Embracing the Multi-Platform Storytelling Universe

First the bad news. Most filmmakers are so busy making their films that they forget to think about the people watching them. Meanwhile, the audience as we know it has left the building.

There is a growing disconnect between what the audience is already doing and what filmmakers think of as “the audience”. The mass audience no longer exists; it has fragmented in the age of the Internet into a plethora of niches and people are now interacting with technology across many devices, often simultaneously.

People born into this connected world are technologically savvy consumer-producers and they are probably doing things with your films that you would never have conceived of, with or without your permission. What they are probably not doing is trotting off to the cinema on a Friday evening to watch the latest indie films or watching documentaries on TV at the allocated time.

This is worrying for all those people with films clamouring for theatrical release and audience attention in a crowded marketplace and it is certainly challenging for filmmakers and industry folk used to traditional production and distribution practices.

The good news is that the people formerly known as the audience are also part of the solution to the current upheaval in independent film. If you start to execute your filmmaking process across the different platforms that your audience is already using, you will find that a whole universe of storytelling possibilities opens up and your audience will help you by engaging with your work in creative ways, thereby becoming collaborators and cheerleaders for your project.

Lance Weiler has pioneered multi-platform techniques and the engagement of audiences with his horror films THE LAST BROADCAST and particularly HEAD TRAUMA, and he shares a lot of his experience and resources through his open source Workbook Project website. He says using a kind of Horror 2.0 in the creation of elements like ARGs and live theatre around his films is the “most exhilarating creation that I’ve ever done”. He adds that multi-platform creation is exciting in terms of creativity, business and technology in that it mirrors current consumption habits, allows for new forms of funding and makes technology creative.

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