{"id":1295,"date":"2010-06-11T23:23:24","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T03:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2010-07-13T04:23:08","modified_gmt":"2010-07-13T08:23:08","slug":"multi-platform-just-another-way-to-tell-a-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/2010\/06\/11\/multi-platform-just-another-way-to-tell-a-story\/","title":{"rendered":"multi-platform: just another way to tell a story?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gaza<\/a>
arte tv's webdocumentary 'Gaza\/Sderot: Life in spite of everything' can be found at http:\/\/gaza-sderot.arte.tv <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

I have heard many people say that multi-platform production is \u2018just another way to tell a story.’ It sounds simple, clear-cut, reassuring. <\/span><\/p>\n

But is that it? <\/span>I think not. There is a huge difference in the way you can communicate content with a multi-platform project. <\/span><\/p>\n

When you tell a linear story, you are grappling with some time-honoured issues such as dramatic structure, character development, narrative progression, resolution. I have struggled with these for so long, in so many projects, that I feel they have become second nature. Now, when I approach a film idea, I look at it from that angle right away, not just as a subject or a theme or an issue. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

But in conceiving a multi-platform project, you are NOT just telling a story, you are conceiving an experience. Not even just a viewer experience, but \u2013 due to the interactivity of Web 2.0 \u2013 a user or participant experience. <\/span><\/p>\n

I worked with producer Patricia Bergeron<\/a> for a couple of months, and learned from her that the user experience is central to any multi-platform experience. (Patricia has many excellent texts about cross-platform production on her Delicious account<\/a>.) As the winners of the DOC Reboot contest<\/a>, we had the opportunity to consult with several leading experts in the field, and with Brett Gaylor of Eyesteel films<\/a>. (See my previous post<\/a>.) <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But one of the best explanations I have heard of multi-platform production was provided at an NFB panel at Hot Docs<\/a> a few weeks ago, by Hugues Sweeney<\/a> and Rob McLauglin<\/a>, respectively from the French and English production branches of the NFB<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Said Sweeney: “In multi-platform, the creator is an architect. Even before shooting, he\/she has to edit, to conceive a space into which the user can come to live an experience. The role of the author really is to define that experience. This means a lot of preparation, and you have to think of the audience as being actively involved in the experience.” <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

For my own work, I certainly hope to continue making feature length documentaries. But I see multi-platform production as a way to actually bring back many of the things I felt I had to sacrifice in making a film: the context and background, information about issues, debates and points of view on the subject. I think actually that films sometimes aren\u2019t as good as they could be because they try to incorporate too much of this kind of material in a linear story. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now, with the possibility of exploring these kinds of materials on the other platforms, we could feel even freer to focus a film on excellent storytelling. <\/span><\/p>\n

Provided, of course, that there is continued support and funding for linear docs as well as the new platforms.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to Tobi Elliott<\/a> for her help with this blog.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have heard many people say that multi-platform production is \u2018just another way to tell a story.’ It sounds simple, clear-cut, reassuring. But is that it? I think not. There is a huge difference in the way you can communicate content with a multi-platform project. When you tell a linear story, you are grappling with … Continue reading multi-platform: just another way to tell a story?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11,36,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-documentary-debates","category-english","category-multi-platform","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1428,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions\/1428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialdoc.net\/magnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}