incorporate this into their shows. We already see this on many shows where they ask viewers to tweet in and encourage tweeters to tweet, for example even 'This Morning' show the graphic of "#thismorning". I find this a brilliant technique of allowing viewers to interact with the show as they feel like their opinion matters. I have often tweeted a lot during The X Factor in the hope that my tweet would be noticed by contestants or the Xtra Factor. I am extremely excited for the future of television because multi platform content is only going to become bigger and more important and I hope one day I will be part of a team producing it.