Via /Film, again.

This kind of ultra-condensed video editing is something that I’ve seen pop up every now and then. It relies heavily on the audience being familiar with the material, and it’s made for the “snack” era.

Anyway, happy holidays and have a great new year!

A transmedia story represents the integration of entertainment experiences across a range of different media platforms. A story like Heroes or Lost might spread from television into comics, the web, computer or alternate reality games, toys and other commodities, and so forth, picking up new consumers as it goes and allowing the most dedicated fans to drill deeper. The fans, in turn, may translate their interests in the franchise into concordances and wikipedia entries, fan fiction, vids, fan films, cosplay, game mods, and a range of other participatory practices that further extend the story world in new directions. Both the commercial and grassroots expansion of narrative universes contribute to a new mode of storytelling, one which is based on an encyclopedic expanse of information which gets put together differently by each individual consumer as well as processed collectively by social networks and online knowledge communities.

An apt metaphor that Jenkins has used is the art of “world building”, creating a storyline where readers can jump in and contribute at any point or from any medium. Transmedia storytelling has usually been about expanding one cultural franchise into new media channels, as stated above. However, what happens when you start expanding cultural franchises into other cultural franchises?

Inglourious Basterds and True Romance: Bonded by Family Blood

Quentin Tarantino has been building universes since day one. The characters of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Death Proof talk about one another while eating at the same restaurants (like Big Kahuna Burger). Characters jump from one feature to another, and family relations might be mentioned in one script, but not seen on screen until another movie down the line. And at the Austin premiere of Inglourious Basterds, The Playlist learned that this film is, not surprisingly, related to True Romance, in a way that detail-oriented fans probably already suspect.

Fans of True Romance remember Saul Rubinek’s character, the producer Lee Donowitz. (Based by director Tony Scott, in a not too subtle manner, on Joel Silver.) In Austin, Tarantino said that Lee’s father is Eli Roth’s Inglourious Basterds character, Sgt. Donnie “The Bear Jew” Donowitz. Donnie is a violent, slightly unhinged individual, and some elements of that character were perhaps passed onto his son, who in True Romance is proud of his film Coming Home in a Body Bag.

I think this goes beyond just mashing up two cultural franchises in a one-off piece (like Aliens vs. Predators or Superman vs. Batman). This is more nuanced, more sophisticated and requires a higher level of literacy and dedication to Tarantino’s works. Tarantino’s works are currently confined only to the cinema medium, but I think this cross-referencing could be expanded to other media, easily. If transmedia storytelling is about creating “worlds”, as Jenkins states, then the next step might be about creating universes.