Thesis Thoughts

I have to finalize what I finally want to do soon. Sev (the Sev Sarmenta, my thesis adviser) told me to organize my thoughts and do my related literature and I did just that. Now I have this thick print-out of journals and researches I've downloaded from the Internet. I am so happy because Sage Publications gave me free access to their cultural journals and so I've a lot to read now. I want Henry Jenkins' Convergence book... I have to check that one out in the Ateneo Lib or Powerbooks.

Today I pitch the Band Age to UniversiTV and I'm still thinking how they would respond to the proposal. It seems easy to me, well at least on my level. As for my thesis, last night I was thinking, what would this thesis be about.

Although I've been getting a lot of researches on the topic of crossmedia from other countries, very little information on crossmedia is available locally. I don't even know if there's a cross media project "out there". I'm saying this of course as someone who is working in the entertainment industry and as far I know, nothing similar to crossmedia communication is happening locally. The closest I can think of is what ABS-CBN is doing to Pinoy Big Brother. They have the TV components - the regular show on Primetime and the Uplate (on ABS-CBN) and the PBB on 23 and the Live Streaming in the morning on Studio 23. They also have the website that has news, pictures and features for voting and "interactive" stuff (which is actually a call to spend more money using your cellphone: download this, text in to win this, etc.). In previous seasons, ABS-CBN also published PBB Magazines.

Based on what I'm currently reading on the subject, this doesn't make it the cut to be considered as crossmedia storytelling, but does it qualify as crossmedia communication? Again, latching on the meaning I got from Monique de Haas, I don't think so. A student of mine who works for ABS-CBN said that it has a division that executes promotional efforts through different platforms but it still is not crossmedia.

Which got me to thinking last night, what if I research on the possibilities of crossmedia communication in the Philippines? Are Filipinos ready for the experience? When I encountered the crossmedia concept in the Netherlands months back I was amazed at how they were doing things and how one can adapt it using much simpler means. Hence, our proposal for Band Age, which adopts the crossmedia concept using very simple websites such as YouTube and Multiply. It doesn't have to be executed on a grand scale, well, perhaps it depends on who you want to reach.

As I was discussing to a friend what crossmedia storytelling is, I gave the story of "Ederlyn" as an example. I told her, if a TV show about Ederlyn or a tabloid column is regularly written about Ederlyn, she could well be the pioneering crossmedia queen! "Sino si Ederlyn" text jokes started out with this simple text message: Ui, invited tau s bday party ni ederlyn 2m ng 6pm. CnO b un? Kilala m b?FinOrward lng skn e. (Hey, we're invited to Ederly's birthday party tomorrow at 18:00. Who is she by the way? Do you know her? This message was just forwarded to me.) Perhaps it was Ederlyn's kitschy name but this message was forwarded and forwarded that by now, Ederlyn has become a household name. For my Film and Video class, one group produced an "Ederlyn" short film and a musical variety show was produced by MusiCASA; and this was just in UST, I'm sure an "Ederlyn" craze is also happening in other places. Which got me thinking, whoever thought of starting this Ederlyn thing is up to thinking... is there an upcoming movie somewhere? But months have passed and still no word about an Ederlyn... sayang!

This friend of mine did not receive any forwarded Ederlyn jokes, pity on her, but she did tell me of a similar "phenomenon" which happened years back, the story of Chona Mae. Chona Mae is a maid from Romblon who blogs. Her blog has 279,502 hits. Again, whoever thought of Chona Mae should have made a lot of money if they told her story crossmedia.

So what's my thesis about? Hmmm... nothing certain yet. But I'm thinking of an exploratory study on the possibilities of doing crossmedia locally, with a survey on its viability using the Ederlyn and Chona Mae stories as examples. Hmmm... whatchathink?

It might come this year...

Crossmedia might break in the Philippines this year. I mean, more producers might consciously do crossmedia/transmedia storytelling soon. I am set to pitch the Band Age to a cable channel tomorrow (flutter in my stomach, arrrgh!). This morning, I was chatting with a student of mine who was working for a mobile marketing company. I asked her if they were doing anything not related to marketing (text promos etc.) and she said for now they were doing it for marketing but this year, they have something in their pipeline that seems similar to what I was talking about. Hmmm... it might come this year. Crossmedia might start happening in the Philippines this year.

Crossmedia Playground in Manila?!

I'm tickled pink! Someone, someone actually not related to me, has read my blog! Yey!

What things are going on on the crossmedia playground in Manilla? Are publishers involved? Newspapers? Who comes up with new formats? Where does radio and television fit in? What about narrowcasting and what about the printing industry?

Thanks,

Peter Luit

Netherlands

I don't think there are crossmedia formats in Manila, much more a "crossmedia playground" to speak of, there's not even a crossmedia sandbox! The first time I ever encountered such word was there in the Netherlands and if I do look closely at the media landscape locally, I can point a few projects that go by the name "interactive" rather than crossmedia. Major players are newspapers and television companies. Mostly these projects are just supports to their television programs that provide additional information and a venue for their money making ventures like mobile downloads. Some television programs are available on mobile via streaming video content but these are just reruns of the programming they have shown on TV and not specifically created for mobile.

As far as storylines that "direct the receiver from one medium to the next", I don't think we have such formats yet. As for narrowcasting, there are a few products that use this as a marketing strategy and there is this production company that produces local shows specifically for podcasting.

I am yet to discover what is really out here with regards to crossmedia formats. But this is what is happening locally as far as I know. Thanks for your question, Peter! Groetjes!

Cross-media Communication: Where it all started for me.

Monique de Haas, in her website, Crossmedia Communication defined crossmedia communication as "communication where the storyline will direct the receiver from one medium to the next" making it possible to transform the sender-receiver form of communication to "multi-dimensional communication".

I came across the idea of cross-media communication in the Netherlands where we were trained to create cross-media programs for children. My first encounter of it was in a session with Rob Prass, through his talk on "Learning Through Games and Play". He discussed how games are being used in educational programs in Europe and showed us an episode of Bamzooki. Weeks later, at the 20th Cinekid Festival in Amsterdam, we attended a seminar on Hands on TV (HOT) moderated by Children's BBC's Sue Nott.

The seminar featured speakers who talked talked about the successful formats in cross-media entertainment and how they were created. Bruno Felix of Submarine, NL did the introduction on interactive television and cross-media formats. The most exciting part for all of us EPPC participants was the presentation by Paul Tyler of Gameware Media who presented about Bamzooki, a mixed reality game show in which children use computer-designed fantasy animals (which they call "zooks") to fight with one another. It was very exciting for us because only a few weeks ago, Rob Prass was showing us an episode in the Corner Room and now we're face to face with THE creator!

Bamzooki offers "unique cross media output delivering a fully integrated televisoin and internet experience where contestants make and race computer generated creatures "zooks". The website allows users to download a creature building software that allows them to create and own their own running, jumping and crawling zooks. The software allows the users to upload and download Zooks into a massive online database for entry in to the daily leagues and galleries. There's also the chance to appear in the televised game show that provides a battle arena for the Zooks. The website also offers a community forum where members can share tips and tricks.

As someone from the entertainment industry though, what piqued my interest the most was Nuno Bernardo's presentation of Sofia's Diary. For me, Sofia's Diary is the total cross-media package for the teenager combining the traditional media like TV, books and feature films and new media like the Internet and mobile. An article on this website describes Sofia's Diary as "an Interactive Mobile Service uses new technologies to tell in an interactive and multi-channel way the story of a typical 17 years old girl, Sofia. This is one of the first projects to simultaneously use as a complementary way diverse medias with specific contents and mechanics for each media. Sofia's Diary content is published on the Web, in a teen magazine, on daily newspapers, aired on a teen Radio station and a Cable TV Show. Users can follow the story everywhere and interact with it using their mobile phones".

Well, this is what started it for me. I do hope I get somewhere with it. I'm now exploring the Philippine landscape to see if we have a semblance of cross-media entertainment locally. Hopefully, with this thesis, I'll be able to contribute, if not start, a significant contribution to this body of emerging knowledge (at least locally).

**all photos on this page courtesy of Adi Panuntun

The Band Age: a proposal for a crossmedia project

“The Band Age” is a project that makes us of different media platforms in telling the story of five teen-agers who are in a band. Primarily, it is a teen-age drama program that will tackle developmental issues in teen-agers.

The project is educational because common teen-age developmental issues are presented through the experiences of the characters. Viewers are expected to learn from the experiences of the characters. The program will also provide positive role models to the youth. The focus of the project is on adolescent developmental issues such as: Self-identity, Self-expression, Coping with their emotions, Intimacy, Interpersonal relationships (family, friends), Sexuality, Coping with peer pressure, Drugs and alcoholism.

Through exposure to our project we would like the target audience to:

• 
  Identify and understand the changes that they are going through – physically, mentally, emotionally
• 
  Learn how to maintain interpersonal relationships – family, friends, team, intimate
• 
  Realize and set their goals and aspirations and make concrete steps in attaining them
• 
  Identify their role in society and recognize their capacity in contributing to the betterment of society

The project will be carried out using different platforms. Specifically, they are the following:

Television. "Band Age" is a 1-hr weekly teen-age drama about 5 young people who are involved in a band.

Radio. It will be supported by a 1-hr weekly musical-talk show hosted by the band's manager.

Internet. The project will use existing free websites such as Blogspot, Multiply and YouTube because they are accessible and free. Characters from the TV show will be shown maintaining accounts with these websites and viewers can easily access them in the internet when they want to.

Really am starting with my thesis

I've created this blogspot to accomodate any thoughts I might have on the thesis I have resolved to write and finish next year. I am currently an MA Communication student at the Ateneo de Manila University here in the Philippines and am trying my darndest to finish my thesis on crossmedia storytelling.

I was introduced to crossmedia storytelling during my three month short course stint at the Radio Nederland Training Center in Hilversum, the Netherlands. We received training on producing cross-media formats for educational programming for children and our final project was a cross-media project proposal. Even before going to the Netherlands, I was already set on doing an educational program for children as my MA thesis. The final project we pitched for RNTC was Band Age, a cross-media project I've conceptualized with two other course participants from Indonesia and Sri Lanka. We have decided to create a project for the teen-age audience who are in need of guidance in terms of their personal developmental issues. I will later post snippets of my project proposal for Band Age.

For a while, I was discouraged to pursue crossmedia storytelling because it seemed too complicated, but thanks to my former student, I was inspired to go back to crossmedia when he said he could hook me up with their CEO to pitch Band Age. I thought if I could have Band Age on air, it could give my thesis a big push.

There, I've started this blog on my crossmedia thoughts. Hopefully it would give me my much needed boost to really start my thesis.

I've been reading a lot of crossmedia stuff from Christy Dena and Monique de Haas their works have really inspired me to push through with this research for my masters thesis. I've also come across this great site by Gary Hayes who talked about what audiences want. I so love them now. I still have a lot of researching and thinking to do to finally get this thesis off the ground but at least I've started somewhere. Hopefully it will get me somewhere.

Gambarimasu, fight-o!