Australia, ready to embrace diversity in media
According to US transmedia expert Jeff Gomez, Australians are more ready to embrace ethnic and culturally diverse projects than many Americans, but the media must first eradicate the sense of “otherness” they attribute to certain groups.
“The properties that we choose to work with tend to have international casts and universal themes, but it seems to my highly untrained eye that the Australian media’s default is to seal ethnics and natives in an envelope of otherness,” Gomez told Encore.
Gomez is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, an animation and live-action film company. He’s transformed intellectual properties (Pirates of the Caribbean, Prince of Persia, Tron, Halo, Avatar, Transformers, Hot Wheels, etc) into successful transmedia franchises, extending toys, animation or videogame titles across multiple platforms, evolving them into narratives and therefore, multiple revenue streams.
Recently in Melbourne for XMediaLab: Film Extended, Gomez said that diversity can make Australian stories more distinct, memorable and resonant with a global generation growing up right now “that simply accepts diversity”.
“The magical black man, the angry New Zealand Maori… why not deepen our investigations into these cultures so that we can integrate the experiences of these characters into our story worlds in ways that play on the layered complexities of their human sensibilities as opposed to using them as stereotypes, archetypes or symbols?” said Gomez.
According to Gomez, the main challenge when working with existing properties is discerning the vision of the creator of the story world, and adjusting to the culture of the property’s corporate owners.
“Success at both is required before we can innovate the fiction, making it robust enough for transmedia expansion, and work productively with the production company to oversee extension.
“The so-called “do’s and don’ts” are often actually quite helpful in delineating the unique traits and qualities of the property, so that’s not as much of a problem,” said Gomez.
In his opinion, transmedia storytelling is versatile enough to be applied to a wide variety of stories.
“Generally we look for story worlds that extend beyond the borders of the screen, with rich pasts, layered presents and futures with myriad possibilities. But we’ve also seen some quite artful transmedia involving the inner life of a single character or artist. For example, as Marc Ruppel correctly states, rock artist Neil Young’s Greendale – which is a narrative about a California family subtly recounted in live performances, recorded music, print, film and the Internet – can certainly be considered transmedia storytelling,” he said.
In order to work and expand the core narrative universe, cross-platform should be seen as both a storytelling device and a revenue raising technique: “History tells us that if you tell a story well, people will be willing to pay to be a part of your audience. The trick with transmedia is that we as creators will have to work harder to tell the story well.”
Gomez described Canada’s approach to multi-platform as “fascinating”, since both Government and funding bodies are encouraging and even incentivising filmmakers to incorporate media extensions to their television and film projects. Australia, however, is not far behind.
“Australia is already advancing on this front. Events like XML’s Film Extended and the incredible wave of publicity around my presence at the forum is indicative of the country’s preparedness to explore these vanguard concepts. Also, the profiles of such native transmedia producers as Christy Dena, Nathan Mayfield and Jackie Turnure are on the rise. The ABC’s Project Bluebird and Nine’s Scorched are prominent original mass transmedia implementations,” said Gomez.
