1.Introduction
As for our group project, we have created a transmedia narrative, called “Virus Lab”. The idea of this story came up with the recent breakout COVID-19. However, in our project, we only used the “virus” conception as the topic, in other words, there are little correlation with COVID-19 itself. This transmedia narrative has been unfolded in character role lines, which are all connected with each other and linked together by one company, Virus Lab. Therefore, our story series (pink virus, blue virus, golden virus and blood virus) radiate from the company as ‘branches’, and each of the branch(story) comprise different media production posted on various media platforms. Virus Lab, as the logo of our brand, it created four virus resulting different stories via various medium. The text tells the whole story, then comic, social media and video parts are constructed as the simple storyline. Making advertisement to promote it to its potential consumers and designing related merchandises is one way to make a profit. finally, the website is built to interact all text on these media.
2. Presentation of the project.
(1) Text: A fictionstory about Virus Lab includes four storyline: pink virus, golden virus, blue virus and grey virus, explaining young people meet the challenges of youth / wealth / health/ love, from a third-person perspective. Besides, all the media productions created are based on these stories.
(2) Comic: Through 28 pictures, it shows how the character Q and people around him affected by Bluelala (one of virus made by Virus Lab) during the pandemic, sublimating the theme of health.
(3) Video: The video is a trailer of golden virus, which is one of the Special Virus in the story. we decided to make a trailer video and put a link at the end of the video to guide more audience to look at the full textual story on our official media account.
(4) Social media: Two social media accounts registered on Instagram. The private accounts record the dairy of a girl who used Pink Virus (one of virus made by Virus Lab) to look for a lover; the official one displays the merchandise and other promotional pictures.
(5) Merchandise: Close related with characters in special plots have been designed (Mask; Perfume; Toys).
(6) Website: Built for appealing the young customers, it contents various narratives that disseminate the cultural value of the brand (Virus Lab).
(7) Target audience: Young people affected by the influence of the times, feeling confused and anxiety.
3. Deliverables:
(2) Comics (28 pages, post on Reddit)
(3) Video (1 video, post on Youtube)
(4) Social media (2 account on Instagram)
(7) Advertisement (4 image advertisement)
4. Additional explanation:
Inspired by the surge in sales of the game Inc. Plague, we decided to create a fiction story and show it via different media. During the operation, we found that the every narrative subject in the story fits in different media, so we chose different platform for each story line to display. Unfortunately, our group planned to film the whole story like a short movie, due to the influence of COVID-19, we cannot go out to film more clips.In the process, we learned the difference from idea to practice and tried to modify it. Also, we have designed a logo for this virtual company and stamped the logo on all of our media productions in order to link them across multiple media platforms properly.