Singapore Transmedia Meetup
— recap January to May 2014
In late January 2014, I started the Singapore Transmedia Meetup series which became a gradually growing content creators community with participants coming from such diverse backgrounds as film, TV, publishing, advertising, startups and social enterprise. As we are about to transform the community — and launch the first Asian chapter of StoryCode— it is time for a quick recap. What were the main topics, notable local projects discussed as well as partners involved?
In the past six months we were able to conduct seven meetups in total. Besides defining the term and concept of transmedia our main focus has been primarily with business models and transmedia campaigns within the brand and content marketing environment. We had three meetups discussing strategies for creative producers by looking at local and international campaigns. But we also tapped into topics like collaborative storytelling, collective creativity and community engagement (storytelling for social good).
These diverse topics were addressed differently by introducing two types of meetups. “TALK” sessions would be either panel discussions with selected speakers or presentations about production journeys, while “LAB” sessions would be more hands on, discussing specific issues within a smaller group of content creators as well as taking part in transmedia projects.
Projects:
Among the first seven meetups most notable Singaporean projects discussed were as follows:
- Empathy Led Activation
A thinking model by Isaac Ray Thomas from Rainshine that combines transmedia creation with design thinking for the new generation of content marketing and consumer relationship building.
- Raffles Place Ghost
A viral marketing campaign that was based on fictional characters, virtual clue hunts and global seeding.
- Terrorville
Interactive Game/Horror Film/Drama by Kenny Tan from Studio.MB. The audience can choose one of the characters and follow his/her path to uncover a murder mystery in the Malaysian jungle. Unfortunately, the story experience is not online anymore, but you can trace back some steps with these links:
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/terrorville
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TerrorvilleTV/videos
- The Legend of the Cardboard Heroes
Social open source kid’s content project (in development) by Don Bosco from SuperCoolBooks. Based on comic stories that depict all-day people from Singapore in the 1960s who turn into self-made superheros in order to uphold the law and fight against injustice within their local communities. In hackathon-like events, kids will be able to build their own cardboard armors based on the comics. An upcoming StoryCode Singapore meetup will create a first prototype of this project!
- The Chronicles of Oujo
“It is a humorous and irreverent take on the high fantasy genre and follows the exploits of an orphan boy Oujo and his friends, the irrepressible halfling Pip, and the shy elf-girl Lizpella, as they embark on the greatest adventure of all… school!”
Notes:
Links to all meetup notes including links to projects discussed as well as link collections for further readings:
#1) http://www.slideshare.net/marcosparmberg/sgtmmu1
#2) http://www.slideshare.net/marcosparmberg/sgtmmu2
#3) http://www.slideshare.net/marcosparmberg/singapore-transmedia-meetup-notes-3-march-4-2014
#4) http://www.slideshare.net/marcosparmberg/sgtmmu4
Partners:
Our meetups could not have been possible with the tremendous support of our partners! So far all meetups have been free and open to everybody and we will do our best to keep it that way!
As our meetup HQ base and main venue for all LAB sessions we are grateful for all the support from AV8 Media. As media education provider, AV8 is conducting a wide range of WQS qualified training courses in media production and pos-production besides their core business of implementing media solutions.
Another major partner, not just for venue sponsoring, has been the NBDCS — Singapore’s Book Council. With their annual Asian Children’s Content Festival, the Book Council has been addressing media innovation for the past three years. The Media Summit is one of the festival’s conferences that specifically is made for transmedia topics and hence has been a novelty in Singapore.
So far we only conducted one event together with UP Singapore at their new stunning venue in Chinatown but will likely to return soon. UP Singapore is a community incubator that conducts a series of hackathons addressing specific social issues in Singapore.
And of course, The Hub has been providing us with a venue for the last Transmedia Meetup in May and will also do so for our inaugural StoryCode Singapore launch event on June 26. The Hub is a co-working space for startups and one of the major local community centers for entrepreneurs and media practitioners.
What’s next?
On June 26 we will officially launch the StoryCode Singapore chapter, together with the folks from the Film Beers Network. Future meetups will have a more hands-on component and be a hybrid between micro-hackathons, networking and idea exchange. We are planning some very exciting topics and already talking to new partners and venues.
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