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Entertainment Architecture Entertainment Architecture Constructing a Framework for the Creation of an Emerging Transmedia Form by Adalbert (Woitek) Konzal Dipl.-Kfm. European Business School, Oestrich-Winkel, Germany A dissertation presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, Australia 2011 Adalbert (Woitek) Konzal Entertainment Architecture Keywords film movie transmedia entertainment transmedia storytelling pervasive games ubiquitous games agency form evolution entrepreneurship business industry creative destruction marketing promotion — II — Adalbert (Woitek) Konzal Entertainment Architecture Abstract This thesis investigates the radically uncertain formal, business, and industrial environment of current entertainment creators. It researches how a novel communication technology, the Internet, leads to novel entertainment forms, how these lead to novel kinds of businesses that lead to novel industries; and in what way established entertainment forms, businesses, and industries are part of that process. This last aspect is addressed by focusing on one exemplary es- tablished form: movies. Using a transdisciplinary approach and a combination of historical analysis, industry interviews, and an innovative mode of ‘immersive’ textual analysis, a coherent and comprehensive conceptual framework for the creation of and re- search into a specific emerging entertainment form is proposed. That form, products based on it, and the conceptual framework describing it are all re- ferred to as Entertainment Architecture (‘entarch,’ for short). The thesis charac- terises this novel form as Internet-native transmedia entertainment, meaning it fully utilises the unique communicative characteristics of the Internet, and is spread across media. The thesis isolates four constitutive elements within Entertainment Architec- ture: story, play, ‘dance,’ and ‘glue.’ That is, entarch tells a story; offers playful interaction; invites social interaction between producer and consumer, and amongst consumers (‘dance’); and all components of it can be spread across many media, but are so well interconnected and mutually dependent that they are perceived as one product instead of many (‘glue’). This sets entarch apart from current media franchises like Star Wars or Halo, which are perceived as many products spread across many media. Entarch thus embraces the commu- nicative behaviour of Internet-native consumers instead of forcing them to de- sist from it, it harnesses the strengths of various media while avoiding some of their weaknesses, and it can sustain viable businesses. The entarch framework is an innovative contribution to scholarship that al- lows researchers to investigate this emerging entertainment form in a structured way. The thesis demonstrates this by using it to survey business models appro- priate to the entarch environment. The framework can also be used by enter- tainment creators — exemplified in the thesis by moviemakers — to delimit the room for manoeuvre available to them in a changing environment. — III — Adalbert (Woitek) Konzal Entertainment Architecture Supplementary DVD This thesis describes an emerging entertainment form that, really, needs to be engaged with to be fully understood. Unfortunately, a written description — as provided on the following 252 pages — does not make such engagement pos- sible. The thesis is therefore complemented by a DVD (to be found on the in- side of the back cover), which offers videos that have been created by various artists to better convey what their products based on this form are about. Of course, even such videos cannot make real engagement possible, but they make the form and the thesis a little more accessible. Whenever, therefore, a video exists that well illustrates an entertainment product described in the thesis, the DVD is mentioned — at first sparingly and then extensively throughout the thesis. The video files on the DVD are named after the in-text citations. Furthermore, Appendix D Mentioned Entertainment Products lists all entertainment products that are referred to in the thesis and mentions the DVD where appropriate. All of these videos can also be watched online under the URLs provided in the Bibliography, but the DVD makes watching the most interesting ones more convenient. All videos can be played back using the latest versions of Windows Media Player, Quicktime Player, or VLC Media Player. Windows and Mac installers of the latest VLC Media Player version are provided on the DVD or can be down- loaded from www.videolan.org — for those readers who wish to install one of the most versatile media players on their computers. — IV — Adalbert (Woitek) Konzal Entertainment Architecture Table of Contents Keywords II Abstract III Supplementary DVD IV List of Figures VI List of Abbreviations VII Statement of Original Authorship VIII Acknowledgements IX Chapter 1: Introduction 1 1.1 Research Design 10 Chapter 2: From Storytelling to Entertainment 35 2.1 Evolution and Storytelling 38 2.2 The History of Storytelling 45 2.3 Internet and Storytelling 51 2.4 What is Entertainment? 69 Chapter 3: Entertainment Architecture (Entarch) 81 3.1 The Four Elements of Entarch 84 3.2 Entarch Bible 94 3.3 The Entertainment Architect (EA) 114 Chapter 4: Entarch Business Models 119 4.1 Contractual Relationships 121 4.2 Freemium 138 4.3 Sale 140 4.4 Subscription 154 4.5 Rental 156 4.6 Free 157 Chapter 5: Entarch Industry 179 5.1 Entrepreneurship and Creative Destruction 179 5.2 The Young Entarch Industry 185 Chapter 6: From Movies to Entarch? 217 Chapter 7: Conclusions 229 7.1 Loose Ends? – Implications for Further Research 244 Appendices 253 A Interviews Round One — Questionnaire 253 B Interviews Round Two — Questionnaire 255 C Survey — Questionnaire 259 D Mentioned Entertainment Products 271 Bibliography 279 — V — Adalbert (Woitek) Konzal Entertainment Architecture List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction Figure 1: Movie, (feature) film, video, and motion picture 29 Figure 2: Entarch and related concepts 32 Chapter 2: From Storytelling to Entertainment Figure 3: Photo of a photo of the Jewelled Nights film crew 42 Figure 4: The immense impact of sound 44 Figure 5: Comparison of communication technologies 52 Figure 6: “What is transmedia?” 56 Figure 7: What is (Internet-native) (transmedia) entertainment? 66 Chapter 3: Entertainment Architecture (Entarch) Figure 8: Entarch in relation to (Internet-native) (transmedia) entertainment 81 Figure 9: In-character preacher 86 Figure 10: Musicians scoring the screening live 86 Figure 11: Announcement before the screening 86 Figure 12: The entertainment process of International Mime Academy 105 Figure 13: The entertainment process of Colour Bleed 107 Chapter 4: Entarch Business Models Figure 14: Cover of Level 26: Dark Origins 143 Figure 15: iPad version of Dark Prophecy 144 Figure 16: A visualisation of Perplex City 146 Figure 17: Purchasable poster map of Perplex City 146 Figure 18: Every purchased map is numbered 147 Figure 19: Cover of Cathy’s Book 148 Figure 20: Cover of Cathy’s Key 148 Figure 21: Cover of Cathy’s Ring 149 Figure 22: Cover of Personal Effects: Dark Art 149 Figure 23: Screenshot of Burnout Paradise 160 Figure 24: Hope poster 161 Figure 25: Screenshot of the first Old Spice Guy advertisement 167 Figure 26: Story Addict banner 176 Chapter 5: Entarch Industry Figure 27: Every time you torrent god kills a cinema 193 Figure 28: Economic cutoff points 195 Chapter 7: Conclusions Figure 29: Entertainment Architecture in relation to other concepts 234 — VI — Adalbert (Woitek) Konzal Entertainment Architecture List of Abbreviations ARG Alternate Reality Game EA Entertainment Architect Entarch Entertainment Architecture IP Intellectual Property — VII — Adalbert (Woitek) Konzal Entertainment Architecture Statement of Original Authorship The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. QUT Verified Signature Signature ______________ Date ______________ — VIII — Adalbert (Woitek) Konzal Entertainment Architecture Acknowledgements Like Google, Newton, and Bernard of Chartres, I’m a dwarf standing on the shoulders of giants. Each one generously carried me for as long as I need it and let me hop onto the next one when the time was right. Had just one single gi- ant refused to support me, none of what happened would have happened the way it did. And I very much like the result. Nonetheless, a few of you were exceptional. John Hartley appeared at the right time, took me along to the other side of the world, let me roam freely so I could attack even bigger issues than I originally had my eyes on, and still man- aged to keep the chaos under control (maybe because you unlike me always knew what I was doing). My parents bore me longer than anyone else and are still not bored with me. Jason Potts stepped in to introduce order when it was needed. My ten interview partners from all around the world granted me more time and openness than I thought possible. David Court, the Australian Film Television and Radio School, and their Centre for Screen Business helped guide my scholarly steps into movies and the movie industry. Jon Silver is the most comprehensive movie
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