Page 72 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2014

AC/E digital culture ANNUAL REPORT 2014compare them to works produced for the US market. Sometimes the works are presented as adaptations and it is rare for them to opt for narrative expansion that might include new characters or situations.In large measure, transmedia production in this context is seen as an experiment that separates communication companies from their core business. For a TV producer or a film director, producing content for other media (from video games to comics) is, to a certain extent, a traumatic process of transition. Those trained in the traditional formats of production find it difficult to think in “transmedia terms”. For them, transmedia storytelling is often a secondary, non‐strategic activity, and one that is not really productive.Nevertheless, little by little, things are beginning to change. Amongst the most outstanding transmedia works in Spain we might mention Águila Roja (Spanish Radio and Television (RTVE) ‐Globomedia). This narrative world has expanded beyond the small screen to embrace videogames and comics. According to Francisco Asensi, director of RTVE Interactive Development, Águila Roja was the first complete extended universe generated by RTVE:We started by setting up a Web site containing all the episodes of the series so that people could watch them whenever they wanted. Later on, together with Globomedia, we brought in new elements, and in this way we were able to build up a community of fans (...). In the world of the social networks there are fora, official Facebook pages and other, independent communities. To a certain extent you lose control over the story and viewers create their own products. Someone even managed to create an Águila Roja madelman which many people thought was an official product.” (Asensi, 2013: 162).The Águila Roja videogame shows the potential of transmedia storytelling. More than 140,000 people participated in the first version. According to Asensi,The nice thing about the game is that it was aligned with the series. That means there were tasks to complete every week and they were resolved in the episode thatAC/Ewas broadcast the following week. The idea behind all this is to attract an audience and to change the kind of relationship we have with that audience. At the present time the series is no longer being broadcast, nevertheless, the community is very active. We have launched the second version of the videogame, it is not aligned with any series because there isn’t one, but fans are still hooked up to the videogame, and are active on the community’s fora.” (Asensi, 2013: 163).This narrative world has also experimented with the creation of applications for the second screen such as a card game, and videogame matches have been organised at Campus Party and the FesTVal in Vitoria.WHERE WE ARE HEADING: DIGITAL TRENDS IN THE WORLD OF CULTURETHEME 6: TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING: NEW WAYS OF COMMUNICATING IN THE DIGITAL AGEAmongst the most notable Spanish transmedia stories is Águila Roja for which the narrative world expanded to include videogames and comicsOther TVformats thathaveimplementedtransmediaexpansions arereality shows(OperaciónTriunfo), late night shows (Buenafuente) and satire (Polónia). The case of Chikilicuatre—the famous character born of the “El Terrat” factory within the Buenafuente programme—is a good example of the transmedia exploitation of a character. To a large extent, in the examples mentioned transmedia storytelling is not the result of careful planning (strategic transmedia), but rather, it is presented as a narrative extension dictated by the favourable conditions of the media ecosystem; in other words, producers react to the environmental inputs and expand the story towards the media and platforms that are the most convenient (tactical transmedia).In the specific case of works for cinema it is, perhaps, the experience of El cosmonauta (directed by Nicolás Alcalá, 2012) that has been the most outstanding in Spain. As well as being one of the first audiovisual productions financed through crowdfunding, this narrative world expanded to incorporate a series of textual components that complemented the story in the film. In El cosmonauta the transmedia storytelling was not just CURRENT PAGE...72