Storytelling Across Worlds: Transmedia for Creatives and Producers

Tom Dowd is a 25-year veteran of paper and video game design and world building. He is the co-creator of the celebrated Shadowrun role-playing game which spawned a series of cross-media computer games, novels, board games, and comic books. He is a working game designer and currently teaches game development and transmedia at Columbia College Chicago. Michael Fry is an Emmy-nominated writer/producer who has worked on the NBC shows The Cosby Show and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as well as the WB’s The Parent ‘Hood. He is currently an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago where he teaches writing for television, the internet, mobile television, as well as transmedia property development.Michael Niederman is an award-winning film and video maker as well as the chair of the Television Department of Columbia College Chicago. His projects include the dramatic film The Paled Man and the documentary Voices from Northern Ireland. He teaches writing, directing, and transmedia and lectures on television, and emerging narrative forms.Josef Steiff is a writer and independent filmmaker as well as the Film & Video Senior Associate Chair and professor at Columbia College Chicago, teaching screenwriting and transmedia development. Joe has edited volumes on anime, manga, Battlestar Galactica, and Sherlock Holmes for Open Court's Popular Culture and Philosophy, and is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Independent Filmmaking.

For anyone interested in transmedia storytelling this book is a fantastic starting point -- stimulating, observant, and insightful. It's a panoramic view of this fascinating new arena of storytelling. - Carlton Cuse, Writer/Executive Producer/Showrunner LOST, BATES MOTEL"Storytelling Across Worlds" acknowledges that, increasingly, all media is transmedia. As part of working in television, I've found myself creating webisodes, podcasts, games, comic books, motion comics, short stories, fictionalized twitter feeds and web sites set within the parent shows' fictional worlds. This book draws on contemporary examples to provide perspective on this huge, and somehow still growing, creative world. Any book would be challenged to get its arms around a topic that is defined by its unconstrained scope. This one grabs transmedia in a mighty hug and doesn't let go. - Jane Espenson, Television writer/producer: Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Once Upon A Time, HusbandsHow often in life have you been warned that "there are rules"? Storytelling Across Worlds delightfully dispenses with antiquated narrative limitations by throwing open the endless possibilities of sophisticated narrative through transmedia storytelling as the actual, practical bedrock of modern entertainment. With this book, the authors have crafted an elegant and masterful dissection of narrative’s new world order. - Vlad Woylnetz, President of Production, Cineflix, Executive Producer Torchwood, Executive in Charge of Production Mad Men, Breaking Bad & Walking Dead

• Preface Part 1 One Story Chapter 1 Understanding Transmedia Storytelling Chapter 2 Worldbuilding and Key Story Chapter 3 Storytelling and Narrative Continuity Part 2 Many Media Chapter 4 Motion Pictures and Visual Storytelling Chapter 5 Television and Serialized Storytelling Chapter 6 Video Games and Interactive Storytelling Chapter 7 Other Forms of Storytelling Chapter 8 Choosing Properties and Forms Part 3 Managing the Story Chapter 9 Managing the Transmedia Property Chapter 10 The Transmedia Intellectual Property Bible Part 4 End Matters Chapter 11 Wrap Up APPENDIX A Motion Picture Platform Bible APPENDIX B Television Platform Bible APPENDIX C Video Game Platform Bible APPENDIX D Platform Bibles for Other Forms of Storytelling APPENDIX E Sample Trademark Licensing Agreement APPENDIX F – The Producer’s Guild of America Code of Credits Definition of Transmedia Producer APPENDIX G – Suggested Readings