Abstract:

For years, a portfolio has been considered a presentation of one’s work that resulted from days, months, or even years of creating, failing, discovering and learning. Accordingly, some people believe that if we don’t have a portfolio that portrays the production of our entire life, we have nothing. However, in the era of cognitive transmedia storytelling this is certainly a misconception. Not only the notion of a portfolio is no longer constrained by the products people already have, as it has now shifted towards the telling of episodic meaningful experiences that people value as their work progresses, as their point of view changes. Portfolios are “conversation pieces for the authors, offering well-thought-out examples of their work, stories about their experiences, and arguments about their capabilities to share in the process of discussion.” [1, p. 83] Interestingly, each episodic experience fits a specific demand. For example, one illustrator’s project may match the specific need of finding an agent. Another project may match the need of selling illustrated t-shirts. Yet, a school teacher’s new method of assessment may match the need of making a presentation to the school board. Her/his project of writing a book about evaluation may match the need of hiring an editor. “Transmedia storytelling is about a logic of dispersal of pieces and the integration of pieces, which means that each piece adds something new to the experience of the whole story” [2]. We call each story that models and presents an episodic experience, a story portfolio. So, the picture that we construct out of a series of dispersal story portfolios becomes an integrated journey. Not a journey as in “life is a journey”, but a starring journey as in a TV series, one episode at a time. In a transmedia portfolio we are the protagonists of our own journeys. In this paper we propose a methodology for modelling episodic experiences around a story for a portfolio journey.

The core of the methodology has three components:
(a) choosing a dramaturgic outline for the journey;
(b) scripting each episodic experience as a story portfolio; and
(c); integrating story portfolios into a synchronized journey.

Our analysis includes examples at entry-level transmedia storytelling, created with the help of flat animation. To conclude, we argue that in the era of cognitive transmedia storytelling new metaphors are brought to the stage: “Portfolio is a Journey in Episodes” and “Life is a Starring Journey”.

Keywords:

Story portfolio, episodic experiences, transmedia storytelling, starring journey, video animation.