It’s official.  As in an official credit as sanctioned by the Producers Guild of America.  Transmedia Producer was adopted this week according to Nikki Finke at the behest of transmedia guru, Jeff Gomez.

Here’s the definition:

A Transmedia Narrative project or franchise must consist 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.

Transmedia Producers may originate with a project or be brought in at any time during the long-term rollout of a project in order to analyze, create or facilitate the life of that project and may be responsible for all or only part of the content of the project. Transmedia Producers may also be hired by or partner with companies or entities, which develop software and other technologies and who wish to showcase these inventions with compelling, immersive, multi-platform content.

To qualify for this credit, a Transmedia Producer may or may not be publicly credited as part of a larger institution or company, but a titled employee of said institution must be able to confirm that the individual was an integral part of the production team for the project.

It sounds like a writing function to me or at the very least a show running position.  But that’s the way with the digital media, everything melts and dissolves into everything else.  Silos disappear.  Writers and producers and audiences all become the same thing…

In any case, this is a step forward.  Because transmedia will grow from here on in and this will be good for audiences.  Transmedia is all about allowing the story to spread into many media and platforms, to be told from many points of views, to explore different characters and different timelines and to integrate interactive elements.  And that is the story’s future.