Michel Reilhac notes from TransmediaVic

I've just been to the TransmediaVic Conference (thankyou NT Film Office for the travel assistance) where Michel Reilhac gave a presentation titled Transmedia as a state of mind. I was particularly taken with his 10 commandments:

1 Thou will collaborate :
Loose the old habits. Stop the siloed thinking.Explore new ways even if painful. It will be even more painful when you reach unprepared the end of the current system. Only then can you decide to still do the traditional storytelling

2 On the story, thou shall focus :
Loose the fascination for the new gimmicks and devices that will keep popping up and the fear of not keeping up with the geeks.. We use technological devices to tell our stories, that tend to blend, mesh and interface instead of remaining separate and autonomous. Technology changes but the needs remain the same

3 The game culture thou shall embrace.
It is a vertical approach to story telling as opposed to the traditional horizontal approach. Game is no longer the enemy. It is our partner and friend, for us who come from the storytelling world.

4 Thou shall earn the trust you rightfully deserve
Trust is not managed, it is earned. Trust management/ community management, these notions are odd. Trust is kept, maintained and nurtured. It can be betrayed and what one seeks is the engagement that it triggers. It is very much about how to trigger engagement through being totally sincere and honest

5 The problem is not the story, it is the interface.
Independent cinema and TV, as we know them, are reaching the end of a cycle as dominant forms of storytelling on the market. Relationship to audience needs to be entirely re-invented:

• community building
• a film is no longer the end of a short cyclic process, it is an element in a life long project where the artist becomes the media

6 Thou shall focus on the flux not on the object:
Flux has different depths and speeds. Focus on the relevance of the artwork in the context. It is a vehicle for social interaction beyond its own limits.

7 Thou shall blend flux and events:
Both are today’s components of our lives. We need both. Live arts and festivals have a great future for this reason. We need them more and more as we are more and more online and virtual. Man is a social animal.

8 Thou shall spend great time and energy
Transmedia needs now to dedicate a lot of time, not just a side kick anymore.

9 Thou shall be fair and honest when blending the real and the virtual.
Loss of tangible dimension of reality. AS IF rules. The whole as if approach to ARG’s has to be carefully managed not to leave the audience with a sour betrayed feeling.

10 Thou shall play the game of changing the world
Transmedia expresses our craving for new utopia. “Left to his own devices, the individual must now entirely construct himself on his own, away from the old collective and religious frames “ Gilles Lipovetsky in “The deceptive society”.

In our self oriented societies, the meaning of existence is seldom found in a great collective adventure. It therefore has to be found in the inner resources of each individual. Or in the re-invention of ways to CHANGE THE WORLD: