Transmedia may be solution to Malta’s audio-visual rut

Producer, lecturer and scriptwriter Jean Pierre Magro, who will be speaking at Transmedia - What? - a seminar on cutting edge storytelling mediums taking place on 28 February - has criticised the way local audio-visual media is handled, particularly when it comes to telling fictional stories.

"The appreciation of a good story is a gift that is not granted to any other species on the planet. It is reserved for Homo Sapiens alone.

"However, in Malta we have not cultivated storytelling. It is deemed unimportant and treated as though it were some minor hobby. Aristotle had warned that when storytelling goes bad, the result is decadence. You need not be a genius to see how right he was. The audio visual sector is quite poor," Magro said.

"We have failed and keep failing because we do not have the right infrastructure in place," Magro added, while also claiming that "we need to have a proper education; in my opinion the University of Malta is not fulfilling its role in that respect.

"TV stations produce enormous amounts of substandard work (98% of which is abysmal). Moreover, TV stations do not have the foresight to help and nurture film makers by giving them jobs and aiding their growth. We are very much backwards on all these fronts," Magro said.

However, he added that the easy availability of new media could be a way to short-circuit these problems.

"We might not have the resources at hand to produce Hollywood blockbusters, but why not create a powerful web series?" Magro said.

A key ingredient to this increased accessibility lies, according to Magro, in the essentially interactive nature of the internet - and despite this freedom recently coming under threat with the proposal of SOPA and ACTA, Magro believes that the 'produser' - both producer and consumer - is here to stay.

"The net's power resides in the fact that the reader and the creator become one," Magro said, citing the example of Heather Lawver, a 13-year-old who was so impressed by the Harry Potter series that she launched a web-based version of The Daily Prophet - the fictional newspaper in JK Rowling's popular young adult fantasy series. The paper quickly gained an impressive following and had a staff of around 102 children from all over the world.

"Such fan participation has become common place," Magro said, adding that: "SOPA/ACTA are nothing new. The media industry has always been terrified of such changes. The very same happened when the video recorder was introduced. Lobbyists in Washington compared the gadget to Jack the Ripper. Funny, no?"

During the seminar - which will be taking place at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta - Magro will be joined by a number of players in the transmedia field.

These will include American producer Jeff Gomez - who has worked on high-profile projects such at Pirates of the Caribbean and Avatar; Nuno Bernardo - Emmy-nominated writer and producer, creator of Sofia's Diary (the world's first interactive online teen series); Dean O'Toole, short film and television producer whose credits include Kick Ass; UK author Alison Norrington and Michel Reilhac, executive director of Arte France Cinema and director of film acquisitions for ARTE France.

The seminar will run from 9.30am to 6.00pm. Entrance is free but booking is necessary on a first come first served basis, by sending an email to [email protected] or by calling Media Desk Malta on 22 915054.