In the previous edition we exposed certain relevant aspects about the new audiovisual production schemes, by incorporating technologies such as the Internet and new devices and platforms, for the creation of products that can be exploited on a wide range of screens.
Mg. Luis Fernando Gutiérrez Cano
Mg. Luis Jorge Orcasitas Pacheco
In this edition we return to the theme, based on the observations that were expressed in Mediamorfosis, a Latin American multiplatform event of dissemination, exchange and production, which was held in the city of Medellín, with the accompaniment of the National Television Authority, ANTV, and the Master's Degree in Digital Television of the Pontifical Bolivarian University, which focused on developing considerations, around transmedia narratives and their feasible potentialities for the country's public and community media systems.
Then there were new reflections that reflected international speakers such as Damián Kisner, director of Mediamofosis, and Ricardo Andrada, screenwriter of interactive webdocs, both from Argentina; also, Suzy Sierra Ruiz, representative of Civil Society before the National Television Board of the ANTV and Olga Castaño Martínez, representative of the Universities before the National Television Board of the ANTV. This time the critical gaze of these experts is directed to topics such as transmedia experiences in other Latin American countries, the limits of transmedia communication and what audiences expect from audiovisual products in the new communicative ecosystem.
In the first place, Damián Kisner, Argentine transmedia producer, rescues the experience in his country, where currently the transmedia covers narratives of all kinds: current affairs, journalism and fiction, among others, that is, life, reality, among other aspects, is being narrated. This as a consequence that, increasingly, the mass media begin to understand that they have to participate with audiences. From these mass media, both in fiction program, realities, or journalistic products, the participation and crossing of audiences is generated. Hence, these types of dynamics are those that can be seen on Argentine television in different instances of programming.
In relation to the direction that Trasmedia communication processes will take in the short and medium term, Ricardo Andrada, screenwriter of interactive documentaries, was emphatic in pointing out that these processes are still uncertain, given the clear phase of experimentation in different areas of the media ecosystem (seeing how the models are, what things work, what things do not). He also points out that this becomes even more complex when, parallel to this phase of experimentation, new technologies enter the markets, such as virtual reality and augmented reality, that is, it is a world in permanent movement.
Today in the world there are many models to look at and they should not be ignored because, in one way or another, they are a source of inspiration. It is well known that the current media ecosystem raises many things that are not difficult to do, some others will involve investments, more costs and even larger budgets that, possibly, are not had, but for other things, you can appreciate the infinity of transmedia experiences around the world and find models, even from the public media, which are very interesting to analyze and also apply.
Is it good to experiment?
In the face of a technological wave that is unpredictable and that at the same time generates so many changes – there is no longer talk of changes but of implosions – in the face of so many perspectives posed by digital phenomena, a series of questions arise around the experimentation factor: Before an audience that today is active, how to motivate the channels to experiment and "play" with this audience?, How to involve it in the processes of co-creation?, how to generate that change of mentality and give a little more voice to the citizen, who is on the other side and who can contribute more to the environment?
Faced with these questions, Suzy Sierra, representative of Civil Society before the National Television Board of the ANTV, points out that there are no absolute answers; however, they are likely to be built with a collective contribution, that is, with the participation of all the agents involved in the audiovisual communication processes.
Sierra points out that certain initiatives, particularly in Colombia, are difficult to develop, given that they have legal parameters that often turn out to be limiting for creativity; In this sense, he emphasizes that the country needs to bring fundamental concepts such as entrepreneurship to public television, which necessarily implies that it is necessary to experiment and that, if it is not successful, this experimentation becomes a teaching for others and, from this, new attempts are staged, without "punishing" or stigmatizing those who "fail".
According to the above, what is perceived is that the experimentation processes in Colombia, from the ANTV, constitute components difficult to feed with public resources and it is presented as a challenge to apply the concepts of entrepreneurship to an industry that has traditionally used the same formulas that have given it results; Even, it is also evident in private television, which uses formulas that serve it and tests them again and again, because it perceives a lot of security in its results.
Budget, limitation for transmedia
According to Damián Kirzner, the issue of the budget for transmedia production is also disruptive, because each platform has its own independent way of monetizing. When the traditional monetization model enters into crisis, the medium faces the challenge of finding new systems that can generate platform crossovers. This means that, probably, when you develop a transmedia script, an architecture of a certain content and move on different platforms, already at the time of creating each of these platforms, the creative group has to imagine how you are going to monetize each of them.
The above complicates the entire process and there will be cases, where probably one platform is subsidizing the other. Maybe there is a platform that bills and makes money and another that does not, but this second one is necessary in the scheme. Therefore, this budgetary system is more complex than the traditional one, where a television program was made, which had a very good audience, the second was more expensive, there was more rating, and therefore the advertising was more expensive; now it is much more complex.
Conception of the transmedia script
According to Damián Kirzner it is a factor that changes all the time and that depends on the type of content you want to make; for example, if you want to develop a content, such as Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, which has to do with a British problem, such as abandoned houses, but at the same time there are hundreds of thousands of people who are homeless, this medium then created a television and transmedial content in which, on the one hand, the audience is invited to identify those houses through an application and take a photo, on a map of the abandoned houses and the audience is invited to tell their stories and why that family needs a house.
All this leads us to reflect that at the time of creating the script, or the map, or the transmedia architecture of a certain content, it should be thought that that content will require a mobile application so that people can geoposition and a distribution of this application so that it reaches the audience; Likewise, you must have a television program with a production team that is creating the programs and that from that structure, a social articulation will be created so that through social networks people tell their stories.
This map and this architecture, are prior and prior to the construction of each of the contents; then, the application and how the application is developed is a script and a content; the television program, as we know and understand it, the story of these two families is a more traditional script, but prior to each of the scripts you have to develop a map that draws a transmedia architecture that allows everything to be articulated.
Transmedia narrative as a business model
Faced with the issue of transmedia narrative as a business model, for Ricardo Andrada, it is a concern that many agents in the audiovisual sector around the world currently have. In that sense, it is evident that, despite clear evidence that the audience is elsewhere, advertising investment is still in spaces that are losing power or relevance. The question of monetization is not so easy, there is a key issue that still needs to be examined in all its complexity; there is a very important debate that the entire sector must give, because it is directly about the sustainability of the models that are generated.
Faced with the issue of business models, for Damián Kirzner it is necessary to point out that the commercial structures of traditional companies are very rigid and also have interests, that is, whoever sells advertising for television earns money if that advertising appears on television, not on the Internet or in another medium; therefore, there is a structure in the media center, in the advertising agency and in the commercial management of the television channel, where it is evident that there is no interest in change, although paradoxically each time the measurement sheets indicate that fewer people watch that channel.
On the other hand, convergent content or content that crosses platforms begins to put in check all that paradigm, now it is the brands themselves that begin to challenge this scheme because they no longer want to guide "traditionally", but they begin to want to follow an audience through a content that is sometimes transversal.
Colombian context
For the Colombian context, Olga Castaño agrees with the previous approach, with the exception, of the particularities faced by a country like Colombia, whose territories are extensive, which sometimes hinders the implementation of certain products related to education and technologies. It is not Holland, nor Guatemala, nor Nicaragua, nor El Salvador, which are small. Castaño recognizes the importance that television still has in very remote rural sectors and the educational content that can be contemplated.
For the ANTV, the proposal for the creation of educational content for other platforms and devices by the Colombian State is a viable possibility, without leaving aside the other, that is, this type of projects must be done and are being done. However, Castaño recognizes that we must start with what public television and television sets that are still seen in the most remote parts of this country offer us, complementing it with other proposals.
The future
According to Damián Kirzner, what comes are the realities and experiences of immersion, that is, the possibility of participating and being inside, in an immersive way, in the stories. Mark Atkin, a British specialist at Crossover Labs, who was at the Mediamorphoses in Buenos Aires and Brazil in 2016, says that the key to creating content in the future is to be immersive, interactive and generate empathy.
Immersive realities have different alternatives: the interior mapping of a space, virtual reality, mixed reality, augmented reality, parallel reality. From those new tools to count, new experiences will surely come. Today we talk about virtual reality and we can see it, but there is no mass market of gadgets, of artifacts; in the world, there are 20 million oculus or similar, and the number of televisions multiplies it by a billion, but it is a new medium that is growing and that is advancing, and it is a different and distinct narrative experience towards investments and interactivity.
For her part, Suzy Sierra, as a member of the board of the ANTV visualizes that in twenty years we will have gone from the television of the sofa to live the television, to feel it through the 5 senses and feel the own experience in situ and that will happen to the children who today have one or two screens and to the groups between 18 and 44 years old who have five screens in front, it has already gone from the passive attitude to wanting to feel.
Finally, Ricardo Andrada believes that we are indeed going to a world in which experience will rule and where relevance is another key word: we must generate content that is relevant to the one on the other side.
We are in a scenario in which technology has profoundly democratized the creation of content; today we are all consumers and content generators: anyone, by turning on their phone, can broadcast what they want for an audience on Facebook Live, for example. The user is the medium, at the same time that he consumes. We are already and are increasingly moving to a space of formidable horizontality and democratization of the means of content production.
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