The Digital Fiction Factory

This week Ian Wareing from the Digital Fiction Factory came in to set us our first question! He was a really nice guy and gave a great presentation which took up the most part of an hour.

Digital Fiction Factory are a company that work with the BBC and Channel 4 to try and make new programmes that are convergent. The programs that they create take place on more than one platform. This encourages people not to just watch their programs but to go online to find out more about the program or take part in online games. I think that this is a very forward thinking way of thinking with media and is very interesting for the consumer. If I was watching a program and at the end of the episode it told me to go online to unlock further into that episode I would definitely go online!

Peter Salmon who is the Director of BBC North has been very complimentary of The Digital Fiction Factory and has said "The Digital Fiction Factory [is] a completely new kind of development and production centre.”

One of the examples of this that Ian talked about was The Well.

Ian then went on to talk about different examples of this idea on a mixture of different platforms, I have linked these below:

TV Radio and Film

http://www.youtube.com/britaininaday
https://www.themillionpounddrop.com/

Online

http://www.exquisiteforest.com/
http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71

Mobile/Tablet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gew68Qj5kxw
http://www.carolinesmailes.co.uk/books/99-reasons-why

Social Media

http://www.takethislollipop.com/
http://www.b-reel.com/digital/projects/inside/

Live Events

http://www.idhideyou.com/trailer.html
http://www.e4.com/hollyoaks/blog/wretch32invasion/

After Ian showing us these examples it became apparent to me how open and potential this idea actually is. I looked at all of the examples and all of them drew me in and had me looking around. I think there is a clear future in this multi-platform idea.

Ian then finished off his presentation by setting us his question:

"The Internet, Social Media and other open systems have allowed for user generated content (UGC), crowd-sourcing and other forms of audience participation to prevail in Digital Media. But how do we translate these features into storytelling experiences, without treading on the toes of the author?"

My first thought about this question was confusion! It is quite a hard question to get your head around I think, but after some thought I can see where maybe I would start to base my research, it will involved talking to a broad range of people I believe.

But we will see how it goes!