Page 77 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2014

AC/E digital culture ANNUAL REPORT 2014scientific community will continue to use it because it has already been sufficiently analysed and theorised to justify its survival in academic discourse.Beyond semantic debates the development of transmedia storytelling in Spain depends, in large measure, on the vitality and capacity for innovation of its actors, both great and small. Paco Rodríguez, director of Media Training & Consulting, warns that the small size of the Spanish market is a limitation for embarking on transmedia projects of an international dimension:In Spain, both in cinema and in television, we have a lower level and act in a market of lower value. We always try to go from the simple to the complex, from the smaller to the greater. For example, we could make a local or national transmedia and leave it at that, within our environment or market, without the intention of going further than that. But if we want to reach across our borders then the following thoughts should be considered. Is it my intention, right from the beginning, to create a world‐wide transmedia? Or, shall I start at a local level and then attempt to extrapolate it and sell it by adapting it with international partners? They are premises that, from the start, you should consider in accordance with the size and dimension of your company.(Rodríguez, p. 182).Some professionals in the field, such as Fernando Carrión, who has a great deal of experience in the coordination of audiovisual and transmedia projects, point to the need to modernise company structures in order to confront the challenges of transmedia storytelling.At the company level, a key point is the evolution of the producers’ mentality. The “military” structure of traditional producers has to change. We are talking about a concept of co‐creation. At the present time the work of various experts complements that of others, such as the creators, the social network managers and so on. It is because of this that we must find something that is much more organic, more honest, more operational, indeed more holistic where everything, somehow, is more strictly organised. (Carrión, 2013: 29).AC/EIn the study quoted at the beginning of this article (Scolari et al., 2012) two kinds of company were identified: large traditional producers characterised by being monomedia, and the new, productive ones with a transmedia profile. The challenge facing the cultural industries is a double one: on one hand, the big players have to transition from monomedia to transmedia, and it is quite possible that, as has already happened in other markets such as the United States, they are unable to manage this transition with their own means and find themselves obliged to seek assistance from specialised professionals, the transmedia producers. Small, native transmedia companies, on the other hand, face the challenge of venturing beyond local niches to conquer international markets. Beyond their influence in the Spanish market, the successes of some TV products such as Las tres mellizas, and the international interest that has been demonstrated in cinema projects such as El cosmonauta, show the possible ways forward for transmedia productions.And so concludes our visit to the Museum of Storytelling. We have visited the main exhibition rooms, some of them crowded with visitors, others not so easy to find but where new forms of narrative expression are being born. But, as is the case with all great museums, one visit is not enough. There will always be another room where a work awaits us that will change our way of understanding the process of creation. Or there will a corner somewhere with a masterpiece that defines a period and which everyone will try to imitate. Like all transmedia stories worthy of the name, the Museum of Storytelling knows where the story started but never knows where it will end.WHERE WE ARE HEADING: DIGITAL TRENDS IN THE WORLD OF CULTURETHEME 6: TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING: NEW WAYS OF COMMUNICATING IN THE DIGITAL AGE CURRENT PAGE...77