The Producers Guild of America Board of Directors report they have approved the addition of 'Transmedia Producer' to the Guild’s Producer Code of Credits (PCOC)."The Guild’s decision to expand the Code of Credits to recognize the Transmedia Producer underscores the changing media landscape and the critical role of the producer within new creative mediums," said PGA President Marshall Herskovitz.
"As technology evolves, it’s no longer adequate to think of a project as simply a television show or a movie; we now understand that the audience will want to experience that content across several platforms - online, mobile, VOD, Blu-Ray, and now iPad - often with different or additional material. It’s the producer who oversees the complex and creative process that allows that to happen."
The Guild defines a 'Transmedia Narrative' project or franchise of one that consists 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 to be 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.
"...With content no longer available as a discrete single-platform experience, but an expansive and immersive one, it takes a savvy producer to assess and manage the wealth of multi-platform possibilities available to a great story, as well as finesse the final deal..."
