Transmedia Franchise Pitch Assessment

In this assignment, you will deliver an oral presentation that justifies and critically analyses your proposed franchise in terms of its potential success in the industry. The purpose of this assignment is for you to demonstrate your understanding of the nature of transmedia franchises and the relationship between screen franchising, convergence and innovation.

Your ability to deliver a professional pitch will assist you in the industry, both regarding screen studies and academic conferences. More broadly, the generic skills of communication and presentation will be developed in relation to broader industry applications.

For the presentation, you will need to pitch a successful screen franchise as a solution to contemporary screen issues within this area (medium specificity, beyond fidelity, adaptation in practice. You should also critically analyse your suggested franchise and justify logical arguments regarding its potential success based on the contemporary media sphere.

You will pitch a new transmedia franchise by developing an oral video presentation to summarise your rationale and process. Your transmedia franchise should take advantage of a range of mediums, making the most of the benefits and properties of each medium and other factors available to create a 'unified and coordinated entertainment experience' where 'each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story' (Jenkins 2003). The transmedia franchise you propose should be based on an existing property (novel, play, comic book, app, theme park ride, etc.) that has not yet been exploited for its transmedia potential.

Presentation requirements

You are required to record (using a webcam or your phone) a five-minute oral presentation and upload the video file to YouTube. When you upload your video to YouTube, ensure you have set the preference to 'unlisted'. Be sure to share your video using the 'share' function on YouTube and copy the link in your submission.

Your presentation should include the following components:

1. Brief summary of the franchise title and description, as well as a rationale for choosing the franchise.
2. Description of the process of developing the franchise—what decisions were made and why they were made.
3. Justification of why your screen franchise will be successful and how it utilises historical, cultural, innovative and/or convergent elements to establish itself in the media sphere.
4. Critical reflection on what role adaptation has played in your screen franchise.
5. A full reference list in Swinburne Harvard style submitted as a Word document.

Further details regarding the presentation component of this assignment can be found in the 'Additional resources' section.

The presentation also needs to include relevant academic research. This includes relevant sources used for researching the franchise, any underpinning theories and concepts you have discussed in the presentation, and any images you have included that are not your own.

It is also expected that the presentation utilises industry examples to support the points made.

Additional resources

The following resources will assist you in completing this assignment:

• Week 7: Convergence culture and transmedia storytelling.
• Week 11: Transmedia conglomerates – The evolution of Marvel.
• Transmedia project pitch sheetLinks to an external site. (Pratten 2013).
• Getting started with transmedia storytelling (PDF 8.9 MB) Download Getting started with transmedia storytelling (PDF 8.9 MB)(Pratten 2010).

Presentation resources

• MDA20007 additional resources:
  • Presentation.
• The 'YouTube' area of the Assignment toolsLinks to an external site. page for resources on how to record and upload your assignment.
• On the Academic writing and presentingLinks to an external site. page in the Student Hub, there is an area called 'Presentation skills'. In this area, you will find two videos to help you with your presentations:
  • Engage an audience: online and in person
  • Presenting from home.
• The Video editing and recordingLinks to an external site. page in the Student Hub will show you a variety of video editing and recording tips that you can apply when producing videos.
• Build your own teleprompter with PowerPointLinks to an external site. (Argawal 2012) has some tips on how to use a PowerPoint presentation as a teleprompter.
• Here is some information about Canvas Studio in case you wish to use this tool to record and present your presentation.

  • Check out the Canvas Studio information in the tabs on 0.3 How to succeed in this unit.

  • Look at the Canvas Studio GuideLinks to an external site. (Instructure 2022).

Microsoft Movie Maker for Windows users, and Apple iMovie for Mac users, are free video editing software programs that are arguably two of the easiest to use. Both products will allow you to perform simple video editing tasks very quickly. You can access these 35 best video editors for Windows/Mac/iOS/Android/Linux [all in one]Links to an external site.(Brown 2020).

The following student exemplars are to be used as a guide to direct you on your assignment. Use them as a guide for formatting and ideation:

Link: https://youtu.be/bMbH6m7BC5k