Starlight Runner is proud to announce that it will be creating and producing the heroic universe at the heart of a major new sports entertainment franchise. Jeff Gomez and Mark Pensavalle will act as Transmedia Producers.
FactoryMade and Lucha Libre AAA have brought onboard Starlight Runner Entertainment, a New York-based production company specializing in the global transmedia growth of leading entertainment properties. Lucha Libre AAA will be the first entertainment-sports league to be reimagined for the American and global market and launched with Starlight Runner’s proprietary franchise development methodology embedded in its DNA at inception.
“The team united behind bringing Lucha Libre AAA to the United States has provided us with an extraordinary opportunity to use our transmedia techniques to build an exciting multi-platform world of heroes, villains and spectacle,” said Starlight Runner CEO Jeff Gomez. “This new experience will resonate with the aspirations of the powerful emerging Latino audience and the youth market beyond.”
Read the entire press release on the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch
David Ewalt of Forbes magazine profiles CEO Jeff Gomez and EVP Mark Pensavalle of Starlight Runner and announces our wonderful work with Pepperidge Farm. Online today, in the 2/11 issue of Forbes.
Consulting firm Starlight Runner helps movie directors like James Cameron–and big brands from Coca-Cola to Mattel to Pepperidge Farm–keep their stories straight.
“Jeff inspires me every time we get together,” says Jonathan Mildenhall, vice president of global advertising strategy at Coca-Cola. In 2006 he hired Starlight Runner to consult on a 60-second commercial called “Happiness Factory,” which depicted tiny creatures living inside a Coke machine. “It was an ad, and only as good as the media dollars that we put behind it,” says Mildenhall. “But transmedia helped us understand how the story arc and the narrative of the Happiness Factory could evolve over time and how it could be used through different channels.”
Fast Company covers Starlight Runner Entertainment and Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, delving deeply into how Starlight Runner contributed to some of the greatest brands and story worlds.
Nickelodeon has tapped New York-based production company Starlight Runner Entertainment to answer the question of what the Turtles are really made of in order to prep the classic franchise for multi-platform growth—websites, apps, a toy line, and ultimately, a feature film.
“We had to understand the essence of the property,” says Starlight Runner cofounder Jeff Gomez. “What are the archetypal elements that resonate deep inside the audience when they are watching and enjoying this property? There is something about it that is unique and rings true because it touches the hearts and the primal minds of people and has transcended decades.”
Starlight Runner’s “10 Commandments of 21st Century Franchise Production” from the StoryWorld Conference 2012, as given by CEO Jeff Gomez:
1. Know the Essence of Your Brand and Never Stray From It
Before embarking on a multi-year journey generating a rich product line or multiple feature films, with messaging and extensions across multiple media platforms, you must take ownership of the creative asset that is your franchise story world. You must gain an intimate understanding of why it is successful and how it resonates with a mass audience. Knowing this will allow you to properly plan for the building of its characters, narratives, iconography, and themes. What is your brand or story world giving to your audience? What questions does it answer? What gifts does it give? If all your communication is flesh, brand essence is bone.
2. The Story World is Unstoppable and Rules Over All
Once you have a fundamental understanding of your franchise universe, you must commit to its health, integrity and proliferation above everything and everyone else. Creative visionaries, agencies, actors, directors, marketing, licensing, must all be committed to serving the needs of the story world.
Sony Pictures Entertainment has teamed with Starlight Runner Entertainment to vastly expand the story world of ‘Men in Black’ for sequels and beyond.
“As we sought to create a unique buzz and fan engagement around the launch of ‘Men in Black 3,’ we felt that we had an excellent opportunity to expand the world of Men in Black beyond the film. Starlight Runner’s work on the movie ensured that no matter how fans engage in the world of the Men in Black, they will immerse themselves in a wide-ranging, consistent universe,” said Walter Parkes, producer on all three of the films.
In this interview with Redazione Subvertising, Jeff Gomez talks about the Arab Spring, sits on the Game of Thrones, and parses out Alternate Reality Games.
We have seen an increase of storytelling platforms for emerging countries or countries where censorship is strong and do not allow people express them. Although this is not really transmedia, it is storytelling. Why should any producer or advertiser be interested in those events?
All of us must be interested in such events for two vital reasons:
1) when the walls of censorship crumble and fall, then the audiences for our stories increase vastly. There are new markets, new participants, and new possibilities, and
2) even more importantly, we will get access to new perspectives, new sensibilities, new influences and new stories. So we will become a richer and even more connected people. It’s win-win!
On Bloomberg News, Jeff Gomez points out Disney’s historic first use of the entire Marvel Universe in the marketing of the upcoming Avengers film.
“Disney is leveraging its assets in such an exciting way across multiple platforms,” said Jeff Gomez, founder of Starlight Runner Entertainment, which consults with companies on online strategies. “Our tracking indicates it’s been highly effective. They’re going to reap rewards.”
Starlight Runner Entertainment is happy to announce its collaborative work on Activision ‘Men in Black: Alien Crisis’, led by Transmedia Producer Steele Filipek.
To create a completely authentic “Men in Black” world and tone, Activision aligned with Jeff Gomez and Mark S. Pensavalle’s Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc. to create the story and script of the upcoming videogame. Starlight Runner was selected by Sony Pictures to work in concert with the filmmakers to provide a single voice to the “Men in Black” universe with the upcoming film and related properties.
Forbes’s Michael Humphrey speaks with Jeff Gomez about ‘Prometheus,’ ‘Mass Effect 3,’ and their audiences.
The days of creating story lines in an ivory tower and delivering them to the masses are numbered. Perhaps it will survive in certain genres. But not in those that expect invested, large-scale audiences in the age of Social Media, says Jeff Gomez, founder of Starlight Runner Entertainment.
To understand this, he says, look at two recent examples on either side of the spectrum — the revolt over the ending of the video game “Mass Effect 3” and the viral marketing campaign for would-be summer blockbuster “Prometheus.”
Gomez has no investment in either the game or the movie. (He has worked with the studio behind “Prometheus,” 20th Century Fox, on the movie “Avatar.”) But as one of the important architects of transmedia –defined as the extension of stories across multiple platforms — he has been watching both properties relate to their audiences in very different ways…
Meant to be Seen goes medieval for Battle Castle in part 2 of their interview with Caitlin Burns.
You mentioned a video game component to Battle Castle. How did you use video games as an educational tool?
We knew that Battle Castle is more than a TV Series and that the research and history of these castles would be able to fill more than six hours of television – we wanted to give the audience several ways to explore the world of Battle Castle.
Knowing that there is a lot of really great history and stories, the browser-based and tablet compatible Masters of Constantinople is a fictional tale that allows the player to learn about the castles as well as dive deeper into Medieval history. This compliments the episodes and allows audiences (in Canada and abroad) to weave their way through history and enter into the Battle Castle.
