The Producers Guild of America Transmedia Credit
In April 2010, The Producers Guild of America established a credit for Transmedia Producers. While this was widely praised as legitimizing transmedia in Hollywood, growing concerns over have led for calls for the PGA to clarify the requirements and edit them to more accurately reflect the transmedia space.
- The PGA credit defines...
- The PGA credit validates...
- The Producers Guild of America credit guidelines for Transmedia Producer (link)
A Transmedia Narrative project or franchise must consist of three (or more) narrative storylines existing within the same fictional universe on any of the following platforms: Film, Television, Short Film, Broadband, Publishing, Comics, Animation, Mobile, Special Venues, DVD/Blu-ray/CD-ROM, Narrative Commercial and Marketing rollouts, and other technologies that may or may not currently exist. These narrative extensions are NOT the same as repurposing material from one platform tobe cut or repurposed to different platforms.
A Transmedia Producer credit is given to the person(s) responsible for a significant portion of a project’s long-term planning, development, production, and/or maintenance of narrative continuity across multiple platforms, and creation of original storylines for new platforms. Transmedia producers also create and implement interactive endeavors to unite the audience of the property with the canonical narrative and this element should be considered as valid qualification for credit as long as they are related directly to the narrative presentation of a project.
Transmedia Producers may originate with a project or be brought in at any time during the long-term rollout of a project in order to analyze, create or facilitate the life of that project and may be responsible for all or only part of the content of the project. Transmedia Producers may also be hired by or partner with companies or entities, which develop software and other technologies and who wish to showcase these inventions with compelling, immersive, multi-platform content.
To qualify for this credit, a Transmedia Producer may or may not be publicly credited as part of a larger institution or company, but a titled employee of said institution must be able to confirm that the individual was an integral part of the production team for the project. Complaints & Concerns
In short, complaints center around the confusion over how much responsibility a producer must have over the experience and the fear that focus on franchises may limit or slow acceptance, growth, and experimentation on non-franchise models (in Hollywood, if not beyond). And, of course, there are worries about the influence the PGA credit may have on other organizations.
The three primary concerns are:
1) The minimum of three narrative storylines. This excludes any and all transmedia projects which contain one or two stories and favors franchise models.
2) The emphasis on extensions. This further favors franchises in which many of the elements are, essentially, tacked on at a late date. It could also work to exclude transmedia projects in which the transmedia aspects are well integrated into the narrative.
3) The confusion between "responsible for a significant portion of the project's long-term planning, development, production, and/or maintenance of narrative continuity across multiple platforms, and creation of original storylines for new platforms." and "may be responsible for only part of the content"Add to the conversation!
Ideally, we'll be able to help the PGA improve the credit, but my aim is to help all sorts of organizations needing to define transmedia avoid some of these issues.
I think it's also important that we recognize that the PGA took a great step forward. First steps are always difficult and rarely perfect. They should be commended for that, no matter how critical we may be of the credit (and how it is worded).
If you're using twitter, use the hashtag: #PGAcredit. This will make the discussion easier to find and, for those who do not want to be a part of it, filter it out.- Articles & Posts looking at the issue:
The puzzle of transmedia classification criteria | Transmedia LabFor several months now, we’ve been analyzing transmedia works and projects, reflecting on methodologies to write them, giving our point of view on some ofReclaiming Transmedia Storyteller | facebook note
Storify can't seem to find this (perhaps because it's a note & not an update?) but there's an outstanding discussion happening on how to define it including an outstanding comment from Evan Jones on why this matters (and some of the difficulties): "There are literally millions of dollars hinging on our ability to define what we do against what we don't"- #noPGA #transmedia
If you have an example of a transmedia project which you think the PGA credit guidelines would exclude based on the public guidelines, tweet it using the hashtags #noPGA #transmedia
Please stick to well known or unique examples, thanks!
Also, don't use this just to promote your project, we're working on another, better, resource for that. So send a link to or start a conversation with Brooke Thompson (@imbri on twitter and other contact info on GiantMice.com)
