Creating powerful stories for audiences of the digital age. VERTOV is a creative agency that specializes in digital storytelling & visual PR - standout films, websites and interactive multimedia that connect today’s audiences with brands and businesses. On this website, we showcase inspiring digital stories: join us for the ride! You can email us
What kinds of local stories drive engagement?The results of an NPR Facebook experiment Informative article on the 9 types of content that actually reach and spread to audiences online: from Place Explainers, to Crowd Pleasers, to Feel-Good Smilers, to Awe-Inspiring Visuals. All is explained in this agreeable article from Nieman Journalism Lab. Put these conclusions to good use in your organisation and online content strategy!

What kinds of local stories drive engagement?
The results of an NPR Facebook experiment

Informative article on the 9 types of content that actually reach and spread to audiences online: from Place Explainers, to Crowd Pleasers, to Feel-Good Smilers, to Awe-Inspiring Visuals. All is explained in this agreeable article from Nieman Journalism Lab.

Put these conclusions to good use in your organisation and online content strategy!

Transmedia Storytelling Cookbook: From Digital to a Multiplatform Approach Marketers and designers are finally moving into a new era – the era of transmedia. The previous era, which was characterized by a huge platform obsession approach, is over. But what does it all mean? Sara Bozanic explains: Transmedia is a storytelling technique, which happens across multiple media platforms, but in a platform appropriate way. Content is spread across several media simultaneously. It’s not just about digital media, but also a combination of several traditional channels or a combination of both, such as the environment, radio, TV, web, mobile, etc. But what does this mean in practice? We can divide transmedia development process in 3 main phases: concept development, distribution and growth. Each phase is characterized by emotional investment, social mechanics, participation and care. Click on the image to read the full story.

Transmedia Storytelling Cookbook: From Digital to a Multiplatform Approach

Marketers and designers are finally moving into a new era – the era of transmedia. The previous era, which was characterized by a huge platform obsession approach, is over. But what does it all mean?

Sara Bozanic explains:

Transmedia is a storytelling technique, which happens across multiple media platforms, but in a platform appropriate way.

Content is spread across several media simultaneously. It’s not just about digital media, but also a combination of several traditional channels or a combination of both, such as the environment, radio, TV, web, mobile, etc.

But what does this mean in practice? We can divide transmedia development process in 3 main phases: concept development, distribution and growth. Each phase is characterized by emotional investment, social mechanics, participation and care.

Click on the image to read the full story.

(via futureoffilm)

The War For Your Television

TV is dead, long live TV!
From the Verge comes this engrossing article series: Over the top: the new war for TV is just beginning. Highly recommended read, the next few years (or months perhaps) will be decisive for the view in your living room! The digital revolution takes no prisoners.

Over the top. It is a strange phrase with many meanings, the most common of which is that something is excessive: This party is over the top, you might say. A 1980s Stallone movie about arm wrestling turned it into a power play, an expression of dominance: He went over the top! And at its root, the phrase comes from World War I, when soldiers leaping out of trenches to charge the enemy directly were said to be going over the top, almost certainly to their doom. They were crazy. Over the top.

So it’s fitting that the tech industry has chosen over the top as its preferred term for delivering video content to your TV over the internet. What Apple and Microsoft and Amazon and everyone literally mean is that they’re going over the top of traditional cable television by using broadband internet, but their strategies and relative success span the entire rich history of the term, from excessive indulgence to raw power grab to insane gonzo suicide mission.

Your living room is a battlefield that’s killed every would-be conqueror for the past 50 years, and it’s driving the tech industry insane. Over the top.

How Hollywood Is Encouraging Online Piracy

Great article from Scientific American. Excerpt:

“And if you don’t make your product available legally, guess what? The people will get it illegally. Traffic to illegal download sites has more than sextupled since 2009, and file downloading is expected to grow about 23 percent annually until 2015. Why? Of the 10 most pirated movies of 2011, guess how many of them are available to rent online, as I write this in midsummer 2012? Zero. That’s right: Hollywood is actually encouraging the very practice they claim to be fighting (with new laws, for example).”

If Content Is King, Multiscreen Is The Queen, Says New Google Study Smartphones are the most common starting place for online activities: The research found that a majority of online tasks get initiated on a smartphone while being continued on another device — perhaps with a larger screen for easier use. That effectively means that while your total content experience perhaps doesn’t need to be designed for a smartphone experience, at least the initial part of it should be, and that part should be integrated with how that content might be used on other devices — so, for example, watching a film first on a phone and then finishing it on a TV, or starting a shopping experience on a phone and finishing it on a PC.

If Content Is King, Multiscreen Is The Queen, Says New Google Study

Smartphones are the most common starting place for online activities:

The research found that a majority of online tasks get initiated on a smartphone while being continued on another device — perhaps with a larger screen for easier use.

That effectively means that while your total content experience perhaps doesn’t need to be designed for a smartphone experience, at least the initial part of it should be, and that part should be integrated with how that content might be used on other devices — so, for example, watching a film first on a phone and then finishing it on a TV, or starting a shopping experience on a phone and finishing it on a PC.

We Want Cinema

So everyone’s familiar with Video on Demand (VoD) by now, but what about Cinema on Demand? Now that most cinemas are equipped with digital projectors, it is - in theory - possible to demand any specific film for a screening.

Well, theory has now been put into practice. Take a look at We Want Cinema. Propose a movie you want to see in the cinema, and when it gathers enough interest, it is actually screened. It’s like organizing a video evening with your friends, but on the big screen!

Which film do you want to see?

Extending storyworlds. Or using the digital to get closer to the real

Storyworlds?

The term storyworld represents something that we encounter on a daily basis, when reading a book or watching a movie. In other words, each narrative medium can contain a storyworld, which in itself can, and usually does, contain a set of characters, storylines, settings, and basically everything else that your usual story contains. When, for instance, a sequel of a movie is released, a storyworld of the former is extended further. However, with the rise of digital media, and especially the Internet, it is now possible to extend such storyworlds to the point where the line between the real and the fictional becomes blurred (that’s if the audience is of course willing to suspend their disbelief). One of the most recent cases in point is the Suits Recruits social game, which we’ll briefly discuss here.


SUITS


SUITS

The TV series is set in a fictional NYC law firm, Pearson Hardman. Throughout the show, the audience follows the newest employee Mike and his day-to-day life at the firm, where he is teamed up with the well-known (for his work as well as his arrogance) corporate lawyer, Harvey Specter. The show is quite ordinary (but still decent), and thus contains a somewhat limited storyworld, which rarely goes beyond the firm, and the personal lives of the main characters to some extent. Therefore, the aforementioned social game was created to extend the storyworld further.



Suits Recruits You

The viewers apply for an internship at Pearson Hardman and therefore, after a presumably successful application, are invited for an interview at the firm. Before the interview, they are asked whether they’re interested in a paralegal’s or assistant’s position. During the interview, the applicants communicate with Dona (Harvey’s secretary), which leads them to experience the whole storyworld as something more than just a simple fiction. The two sides (the audience and the characters of the series) communicate over the firm’s (fictional) intranet. During the game, characters constantly make their appearance to interact with the players. It is through this quite simple game that the fans of the series are able to get to know the characters as well as the firm better.

As the game progresses, the players are asked to engage in various law cases and solve problems together with the fictional characters. At the very end of the game, or shall I say at the very end of the internship, two interns will actually receive a bonus of $50,000. Such a game not only extends the storyworld of SUITS, but also blurs the line between the fictional and the real, since the participants (you) are required to work, solve problems, and interact with their superiors (who are well… the result of somebody’s imagination) in a quite realistic fashion. This example not only illustrates how digital storytelling can be utilised to extend a storyworld, and cover it with a layer of realness, but also gives the audience what they so thrive for: participation and engaging stories.