Page 88 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

88original form,24 and that they will have toshare their place with newer formats. Thereis an audience that demands a movie theatre experience and that is the best sign: as long as there is demand, someone will have to meet it.5. Transmedia expansion, co-creation and fundingNowadays we speak of active audiences andI believe there is no better or closer example of this phenomenon that the abovementioned series El Ministerio del Tiempo.Of the many articles devoted to the series, I will provide the link to one25 that is a good example, especially for its analysis of the audience’s involvement on the social media.Aired for just one season, this series has proved that it is possible to make novel products that engage with a critical audience – what we have identi ed as a digital audience.So far, in addition to the social media sites created by self-styled ‘Ministéricos’,26 the Olivares brothers’ series has given rise to a whole host of memes27, fan ction28 and a book of essays29 that analyses the TV phenomenon.Strictly speaking we ought to refer to this product as transmedia storytelling30 that starts on television and spreads to other media, in this case owing largely to fans, many of them multiscreen consumers, who keep up a Twitter conversation on what’s going on in the story while they watch the series.Transmedia storytelling is still in its infancy: there is a long way to go in exploring its possibilities, strengths and weaknesses, though it is clear that the manner of structuring and presenting these many-sided tales is totally in keeping with the perception we have of our day-to-day life and with the abovementioned changes that digitisation has brought.For the time being, the easiest success stories to nd relate to two very speci c pro les. The rst are franchises in which the reins are rmly gripped by the creators or owners (quoting Star Wars is unavoidable). Here, prequels, sequels, spino s31 and crossovers32 multiply and grow at the same pace as the list of formats and platforms on which they are distributed, and they are given coherence by the presence of a ‘conductor’ who is a sort of multiplatform33 showrunner.34Transmedia stories are still in their infancy. They are structured and presented as many- sided tales that are fully in keeping with our perception of life today.A second transmedia proposal is related to marketing campaigns – something that is not necessarily restricted to audiovisual products. Here we come to one of the elds that people are talking about the most, and which we should keep a careful eye on, namely content marketing and the closely linked brand content.In both cases prosumers35 can be involved, though often the more creative their contribution the more it stretches the limits. There is an evident tension in the media today: the tricky dilemma of maintaining control while welcoming new co-creation models.This issue (which deserves a whole essay to be devoted to it) extends not just to creation but also to funding and returns.Options such as crowdfunding,36 lend funding37 or P2P funding,38 as well as a clever combination of freemium39 and premium or PPV40 have joined the classic economic models of the cultural industries to complement or replace them (usually each project combines several of these forms of funding).We must forget prejudices and demonising:neither hackers nor P2P environments should be regarded as piracy, and nor must we thinkDATA, INTERFACES & STORYTELLING: AUDIOVISUAL IN THE DIGITAL AGE · MONTECARLOSmart Culture: Impact of the Internet on Artistic Creation