10 Comandments on Transmedia, by Michel Reilhac, Executive Director of ARTE France Cinéma

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SO FAR:

1. Thou will collaborate:
Lose 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:
Lose 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. Don’t get fascinated by the technological side of things.

Technology changes but the needs remain the same.

3. Thou shall embrace game culture:
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 lifelong 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 sidekick 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 ARGs has to be carefully managed in order 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.

Reilhac, M. 2011. Transmedia as a State of Mind. Website. http://thepixelreport.org/2011/02/08/transmedia-as-a-state-of-mind/. 18th February 2011.