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Back to Transmedia Storytelling: Narrative worlds, emerging technologies, and global audiences

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Transmedia Storytelling: Narrative worlds, emerging technologies, and global audiences by UNSW Sydney (The University of New South Wales)

4.7
stars
824 ratings

About the Course

Transmedia storytelling is the practice of designing, sharing, and participating in a cohesive story experience across multiple traditional and digital delivery platforms - for entertainment, advertising and marketing, or social change. Have you ever read a book, seen a movie, watched a television show, or played a game that centred around different aspects of a larger story or universe? You may be familiar with popular examples of such universes like Star Wars, Marvel, and The Walking Dead (to name a few). How do the professionals develop such expansive narratives? How do they ensure that each element stays true to the original story? How do they innovatively use different technologies to share the stories, grow audiences and create an active and involved community of fans? More and more, we are also engaging with elements or franchises of larger and more complex stories across a much more diverse range of platforms like interactive web experiences, social media communities, mobile devices, theme parks, and even augmented and virtual reality. A major challenge that current and future storytellers face is being able to engage different audiences in a story that is seamlessly told across all of these different platforms. WHAT WILL I LEARN? This course will help you to design a strategy for developing and telling your own transmedia story. You will learn about what it takes to: • Shape your ideas into compelling and well structured narratives and complex story worlds • Identify, understand, and engage different audiences in your stories • Create cohesive user experiences across different platforms • Evaluate existing and emerging technologies to share your story with the world, and help your audience participate in the larger storyworld you create The course provides you with a unique, authentic, and industry relevant learning opportunity. You will have access to current theory, industry examples and advice and undertake learning activities that will equip you with the tools you need to start developing your own ideas. WHO WILL MY INSTRUCTORS BE? You will learn effective transmedia design strategies from leading UNSW Australia Art & Design academics. You will also examine case studies that demonstrate how amazing ideas, technology and audience contributions can be brought together to create dynamic storyworlds. You'll see examples of major, successful transmedia storytelling projects involving movies, digital entertainment, gaming, virtual reality and more. In collaboration with our industry partner X Media Lab, the course will give you inside access to the personal stories, insight and advice of the following innovative transmedia storytelling professionals from Hollywood USA, Canada and Australia. • Susan Bonds, 42 Entertainment, Los Angeles, USA • Flint Dille, Screenwriter, Game Designer and Novelist, Los Angeles, USA • Cindi Drennan, Illuminart, Australia • Tom Ellard, UNSW Art & Design, Sydney, Australia • Catherine Fargher, Dr Egg Digital, Sydney, Australia • Hal Hefner, 3AM Creative, USA • Brian Seth Hurst, StoryTech, Los Angeles, USA • Henry Jenkins, School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, USA • Mikey Leung, Digital Storytellers, Sydney, Australia • Alex Lieu, 42 Entertainment, Los Angeles, USA • Geoffrey Long, Annenberg Innovation Lab, University of Southern California, USA • John McGhee, UNSW Art & Design, Sydney, Australia • Joseph Narai, Transmedia Entertainment, Sydney, Australia • Jeff Nicholas, The Uprising Creative, Los Angeles, USA • Sergio Paez, Graphic Artist working in animation, TV, video games, and film. Co Founder, StoryboardArt, California, USA • Steve Peters, No Mimes Media, Los Angeles, USA • Stuart Samuels, Stuart Samuels Productions, Toronto, Canada • Charles Santoso, Concept Artist, Sydney, Australia • Seth Shapiro, New Amsterdam Media, Los Angeles, USA • Scott Snibbe, Eyegroove, San Francisco, USA • Tracey Taylor, The Pulse, Sydney, Australia • Robert Tercek, Public Speaker, Digital Media Strategist, and Executive Leader for Creative Ventures and Business Innovation, • University of Southern California, USA • Kevin Williams, Founder & Director of KWP Ltd and DNA Association, UK • Brent Young, Super 78, Los Angeles, USA • Maya Zuckerman, Transmedia SF, San Francisco, USA COURSE CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Karin Watson, Iman Irannejad, and Dr. Simon McIntyre....

Top reviews

NT

Aug 15, 2021

Being someone who loves movies, this course has provided me deep knowledge about storytelling . the lectures were very understandable for a beginner. Hope to use this knowledge in future. :)

MP

May 23, 2021

I definitely recommend this course to all those who want to improve their creativity, their storytelling skills and learn to use different technologies to engage all types of audiences.

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26 - 50 of 282 Reviews for Transmedia Storytelling: Narrative worlds, emerging technologies, and global audiences

By Charu L

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Jun 23, 2020

All aspects of story telling and trans media story telling are discussed. The resource persons shared their experiences very effectively to keep the interest building. Thank you!

By Eric

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Mar 11, 2017

Very interesting!

At first, I just wanted to learn about Transmedia technics and when I was told to tell a story, well ...

And now, I'm ready to make it known!

By Mogeeb A R M

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Mar 25, 2020

What a wonderful journey!

Intensive, crazy, beautifully designed. genius content and flow of information.

I enjoyed, nearly, every second of this course.

By Debashish S

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Mar 9, 2019

Had a very excellent experience! The instructors were really very awesome. The course has surely improvised my understanding of transmedia storytelling.

By Farid N

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May 17, 2020

I'm sure this course will play major role in my career. I can't wait to use these new skills in my future career.

By David L

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Apr 23, 2020

Un gran curso, me encantó y aprendí muchísimo

By Noelle H

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Jun 7, 2023

This is an excellent introduction to transmedia storytelling. Taking the assignments seriously will get you well along the way toward applying the theory into practice. At the end of a course you will have a project plan that you can develop further if desired. Besides helping me develop in my career as a content creator, it also was super helpful to me as a writer and aspiring novelist. By learning how to tell stories in a transmedia context, you also learn tons about the craft of storytelling period, including creative ways you can approach it more generally as an art form. Some fantastic aspects of the course: - Really great, insightful discussions of various aspects of what transmedia storytelling is (and isn't) by experienced people in the field. - Excellent "recommended reading/viewing" sections with a lot to come back to (I am really excited about the storyboarding course I found through those links!) - Encouragement of hands-on, active learning that is valuable if you take the time to really engage. - You're walked through planning for your capstone project. The question prompts take a lot of time to answer well and thoroughly, but they help ensure you are really applying the precepts of transmedia storytelling to your campaign rather than just slapping the transmedia label on something that doesn't qualify. - You come away knowing who to turn to if you want to learn more about transmedia storytelling in the future. Henry Jenkins was one of my favorites, among others. I took away one star for a few areas the course could improve: - Despite the fact that several of the lecturers point out that transmedia storytelling doesn't necessarily require high tech or even electronics at all, there is a recurring bias towards cutting-edge tech and games in many of the lessons. It is definitely still chock-full of valuable insights and resources even for someone who (like me) is not planning to use advanced tech. However, I'd have liked more lessons exploring lower-tech ways to develop transmedia. - Understandably, the lessons tended to focus on the entertainment industry, although to their credit they also included social change campaigns. In my case, I'm using transmedia storytelling within a context that has to fit into my company's marketing objectives. There were one or two examples of this, but I'd have liked a deeper discussion of how to apply transmedia storytelling to non-entertainment categories. - The peer review system is a good one. However, one natural pitfall is that not everyone is equally invested in giving feedback. I took a lot of time giving in-depth, constructive feedback, but got almost exclusively one-word feedback for my assignments. As a result, I don't feel I benefitted as much from the peer grading aspect of the course. I understand there are platform limitations, but perhaps there would be a way to improve the community engagement and feedback quality for everyone. Overall, I 100% recommend this course. I haven't encountered anything else like it. I'd love to see this developed into more courses that go deeper and specialize in different aspects of transmedia storytelling. I would definitely sign up!

By Universitatea B B M S

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Dec 26, 2022

Too long introduction, good materials on how to structure the story and completly outdated last part regarding the media and transmedia. The course give examples and readings from 1o years ago.

By Sam M

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Feb 23, 2024

As a writer and storyteller, this course broadened my understanding of how my writing can be expanded both as a fictional tool as well as a marketing and social change tool. The assignments and feedback helped me understand where I need to focus more to create more clarity in my story and how I can communicate this to my audience. Many interesting additional resources questioned my way of thinking and pushed me towards thinking towards out side the box. I still believe that I have a lot more to learn and understand, but this will come from the application of the tools and skills learnt from this course. I think this is a great place to begin if you're a creative individual and looking to expand your understanding of storytelling.

By Aaron d l C

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Feb 11, 2017

Es un excelente curso para quienes quieren proyectar su talento artístico en proyectos de cualquier tipo. Los profesores son claros y concisos, y el material de estudio es abundante para entender el propósito de contar historias a través de diversas plataformas de forma sustentable en el tiempo.

This is an excellent course for those who want to project their artistic talents in any kind of project. Teachers are clair and concise, and the material to study is numerous. It is a great course to understand the purpose of telling stories across diverse platforms and in a sustainable form in time.

By Naijachic x

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Apr 1, 2020

I really enjoyed this course and the the structure of the videos along with the reading materials. Each of the weeks flowed seamlessly into the next. I kind of wish I had studied something like this earlier or when I was in school. However, this course gave me so much and I am glad I can go back and access the lessons whenever I feel like it. I just wish that for some of the assignments we had a little more time to complete, so we could really thoroughly go through the material and then write. That stated, I had a phenominal experience and I am happy I chose this course.

By Pam C

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Apr 19, 2021

Thanks to the diverse, experienced combination of instructors in this course, I learned a great deal about transmedia storytelling. Each video is kept short and focused, so I never felt overwhelmed by the content. The assignments are clearly defined, and each assignment addresses a discrete, focused aspect of the transmedia storytelling process, from audience to purpose. so I was able to apply what I was learning. Again, I truly appreciate the expertise of the instructors. I got a great deal out of this course, and I have solid next steps for my work. Thank you!

By Chandrakant S

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Jun 7, 2020

This is a wonderful course, and thanks to UNSW, and Coursera for the opportunity. For me, this has given a new dimension to my writing which I love to do. This course not only developed my story-world but would be useful to revisit some of the stories I had written.

How to disperse the story? How to engage the audience? How the co-creation and fandom can help to build the story-world? Which technologies and platforms are best suited to which segment? These are some of the questions that were best addressed through this course.

Thanks for the opportunity!

By Nevena B L

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Nov 20, 2016

A great course that will let you in on a world of possibilities when it comes to storytelling. Videos and readings are focused and to the point, with many points of view from both specialists and interdisciplinary experts as to give you a wide variety of opinions, approaches, and food for thought. Even if you're not interested in marketing your stories and making money, this course is still a top resource to refresh your Storytelling 101, as well as enrich your toolkit for the purposes of giving your story the best chance by enhancing it the right way.

By Estrellita R

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Dec 22, 2020

I really enjoyed this course and the weekly assignments. I liked how they focused on the different pillars of transmedia and shared great examples of how each of them work in the real world. The assignments were helpful in thinking about the other aspects of a story, such as audience, technology, and format, all of which are just as equally important as the story itself. If you are interested in creating a larger world for your story, or want it to be accessible on various platforms I recommend taking this course!

By Daniel M

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Jun 13, 2021

Es un curso muy interesante donde te muestran las nociones básicas del Storytelling acompañado de bases teóricas y cómo la estrategia no solo es contar una historia sino todos los elementos que se unen a su alrededor, por ejemplo las nuevas tecnologías como VR y AR, otros campos del transmedia como distintos medios: libros, videojuegos, comics, etc. Además otro elemento importante es la música por ejemplo y los aspectos visuales que pueden ser determinante a la hora de diseñar una narrativa.

By Vickery P

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Nov 30, 2020

Really well structured learning experience, and a long list of talented instructors and guest lecturers. Rigorous, thoughtful content that will give you a solid grounding in this subject and as many tools and references as you could want to build out your own transmedia project, be it for entertainment, social change or marketing. Having peers review work was hit and miss. I only had one person provide more than a few words, so that is the biggest drawback. Otherwise, well worth the time!

By german e m b

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Jun 4, 2021

I found this course very good, excellent and accessible because it has shown basic and important points about transmedia stories, its media classes to transmit the story, the types of formats that stories can be produced and the advantages and disadvantages of the media and formats. It also encourages the creativity of ideas to capture the teaching points and acquire them as a source of wisdom for people of any stratum and of any country.

By Rina

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May 10, 2020

This is a great course with amazing instructors, who put a lot of work into creating the materials including the tasks. It has taught me how to get to know my audience and to make sure they get a fulfilling experience. It has taught to focus on what is important while developing and delivering a story. Thanks to the information and the tasks I have designed my own project and received constructive feedback which helped along the way.

By Yogitha S

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Nov 11, 2020

This truly is one amazing gem for students interested to step into the world of Transmedia storytelling and learn the basics from the art of storytelling, knowing the audience to sculpt user experience design, and technology. The assignments will enable the students to equip their ideas from a linear format to a multimodal storytelling experience with the help of lecturers from various media backgrounds and industrial experts.

By Jasmine Y

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May 11, 2020

This was a very exciting and interesting course and I've learned a lot in the six weeks that I've done the course. The instructors and both the video and the reading materials were quite helpful. The peer-reviewed assignments and also reviewing other participants' assignments were quite helpful in developing the story that was part of the assignment. Some links provided in the reading materials were not working.

By Ubed A

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Jan 28, 2024

"Transmedia Storytelling" has been a transformative journey for me as an English teacher in Indonesia. The course provides a comprehensive exploration of narrative worlds, emerging technologies, and global audience dynamics. The collaborative learning environment, including peer evaluations, adds depth to the experience. I highly recommended for those keen on mastering storytelling in the digital age.

By Elias K

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Aug 25, 2017

An excellent course. It makes clear why transmedia storytelling is triving, while giving you the tools to set up your own story. I'd recommend any professional involved with media to become more acquainted with the topic of transmedia experiences on itself; and, for that, I have to say that this course provides a great insight on the structure, purpose and design of such projects.

By Writer A

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Aug 21, 2023

I am really impressed by the structure and content of this great course.

I thank Coursera and the University of New South Wales for such valuable learning.

Highly recommended.

Excellence in exhibitors, staff and other material

The level of review, forums and comments has been great for me who has taken other courses on this platform.

Thanks for this kind of material.

Elizabeth Alfaro

By Shashank U

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Sep 13, 2018

The course is well structured and filled with abundant resources. I loved the assignment section that helped me organise my thought process and be productive. Plus, this industry is something I really want to be working in, so I might be biased. Also, what makes this course truly valuable is that one gets to hear so many experienced professionals and their stories.