"Conceiving Transmedia Franchises" was presented at www.TransmediaVictoria.net.au, Jan 27th 2011

1. True Transmedia
True Transmedia is the ability to share a
world and tell endless stories across
mediums: movies, television, books, games,
songs and on and on forever.
What does your franchise need to have to
find an audience, hook them and grow?

2. Franchise
Everybody has a different definition.
For the purposes of this conversation it is:
An intellectual property that contains unique, characters,
settings, problems, story conventions, logos, tag lines
and artistic expressions which lend itself to adaptation
to other media, mediums, iterations, sequels, prequels
and spin-offs.
Yes… We could easily spend the entire day noodling
this definition.

3. Weak Franchise
All the characters die.
The world ends.
Nothing is left unsaid.
There is nothing game-able in it.
Citizen Kane is a weak Franchise. Great movie, but
where do we go from there?

4. Where do they Come From?
Star Wars, Iron Man, Harry Potter, Transformers
and Star Trek are major examples.
They came from a movie, a comic book, a novel
series a toy line and a T.V. Show respectively.
The point is that they can come from anywhere.
And as transmedia expands, they will come
from everywhere

5. The Basics
A Hero.
Home… A Batcave
A Vehicle… An Aston Martin DB-5
Friends and Allies… An Obi Wan is good.
Enemies: Any superhero is only as good as his Rogues Gallery.
Iconic Gadgets: Even medieval writers knew to put in Excalibur.
A Unique World: Victorian London… A Galaxy Far away.

6. Franchise: Greek Gods

7. The Hero: Zeus

8. Family Of
Characters

9. Enemies: Croesus (AKA SATURN)

10. Home: Mt. Olympus

11. Weapons And Tools

12. Love Interest(s)

13. The World of Characters
Good Neutral Evil
Lawful
Neutral
Chaotic

14. Di ana
Then Now

15. He rmes/Merc ur y / Fl a s h
Then Now

16. All These Characters Have Their Own Lives: But Work
Together as a MetaFranchise

17. And You Need A World

18. Franchise In the Background

19. Knock-Off Franchises:
The Norse Gods

20. Needs for Different Mediums:
• Toys: 5 Heroes, 5 Villains, Two Vehicles and a Play set.
• Comics: A hero, a problem, a visually exciting world complete with a ‘villain
engine’.
• Movie: Heroes and Villains in conflict in a visually interesting world.
• Games: A ‘World’ that lends itself to shooting, navigation and gunplay.
• Books: A world of both inner and outer conflict.
• TV: A ‘family’ of characters in an ‘agency.’

21. The Trick is
That You Can
Start Anywhere
Any Medium.
Any Part of the Process
Base it on your resources and your skills.

22. You can start
with a franchise
bible or a short
story. Any
piece will do.

23. Just keep
building: A
franchise never
ends a world
isn’t built in a
day..

24. Always Build the World
• Sequels • Untold Stories:
How Han Solo
• Prequels dumped his cargo.
• Spin-Offs: Sub- • Parallel Universe:
Character stories “What if?”
• “In World
Products”

25. You never
know which
medium will
take off.

26. Eventually, you
will want to
collaborate. A
Transmedia
Franchise is a
communal
medium.

27. The Bible
• Eventually, you will want to build a bible.
• Concept
• World/Genre
• Pilot
• Character Bios
• Springboards
• Your Bible isn’t Holy. Let people play with it.

28. Repetition: Franchise Cues
The longest functioning movie franchise in the world – James Bond –
has over a hundred:
“Shaken, not stirred.”
Aston Martin
Tuxedo
“Bond, James Bond”
People like to see the same thing over and over and over.
Know your essential franchise cues and play them over and over.
People love repetition as much as they hate change.
That’s the dynamic.

29. Feed Your Franchise Like A Fire

30. Franchises Take Your
Resources
• Your time, your treasure, your talents.
• Your network’s time, talent and treasures. Sooner or later,
you are going to have to open your franchise to collaborators.
• Leave the door open for your fans to contribute.
• Be aware of legal issues.
• Beware of ‘The Golden Rule’. He who has the gold rules. The
more you give away, the less control you have.

31. Go do it!
Every • Every Franchise
starts
Franchise somewhere.
Starts
Somewhere