FOE2 – Cult Media

A final panel from the weekend conference looking at ‘cult’ media and the challenging of the growing audiences.   Although this is about TV entertainment, a lot of the lessons can be applied to brands as they expand.
Panelists: Danny Bilson, Transmedia Creator; Jeff Gomez, Starlight Runner; Jesse Alexander, Heroes; Gordon Tichell, Walden Media

Cult properties have become mass entertainment. Marvel’s success bringing comic book characters to the big screen and the resurgence of the space opera suggest niche properties may no longer mean marginalized audience appeal. This panel explores the politics, pitfalls, and potentials of exploiting niches and mainstreaming once marginalized properties. How do you stay true to the few but build properties attractive to the many? What role do fans play in developing cult properties for success? Is it profitable to build a franchise on the intense interest of the few and rely on Long Tail economics? Are smaller audiences viable in the short term, or do we need to rethink the length of time for a reasonable return?

• Danny Bilson, Transmedia Creator; I started in B Movie in the 80’s, then did the Rocketeer, the Sentinel, Flash.  Wrote comics, Red Menace graphic novel.  I teach game writing, I was at EA for 5 years.  Going back to gaming; do a lot of counter-terrorism for the government.
• Jeff Gomez, Starlight Runner; a similar story. I grew up in LES Manhattan, got bullied, the outsider in the neighbourhood, I had to learn how to deal with this, and that was by exploring the world of imagination – needed someone tough to protect me and that was Godzilla.  I needed to create my own content. Began to explore mythology, Tolkien in particular; I wanted to emulate that and found D&D.  I went on to be a creative writing teacher, published a DTP magazine, got a lot of access and content, got national distribution. Predicted about stories that started on TV and then jump to bulletin boards, then back into a video game or a novel.  Then later I started writing modules, joined Valiant comics, doing games.  Developed worlds, magic the Gathering, got the world from my old D&D days.  Formed own company, we take IP and develop the fictional world, help the company develop the world.  Hot Wheels, Pirates of the Caribbean, jame’s cameron new movie
• Jesse Alexander, Heroes; a writer, producer.  Before that worked on Alias, Lost.  Before that I wrote film screenplays, genre properties.  Wrote video games.  On Heroes, writer/producer, manage the writers room , help shape content, get them to collaborate.  It’s similar to a D&D game, getting to the end point.  Also involved in production side, budget, and casting and advertisers and the transmedia content.  The budget is significant in a way that is crazy.
• Gordon Tichell, Walden Media.  Been in business in about 15 years, for most on the finance side.  I analysed the projects. For the last year I have been overseeing our outreach programme, create programmes about how people can use the movies, create programmes to bring people in to the project.
• Henry Jenkins moderates.
• HJ: there has been a shift form side to mainstream
• DB: it was Jaws, it came from literature, basically a monster model, created the blockbuster.  The B movies became the A movies and vice versa.  
• JA: there are so many factors that apply to this; there have always been fans but not had the ability to connect until the net.  The people who create the content are getting older, those who love genre are those creating it.  Think what is going to happen when the Harry Potter people start creating the media
• JG: there is magnificent talent being applied to that now, it is not the hacks.
• DB: all these skills of drama are being applied to them that were not there in the 50s.  In his show  [refers to the Heroes of Jesse] the traditional TV show is there, look at Lost, the same, connections.  You bring new stories, the comic stuff that is being put on TV.
• JA: that is a huge part of it, they creators work in the TV space and understand it, understand the broadcast market.We tried to populate the show with characters that people can identify it. 
• GT: it co-incides with DVR, you can dive deep into programmes that you need to be able to record, catch up.  I watch in the plane, I keep up that way
• JA: with Lost series 1, it was massive broadcast, some of the audience started experiencing in different ways.  The best way to watch is at your own pace, not split up.  The themes of hope and community, those are positive themes, right for our times.
• DB: does it work with non-serialised?  All my shows were one offs..now they are talking about numbers down…
• JA: (we have very good DVR numbers….)
• DB: if they did not do the rest , revenues down
• JA: it was done deliberately.  With Alias, we tried to get the stuff all over the place, to keep us on the air, it applied to Heroes.  You need to find other revenue streams to get money.
• HJ: is there a tension between what you need?
• JA: sure, what I do, I approach as a superfan. I grew up obsessed with Star Wars.  I approach it from an authentic place.  in books about marketing it is important about going after the early adopters.  That kind of strategy is important to apply to something like Heroes.  There is a tension in serving that audience and a broad audience.  You have to build things into content that are accessible to a broad audience and are authentic to the core audience.  The first thing i said when I joined was we had to go to ComicCon and it got set up that day.  That was our core base, that would support the property,
• HJ: the characters, arcs, are powerful emotions and relatively clear in agendas as human beings.  The transmedia elements made it far deeper, richer, complex. You have official resources to delve into. You can find out answers and be rewarded.
• JA: that was one of the brilliant ways that it was crafted.  They are archetypal characters that the broad audience can grok and deeper that the genre audience can get in.  
• HJ: a family watching, the son could give the full backstory to a minor charater and add things to the community, to the family.
• DB: a great example how the hard core can service the broad base. When creating the stuff I never think about all the stuff we are talking about today, I think about what I want to see the most.  and that is it.  I live my doing what i want.  The stuff we talk about here is reverse engineering what we do.  I was making 2 shows and then I asked if I would watch this and I said no.  I play games.  I am starting to look at film as a piece, there’s a channel where I can get certain levels of emotion and things, but if the game is added I can do more stuff.
• JA: that was my take and experience on Alias, we did basic web games and puzzles.  There were a few writers who did that because we love the show and we did it for fun.  Now we are at a point where that is transmedia..I found out what I was doing.  it all grew out of a fans passion for doing something that they loved around a property they loved.  The critical studies thing is so helpful to people like me.  We are creative from an instinctive place and be able to have thoughtful people talk to me about what is working, helpful in looking forward into how i will work, about creating.  Giving us names and structures and labels is important
• HJ: if you alienate the core audience, you are going to erode everything
• JA(just did it!)
• HJ: looks at Xfiles, they are bigger than people creating the property.  if you stop being true to the property, stop being the steward, and start to noodle your own thing…they will get pissed off and walk away.  If the geek is pissed off and walk away, then Joe Average will think about that and start to agree
• DB: there is a big difference between originals and adaptations.  I wrote the Flash – the misson was relaunch for a new generation.  We created new stuff and the 6 guys on comic block took us apart.  I should have used 3 of the most popular rogues…our mission was to forget the old guys.  The people who buy are those who care about the canon…..we sit there with wikipedia to find all this stuff…we went to ComicCon and were getting assulted….we had to apologise.
• JA: you are correct.  it is something that we, when the creator, of the show does something popular and gets bored and may want to do something else and steps away from vision that may alienate audience.  Advertising is another way product integration, if you appear to be selling out you can alienate.  That’s one of the things that keeps me up at night.  For Heroes product integration is a necessity.  Cell phones, Cisco, cars.  I can do it if you allow me to do it integrated, authentically that continues to be germane.  That is challenging to do when advertisers come in, they have specific needs and requirements.  In the past those needs have been passed down on paper and been told to do that.  With Heroes, I got to work with the clients, get to talk to them start a dialogue with these people and engage with them creatively you can come up with organic integration.
• DB: The prop guys used to make fake brands, , I’d rather get real products.
• GT: commercials are not been watched. We have met with major conglomerates to develop a movie around a product.
• JA: I have these, companies want to spend.  I’m Ok as long as there is creative control. Look at the Starter Wife and Ponds. Now I have Ponds on the brain, it was effective.  We have done great product stuff, Nissan Versa, we were a new show, it worked out well, they did not have a lot of specific requirements.  Hiro kept talking about the Nissan Versa as it was organic to who he was and his character.  Huge Success on an international level, have a Heroes branded versa in Frace
• GT: I’m a fan of Zip cars..and I pick out the Versas now,
• HJ: looking at Narnia, opponents to genre is fundamentals, how have you reconciled Narnia with that.
• GT: we look for good stories.  we went to a lot of teacher, parents etc to understand want children want.  Narnia is a very powerful story either as an allegory or had no idea, the power of the literature allowed us to make a huge fantasy film. Christian audiences liked it, we were respectful to the material,,  The opening, the bombing of London, people watched that and were bought in to the film.  We left the allegories in the film, we were not going to build that up to turn off others.
• DB: in the new job, the next movie, you must be doing a major job
• GT: the next in Prince Caspian. We have done a huge outreach to librarians, faith groups, introducing the audience.  Hopefully we will be successful  we will be a faithful adaption, you cannot talk down to your audience
• HJ: how much revenue form Heroes come from international sources and how doe this affect the process.
• DB: I’m doing something like now, they feel the syndicated market is coming back.  they all got worked-up over 300, I like CG and live action,  The plan is to start overseas, that market is very important
• JA: it has been massive, to everyone who worked on it was very surprising.  The cast went to Paris, when the show had not been there yet, but they had all watched it and were looking for the cast, talking to them, they knew the show.  Revenue generation is important.  The crazy idea I have, that I am excited about, a new property designed to launch simultaneously across.  We create format and find a format and find partners that want to create their own ideas, that are local; creating properties, gaps in the properties where people can express themselves, which can be part of the mythology without altering it significantly.  It’s almost possible now, because of the success of the shows, the web and transmedia storytelling…it has to be built into DNA of property have to think about it from beginning, so you can reach audience, generate revenue in an organic way and continue to make it
• JG: in 2002, Starlight Runner was approached by Mattel, to create content for Hot Wheels website.  We said we could start on the web, in comics, jump the story line to videos, rig it in a way you can do a tv series.  To my shock they went for it. I was fantasising in front of their board and they approved it and we had to do it.  We had to create a narrative round the toys.  An 800m$/year fanchise for Mattel.  we had to get the content in stores in November, this was June.  We wrote a race around the world, across 2 dimensions, we put landmarks around there and giving Mattel heart attacks.  We conceded somethings, but drew the line when Mattel said no women in the story line.  There are 36 cars and 10 characters, there are no girls.  They said our consumer base does not want  girls…we asked again, the bottom line that said the product was sold in nations where women drivers did not exist.   We took a stand, we almost lost it, an 8mill$ account.  We got with the video producers and the chicks were in.  They said the girl needs to get in trouble and be rescued…we scripted that she was surrounded by lava and she harangued them to rescue her.  Then she solved a major thing in the next issue and solved it with maths.
• JA: a quick Heroes story of something like that.   Hiro, they speak in Japanese and it is subtitled.   Ando is Korean, so questions were asked about how good is his Japanese, how would a Korean actor play in the Japan market,   Both of them speak perfect Japanese, there are certain things that may have been a problem in taking to Japanese market.  But it was a huge, huge success in Japan. There had been so many meetings and hassle.  But was coming form a clear honest place that thematically connects with people
• AudQ: taking a social stance, improving diversity.  Last month I was at SAG Summit, part of Performances with Disabilities, so last Monday’s episode was interesting.  I would love to see a character with a disability.
• DB: our casting director has always bought in all sorts.  One of my shows I had a actor in a wheelchair. but you still need the really good actors, I used someone in one show and he nailed it…
• JA: when Tim created Heroes he wanted to create a show that showed the world that he knew, what showed diversity. we were lauded for having ethnic characters.  It was significant.  People loved that stuff, in terms of being locked by the form into a specific ensemble group.  We have been trying to introduce new characters and it has been challenging,.  We need the space in the narrative to do it, one of the reasons we created Origins, that allow us to explore other stories, so we could have someone in a chair.  I spent about 3 hours on it before it was killed. Hopefully post-strike it will kick off again.  When you are dealing with a serial and ensemble it takes you in a direction that you can’t necessarily break away.  Origins allows us to brand out
• HJ: How does transmedia make it easier.
• DB: it should make it easier, you can show all these revenue streams.  But you find that the different groups protect own piece of the pie, not the content,. It will happen the opposite way, with the media directly, from fans and from outside the core.  Maybe we have to give them tools.  What I learned form the Sims is give the users the tools and they will do the job for you. Set the state and let the players come in.  I was going to ask about when you start one of these projects, how do you start,  in the new media side you have to build worlds,
• JA: that is the greatest. Dealing with transmedia, corporate convergence.  It is correct, these companies have been pursuing a specific model for a very long time, there is a massive infrastructure in these companies, when you think about the companies it is not ‘a’ company with one idea. There are multiple departments, that could be doing the same things and they may never have met, may not know what is there, there is potential for a lack of synergy. We are seeing a change in the companies in that they are understanding the space.
• GT: On Narnia, Disney has been a great partners everyone gets together regularly to go over everything, for games and products and spin-offs, the CS Lewis estate is involved in what can and cannot be done.  As long as we are being respectful of the property.
• JA: it is cultural and Disney does get it.  Within that infrastructure there is a way to connect executives with the creatives and that is the big disconnect.  The divisions are meeting and creating transmedia and there is no connection with the people creating the content, so no connection to the  content.  But it has worked out pretty well for me. 
• DB: Heroes and Narnia are very different.  Narnia – they know there is franchise, there are 7 books there.  There’s revenue, dollars etc for an existing piece content.  When you take something original from zero, they were spending a lot money on advertising, it turned me off a little bit, i was offended by the hard sell. 
• JA: Lost was there and their campaign could be said to be more elegant
• DB: it is a gigantic achievement, starting from scratch
• JG: with the producers guild they are defining transmedia and transmedia producers,.  the silos do not talk to each other; even with PotC, don’t you want to take the universe and make Star Wars,  the only way to do that it is to fabricate and persist with a transmedia experiences.  We make out these story lines and rollout and create stories about how it journeys from one media to the next.  The other thing, sort of the secret source, we are a third party, granted a little of carte blanche by TPTB, we can break down doors and make sure everyone’s working in the same world.  We use diplomacy and co-ordination to be the shepherd and clearing house for the UP.
• DB: the brand managing?
• JG: it is happening, and they love it as they are juggling the next things….to have someone doing the legwork, it helpful for them.  This could not happen unless there were visionaries in charge, who say I want that, who pay for it and them let them implement.  
• JA: we have a transmedia dept on heroes, that idea of finding individuals in companies who get it and want to attach to this property. They could be young and open to risk, you have to find out who will attach themselves. Over the course of Heroes we have found these people and have bought them together,  they need to create transmedia czars, someone who can oversee the properties and connect people together.
• DB: you guys ever have to show metrics? what the execs think..it is hot and sexy?
• JG; they are saying what are the metrics
• JA: they can sell advertising.. they do not do it because it is cool..they do it in small ways, they investigate.  it is when they start kicking in money you know they have found a way to get paid
• JG: that is a fiction piece and advertising is a possibility; with a brand it is a little trickier.  You can plug your own product, so there needs to be other metrics.
• DB: have you looked at virtual worlds?
• JG: at United Talent agency, they are building the kind of metrics you are talking about. to help sell.
• JA: CAA and ICM have people and are starting and they would not being if money is not there.  Any brand can find a way to do some kind of transmedia, any successful property has an audience that loves the brand and wants to find new ways of interacting.
• HJ: a new question…we have talked about only official transmedia…what about legal and labour values, what about fan stuff
• DB: the show The Sentinel went off in 1999. The target audience was the male 18-24 but there was a fan base of 100% women on the internet.  I get emails, we have reunions.  They write fictions, etc,  we are talking about the hardcore, they are creating content because they love it.  Give them the tools and they do it.  I talk to EA all the times, they talk about empowering the users, how do you org that, how do you get it to add value…
• GT; look at SL on line, give people tools,
• JA: I’m obsessed witht hat shit, I’m trying to give peoplel ways for people to play with my stuff.  Finding gaps in the content where people can play and that is something I think about a lot.  there is the hard core of people who will create and ways to reach out to a broad audience.  the sprint partnership, is the a way that people could create own characters, we ha a great interface, to allow fans to create fans on location, power, peron they are.  it is like a game, it allows them to participate in a casual game style, there is a way for characters to compete., they will battle there way to the end – like a trading game on the phone.  then may take the winners and get them into a webisode,…..just launched.  it is with sprint.  we hope it is cool.   These people with the phone can be in a webisode series.  we have to find a way to make that character cannon and find a way to make the value.
• JG: When I was a dungeon master and playing, I was creating a world in which when it was done just right, there was a spark of magic, we were in this world and I as a story teller was validating your participation in your world, raised you up in the world and then challenging you. That was so intense and passionate. i want that for an actual fantasy universe, I want you to be part of cannon, to be celebrated and validated.  these are the tools that we are trying to build..depending on your participation and loyalty and cleverness and how others feel about you , you will move closed to the center of the action. 
• DB:a game?
• JG :a transmedia experience?
• DB: but you are a game designer, you have to have a reality, it is not virtual reality…-
• JA: and that is awesome, we know that will happen eventually.  the real challenge is creatively collaborating, and D&D is a perfect analogy for the last series of heroes.  we have  set of rules, and we collaborated and last season it captured magic.  perhaps when we moved away from that and went more traditional we created something that was more traditional, and we have learnt from that.  it is super-collaborative..I acted as dungeon master
• DB: in a film there is a director..in games there is this sick egalitarian thing …you need  core visionary, a games master
• JA: that is right, and there are lesson from game industry, that team approach to creating something….a single creative thing.   As a group we do rapid prototyping, functioning as a group…we see what is working and what is not, allows to stay ahead
• AudQ: as a former D&D players, i understand the vision.  but D&D is a micromedia, a small community in same time and space. we are talking about transmedia across the world, maybe asynchronous. there is huge gap in how to massify it?
• JG: I would call it a design challenge…
• Aud Q: MMOs.. you need to play a lot to get to the center, I do not see how to accomplish it
• JG: play MMOs and it can take years to get anywhere.  with the kind of tech that is being developed the personalization mechs will start validating your investigation in this world.  Not necessarily talking about a true game experience,  it may be enhanced fan experience.  if you want to play the game you go play the game, I’m talking about playing and the more you do then the closer you are to contributing to cannon.
• DB: I’m consulting on a theme park for Dubai, here’s the thing..I’m going to say some high level stuff.  If you wear something on your body that is holding the data and is persistent. I designed an attraction that is expandable..be a character. uses tech, motion capture,  reflective surfaces.  Really cool, basic concept is take a theme park and have a sort of live action MMO.  Really, really, really excited and having more fun than anything in 20 years! can’t talk anymore
• AudQ: approaching question between fantasy and actuality from perspective of someone working in mobile etc.  I an interested in participant production. In transmedia can we extend from fantasy to real world issues.
• JG: Overcoming obstacles etc, in order to speak here etc, I had some hard knocks and learned some lessons.  i think about my peers, who do not make the same choices, I’m trying to talk back to them and reminding me..there is a social message in what I do,  I look for a message in the worlds and universes I create, without a message this whole thing will collapse. that’s what Narnia has, that’s what Heroes has.
• JA: Tim created heroes from a pure place, tell a hopeful story.  the way he has seen a fan community build around the property and the support and love that has.  He believes the success is based on the fan community.  He has come up with a concept, he wants to find a way to use heroes as a transmedia brand to be a positive force for good in the real world, to bring community together,  finding out what they care about and helping them find ways to affect a positive change in the world.  We are working in it, talking to a lot of people, everyone is excited, we are trying to find a way to use entertainment to show people how they can effect change. help people understand the power they can have, there is tremendous, things, Invisible Children…a transmedia property, based around grass-roots high school programme that kids can work to affect change in schools in Ethiopia. 
• GT: that is what i love.  At Walder, we try and find a social cause to get behind with every film…it did not mater that it was aslo marketing.
• JA: the trick is to find something that fits, we chatted about one laptop per child, very tied into heroes, a way of empowerment, so Heroes is attached to one laptop.  Thematically on our brand.
• AudQ:  I want to challenge you guys to think about fans extending your worlds.   we have tech that can put people into videos.   Are you going to be willing to open up your content, put the clips there…
• JG: we do not have to do it….they can do it in a year!
• JA: first I would say no.  we will not give you all our core characters, but we will do other things,  The broad base needs to be protected we have to protect cannon for everyone, but we want people to be doing things. so have to do it right.
• DB: it depends who it was for. I developed a show where you had 2 main things and then b characters doing a lot of other stuff.  so you have users create.  that is cool if unofficial stuff. the official always comes from core, but open it up for people to play. It does not have to interupt the show. if I want more I can fool around.
• JA: Henry talks about layers, different experieces.  the audience is massive, it is not just the fans, there are different niches, we could create spaces where they can officially interact and certainly there will be unofficial ways.  it is a way of trying to come up with as many ways to let them do what they want to do while staying true
• JG: there needs to be some pioneering legal stuff
• JA: on Heroes,….people were mixing to music, they were doing stuff.  I wanted to acknowledge it, to recognise it.  I wanted to do stuff…do a contest.  Then legally it came a problem, we needed to control that remixing, give them give a creative rule set, specific clips that had been cleared.  the legal constraints we were locked into that model.
• GT: he you seen ’studio’ UGC,
• JA: we have done some great videos at the launch.  there is a amazing video about Clare the cheerleader…on mobile…her friend drives the car at her.. it was too real we could not put it out there.  we made all this stuff and they would not let us put it out.
• HJ: what will it take to move the industry away from thinking transmedia is just a clearer way of advertising.  and where are we going?
• DB: High school musical is a ridiculous transmedia property…
• JA: almost anything can have a community, it is finding ways to give that community ways to experience it
• JG: alludes to the future, HSM, you will see transmdiea moving more that way, it started with the matrix etc and evolving more mainstream.
• DB: my guess is that when the executives enjoy transmedia, then they will get it, until then it is advertising.  until they have the user experience.  they have to understand it from a user view. not just a revenue stream

There were a few more questions which I missed transcribing, but the main points are caught.  This was my favourite session of the 2 days.

Tags: Heroes, Mattel, Hotwheels, Narnia