Transmedia Project

In October I'd like to present you two French Transmedia Projects: Alt-Minds and L@-Kolok.com

• Interview with Morgan Bouchet, VP Transmedia and Social Media at Orange "Transmedialab"

ALT-Minds - new French Transmedia project 

• Interview with Alexandre Pierrin, Co-founder of "Le Vent Tourne"

Transmedia Project L@-KOLOK.com: how to learn about global issues in a funny and interactive way

Transmedia Project L@-KOLOK.com: how to learn about global issues in a funny and interactive way

Today I present you another French Transmedia project:  L@-KOLOK.com that will start in November 2012.

Its goal: to teach young people global issues (ecology, sustainable development, food waisting, etc.)

How:  by using comedy, interaction and gaming

With participation of : the French Ministry of Education, the French Ministry of Agriculture, ADEME (Agency for Clean Energy), Region Ile de France, Paris City Hall and GEMA Prévention.

Interview with Alexandre Pierrin, co-founder of "Le Vent Tourne"

 

1. Could you quickly tell us what L@-KOLOK.com is?

L@-Kolok.com is a web series and transmedia program that raises awareness about global issues like ecology, food wasting, etc. with three originalities: comedy, interaction, and experts’ opinions.  

The idea is to target young people and to create special programs that enable them to understand these topics using media that they are already familiar with and that they like to use such as web series, board games, twitter and Facebook. The concept of the interactive webserie was originally imagined by Lucie Poirot in 2008 and I joined the project in 2009. We quickly turned it into a transmedia program without even knowing the word “transmedia”!

2. What differentiates L@-KOLOK.com from other web series?

There are a lot of differences.

Firstly, we want to entertain youth in an intelligent way by giving a special message on specific issues such as ecology, sustainable development, food wasting and saving energy.

Secondly, it's an interactive web series. There is a pause in the movie where you can choose what option to take next. For instance, we can choose to listen to the character we prefer, a sentence we like or choose the next move of a given character. Sometimes for fun, sometimes for information or just to check if we are really following what has been said. So interaction is the second originality.

Thirdly, we will add pedagogical content to the entertaining; in such a way to have a funny aspect about these subjects. But at the same time we show videos of experts talking seriously about these subjects.

La-Kolok is a program for young people but also a tool for teachers or other people who want to work with them on these kinds of subjects.  You can find these expert opinions at the end of each video under the name "Parole d'Expert".

If we look at the program globally, we use the game as a tool on all platforms. In the first season every episode has a goal that one must achieve. For example one character (boy) must meet a girl and you have to help them.  So the game is something that we integrated into the web series but also by creating a board game called "Popote Minute".

We have an ARG game that is scheduled to come out in April 2013 and different events or contests linked to their Facebook profiles. So the idea is to always use games to convey information on ecological and sustainable subjects.

Humor and gaming are the two elements that we use in order to be more appealing.

3. What platforms do you use?

We use Internet, ARG, Facebook, Twitter and iPad. We also plan to edit DVDs with pedagogical frameworks dedicated to teachers, so that they can use L@-KOLOK.com in classrooms by the end of 2013.  We have a coproduction with the Ministry of National Education (Ministre d'Education National) on the expertise side. Thanks to it we hope to reach a wide audience of teachers and professionals in France.

4. How does the storytelling change according to the platform?

The main platform we use for storytelling is the web series because that is where we can see all of the characters who interact together in their flat.

Every episode is independent because each is financed separately.

In this way each episode can be seen and understood without having to watch previous episodes.

Moreover, if you want to have more one-to-one content on a character, you can go on it’s Facebook and Twitter profiles. There, you will see short videos that will give a more humoristic or intimate insight.

5. What is your business model?

Our business model has been quite complicated so far because we have different ways of financing our programs.

Our project is based on two structures: on one hand we have a production company "Le Vent Tourne" working  all the transmedia subjects and the web. The second partner is the association "Le Temps Presse" that develops the pedagogical tools and part of the webserie.

So we have two partners working on the same project. Each of these partners is in a position to look for different funding. For instance, the association is able to obtain public funding from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Agriculture, ADEME (Agency for Clean Energy), Region Ile de France and Paris City Hall. The production company enables us to contact the Ministry of Education and insurance companies through GEMA Prévention.

In doing so, we will be able to offer our audience 6 to 8 months of content, free of charge.

The second way is that we want to sell the different tools outside the web series, such as a board game, ARG. The ARG will be launched during the Sustainable Development Week in April 2013. The organizers needed an animation for this event, so we proposed our ARG. In the future, we would like to sell more tools like these.

Finally, as I previously mentioned, by the end of 2013 we want to sell educational DVDs.

6. How many episodes have you produced so far?

There are already 2 pilot episodes on the web today and we are going to produce 4 or 5 episodes for the first season. We don't know if they will become a part of the first season yet or not because we want to have much more interaction off the screen. And, as mentioned before, each episode will be independent of the previous one.

The format is 15 to 20 minutes long, knowing that if you do only one track you can finish it in10 minutes.

7. It's too early to ask you for statistics...

We don’t have statistics because we haven't communicated so far, but we have already 10,000 viewers. These pilot episodes have been on Internet for one year. We presented them in different festivals. For example two years ago and last year we were selected for a festival in La Rochelle, so many people viewed them. We also have been selected for the Transmedia Immersive University's event “I love Transmedia”

8. How will you communicate about L@-KOLOK.com?

We have different plans about our communication. Our strength is that we have a lot of partners and each of these partners has different platforms, different media, Facebook pages, etc.  At each episode we will be able to launch a new communication based on the media that our partners have.

Moreover, we can use events that our partners organize and their social networks by inserting teasers and videos before the episode starts in order to already establish a "base of fans".

9. What is the next challenge for you?

The next challenge for us is to launch this project, to finish the episodes and to maintain the activity for at least 6 months because the program will start from November 2012 to April 2013 starting with the web series and ending with ARG.

ALT-Minds - new French Transmedia project

The collaboration of Lexis Numérique (creator of In Memoriam) and the European telecommunications giant Orange has given birth to an exciting new Transmedia project, Alt-Minds. The project is scheduled to launch on November 5^th simultaneously on the Internet tablets, social networks, as well as in the real world.  Baptised a total fiction by Eric Viennot (Co-founder of Lexis Numérique) , Alt-Minds is a paranormal thriller that combines the world of web fiction with investigative gameplay.

Wanting to know more about this long-awaited project I interviewed Morgan Bouchet, VP Transmedia & Social Media at Orange "Transmedialab"
 

 

Interview with Morgan Bouchet, Orange

Excerpts:

 1. What differentiates Alt-Minds from other Transmedia projects?

Most of the Transmedia projects which exist in France and in Europe are series, web documentaries, but rarely games. Alt Minds is a game that gets closer to the world of web series (4 hours of videos and web series) and  this is why Alt Minds is different. We know that the playful aspect has an important role to play in a multiplatform project as we have seen in previous projects (Fanfan 2, Detective Avenue and The Prodigies). Today we wish to complete the  cycle with a new kind of  Game.

2. What platforms do you use? 

Alt-Minds uses many supports.  It goes from smartmobiles,  tablets, to PC and Mac. Depending on various moments of the game the tablet, the PC or the mobile will be more or less used . However, the tablet is at the heart of Alt-Minds.

Regarding the video content, we use a platform which is close to that of Orange: Dailymotion. It  allows us on the one hand  to address various countries who are involved in the project (all of Europe) and on the other hand to lean on its technical structure.

3. What is your business model?

We use mainly the game economics and advertising. 

The first economic strategy: game economics.

The game lasts 10 weeks. The complete season costs  less than 20 euros. The first chapter which lasts 15 days is free and then the access to the next ones is charged between 2 and 3 euros by chapter. The cost is therefore affordable.

 Moreover, players can access additional paying premiums.

The second economic strategy is advertising on the Webseries videos that accompany the game on Dailymotion with the same weekly frequency of 10 weeks. It is free for the audience.

4. You have produced this project with Lexis Numérique. How did you share the responsibilities ? 

We went into coproduction with Lexis Numérique whose main activity is the game’s creation. Lexis is in charge of the executive coproduction (scenario, game design, production of content).

And Orange is more  of a technological partner. We brought in technology and our expertise in transmedia, the topic that we‘ve been considering since 2009.

5. Orange sponsors  The Transmédia Lab and makes a commitment to the creation of the transmedia projects. You manage the Transmedia and SocialMedia team. What is the ambition of Orange in the field of transmedia and precisely: what is your commitment to the creation of multiplatform projects? 

Our short-term goal is to test, to learn and to understand through experiments with Orange technology and solutions through our project tests (API of Player, Geolocalisation, SMS, solutions for Social TV), longer down the line we will study the possibility of industrializing these tools bound for the creators, TV networks, media...

Concerning our commitment to the multiplatform projects, the Orange Content Management also accompanies the creation of innovative formats through two funds: the SACD and the Beaumarchais organization which allows to reward about ten projects a year.

6. Let's now talk about the user’s point of view. Could you describe in a few words the different stages of this search which began at The University of Belgrade during the mysterious disappearance of scientists?

As a user, starting in mid October I saw some very weird but funny  videos air in my network of friends. These allowed me to obtain information about the missing researchers and to recruit players (it is an Alt-Minds project which begins at the interactive level).

At the beginning of November, I discovered another level of information: find 5 missing researchers. The Foundation which finances their research on paranormal subjects decided to hire a team of  investigators to track them down. The Internet users were brought in  to help the foundation.

I could also be brought to ask my close friends to accompany me in this adventure. The investigation will have a week to week frequency. I will get the clues which will allow me to advance to the next step at the end of the week.

7. Today there are 2 active protagonists on Facebook: a photographer named Peter Edgarson, who is in Paris at the moment and Laurence Spencer who announced the search for her friend Sofia Milleva. Where can I find other information about the investigation? Is there a dedicated blog or other profiles on Facebook? 

I do not want to give away everything, but there are various entrances that have already been set up in order to enter the Alt-Minds universe. Forums are being created. There are communities which have already seized the game. All the information on the characters and the various elements of the investigation will be revealed during the course of the game. But already today, we can begin to find some of the clues by tracking Alt-Minds play on our PC  as well as certain people’s Facebook pages.

8. If I imagine myself as a casual gamer, much of a web series fan; how can I participate in the Alt-Minds adventures ?

If I am a casual gamer, as I am,  I can track a game either with the same frequency as the other players, or recorded, every week, by using the application on the tablet. This application is developed like new fluids on Facebook and allows me to track the news of the week in a fast way, by unwinding days. 

Since I’m a bit lazy and I don't  have that much time to search for the clues daily, some options will help me to accelerate certain missions and thanks to this to follow and to move forward with the same frequency as the others but spending less time.

Additionally, I have the video dimension, which is much more casual and which, this way, can allow me to understand the progress of the game weekly without forcing to play 1 hour per day.

There will also be casual games on mobiles and on Facebook that have easy access for entering the Alt-Minds universe. 

9. If I am an avid fan, what do you have in store for me ? 

Eric Viennot, the author of the game, attached a lot of importance to giving meaning to the game and going all the way for avid players. He has embellished the Alt-Minds universe in such a way in order to satisfy the most dedicated players.

10. The web fiction is available in four languages (French, English, German and Spanish). How can the players living abroad participate in Alt-Minds?

Each task was thought out in a way to be accessible from any one of the European countries, as much in terms language and in terms of enigmas. However, Alt-Minds is available only in Europe.

11. Are you planning on launching Alt-Minds in America? 

We hope to do so in 2013. We’re waiting to see the outcome in Europe, and if it is a success, we can export it to  the rest of the world.

12. Can players from abroad access your site www. Alt-Minds.com? 

Completely. There will be a localized site of www.alt-minds.com in various European countries. We have also planned some enigma abroad which will require geo-localization.

13. How do you feel just one month before the launch of the  project ?

I’m feeling very good about it.  We are at the final stages of finishing the project. We are in contact with media and bloggers who are very interested in this kind of game.

It's interesting to see a real craze for the project because it is a new kind of the game inspired by In Memoriam. In terms of creativity, we flirt with the playground of people who create editorial content and individual series in video. It is interesting to see that the transmedia is a combination of game and technology with the world of fiction.

Realised by Urszula Gleisner     Translated by Rebecca Levin