The Passion - #NTW13 - A transmedia production
What started with an idea to tell the story of 'The Passion' online in real time through-out the weekend, grew into one of the most exciting campaigns I have ever worked on.
Michael and Bill's vision to use the town as a set, with the idea to, use it's radio stations, fly poster sites, graffiti artists and video makers to tell the story allowed us to really push the boat out in terms of our thinking.
This viral campaign made the event unique in many ways constantly blurring the boundaries of fact and fiction and engaging audiences from the beginning to the end, with the final 'The Teachers Story' video going up online after the end of the show.
www.port-talbot.com was set up with the intention of building the world of the production from within the story.
This hyper local blog was created by a team of citizen journalists and now exists as one of the key places to delve into the archive of the show.
The site also features a posts about our ARG (Alternative Reality Game) which I will write about in depth at a later date.
The Gospal Of Us, written by Owen Sheers was sold in three parts - Friday / Saturday / Sunday. Released daily, these books framed the days action in a way a script or program couldn't.
For audiences at the event we set up a shortcode SMS service that kept people up-to-date with the latest information throughout the weekend direct to their mobile phones.
The Passion was a groundbreaking journey for me and showed the possibilities of telling a story across multiple channels, to multiple audiences and, I hope, for those of you who couldn't attend the event that port-talbot.com became a great resource..
You can view the whole journey here - CLICK HERE
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Comment by Tom Beardshaw on April 28, 2011 at 5:00
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It would be good to acknowledge all the people from the community of Port Talbotplaying their part in this transmedia experience. Lloyd for his amazing graffiti and my blogging team of James, Fraser, Caz, Jenni, Antony, Lee, Kym, Joe and Shaun for creating http://port-talbot.com with me - they all did an amazing job, and it was, I hope, an inspiring experience for them all.
Thinking about transmedia is undoubtably the future of storytelling... the media industry has previously been organised around media technologies - theatre, film, tv, print, etc... but many these platforms are now converging onto the the same ubiquitous meta platform, underpinned by the internet... in which the audience has a voice, and agency... they can create, they can comment, they can share... which is a game changer in so many ways. Each platform has it's strengths and weaknesses, which we really need to understand in order to enable story worlds to unfold across different platforms, creating a really immersive experience.
My final thought goes to Richard Pellow, from Port Talbot. He solved the number puzzle in the graffiti, which led him to a phone number and a message from the resistance. On the night before the show started, the resistance contacted him and asked him to go into the Seaside Social and Labour club, where a member of the resistance contacted him and passed him a mysterious package, allegedly from the Teacher himself. Poor guy.. at one point, he felt the entire plot of the show was depending on him... he was utterly immersed in the story, to the point where he felt he was at the heart of it that night.
The package? It was footage that the Teacher had taken on the mountain while he was missing... The Teacher's Story... a very special gift to the people of Port Talbot from Michael Sheen... you can see it on the home page of http://port-talbot.com
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Comment by Lucy Davies on April 27, 2011 at 9:22
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I totally agree Matt - and on top of this we smuggled 10 film cameras and 4 documentary cameras into each episode. "Theatre" has now become a catch-all for multi and mass media participatory expression. I've decided that I love producing work that is so big you have to cycle around it.
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