05 / Starlight Runner Entertainment
For pioneering the field of “transmedia” by packaging stories across multiple platforms. Projects such as Disney’s Prince of Persia and James Cameron’s Avatar are only the beginning.
From io9.com’s article Ku Mighty could be the next Magic the Gathering
Ku-Mighty is based on hand-to-hand combat between anthropomorphic warriors, each based on the culture, folklore and customs of a certain part of the world. The warriors will also use distinctive fighting styles. Ultimate Gaming Hideout, the game’s developer, described it as, “an epic tale of good versus evil becoming the common thread that weaves its way throughout the world and across centuries into the fabric of human history and mythology punctuated by secret societies, fighting arts, ancient visitors and science fiction.”
The name Ku-Mighty is a play on the Japanese word kumite, which basically means “karate sparring.” According to UGH’s press info, kumite is, “a legendary secretive single elimination fighting tournament in Japan that the most elite fighters from all over the world receive an invitation to attend to decide the most elite martial artists in the world,” which is totally true if you live in a world where Jean-Claude Van Damme movies depict factual, historical events.
New York-based transmedia production company Starlight Runner Entertainment is teaming with L.A. and London, UK-based startup Witchfactory Productions to create a new transmedia franchise called Adore.
The deal marks Starlight Runner’s move into the development and production of original and independent intellectual properties.
Adore is an urban fantasy story involving fairies and their enchanted friends who live in the shadows of the technologically advanced human species. The fictional universe is based on the artwork of Jasmine Becket-Griffith, which has generated more than US$12 million in gross revenue from merchandising lines in the US and Canada, including licensed merchandise available at trend retailer Hot Topic and collectibles sold through the Bradford Group and at fantasy conventions such as Comic Con.
“Young girls between the ages of five and nine will be hypnotized by the images,” says Starlight Runner president and CEO Jeff Gomez, noting the roundness to their shapes, the elaborate wings and Halloween feel that the characters embody. He adds that he was drawn to working on a property that was not only girl-skewing, but was also slightly incomplete in terms of its mythology and ripe for creative imagining.
Gomez and Starlight Runner’s other principal Mark Pensavalle have set to work on generating a sophisticated mythology for Adore that is primed for a multi-platform rollout. Gomez says Starlight plans to build upon the edgy and gothic appeal of the characters through publishing and social media in order to cultivate a following before launching animation. He says future installments of the franchise will also eventually include TV, film, video games, mobile, merchandising and live events. Still in the early stages of development, Starlight Runner and Witchfactory have started production and are currently raising financing for the project.
2011 “25 Digital Entertainment Executives to Watch”
Los Angeles, CA, December 14, 2011 — Digital Media Wire today unveiled its “25 Executives to Watch in Digital Entertainment” list for the 3rd year in a row recognizing emerging leaders in the digital media and entertainment industry. Digital Media Wire will honor the group at the 4th Annual Digital Media Insider @ CES at the Dos Caminos restaurant at The Palazzo at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, January 6. The executives were selected by the editorial team at Digital Media Wire.
From Marvel Comic’s October 2010 Forecast
TRON: THE BETRAYAL #1 (OF 2)
Written by JAI NITZ
Plot courtesy STARLIGHT RUNNER ENTERTAINMENT
Penciled by ANDIE TONG
Cover by SALVADOR LARROCA
Get a first look at the world of the upcoming Tron: Legacy! Following the events of the original Tron, the year is 1983 and Kevin Flynn is now in charge of Encom. He’s built it into the largest videogame company in the world. But that’s not all Kevin has accomplished – he’s also secretly built the Grid, a digital world filled with living programs! More than a place where he can race light cycles, it’s a place where he can build and test environments only limited by his imagination. But the Grid is far more complex than even its creator realizes, and even Flynn can’t be in two places at once. As this new world develops a life of its own, Flynn is going to first need the help of an old friend, a security program named Tron. Showcasing a key time of the mythology of the Tron world, part one of THE BETRAYAL will show the early days of the Grid, and the first appearances of the heroes and villains that will be seen in Tron: Legacy.
56 Pages/$4.99/Rated A
© 2010 Disney Enterprises Inc. All rights reserved
Read More at MSNBC PR Web GamePro and Business Week
“Content is no longer a discrete single-platform experience, but an expansive and immersive one, unfolding not only on film and television screens, but within webisodes, blogs, games, comic books and theme park attractions. It takes a savvy producer to assess and manage the wealth of multi-platform possibilities available to a great story, as well as finesse the final deal. The discussion between these distinguished panelists will help producers and content creators understand the unique requirements and limitless possibilities of multi-platform exploitation.”
Speakers:
David Eick
Executive Producer, Caprica, Battlestar Galactica and Bionic Woman
Cary Granat
CEO, Granat Entertainment
Jon Landau
Producer, Avatar, Solaris, Titanic
Larry Tanz
President, Vuguru, Producer, Running the Sahara, First Descent (Universal Pictures) and the Emmy-nominated TV series Project Greenlight
Moderator:
Jeff Gomez
CEO, Starlight Runner Entertainment/Transmedia Producer, Coca-Cola’s Happiness Factory, 20th Century Fox’s Avatar, Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean & Tron
The Jawbone reminds the world about Jeff Gomez’s upcoming Transmedia Bootcamp on June 2, 2010 in Santa Monica, CA.
Starlight Runner Entertainment is partnering with KidScreen to host a one-day workshop called ‘Transmedia Bootcamp’ on Wednesday, June 2 at the Fairmont Miramar hotel in Santa Monica, CA.
More at The Wrap…
Jeff Gomez kicks off the final day of Digital.Hollywood on the panel for Strategizing the Campaign and the Entertainment Brand: Selling Movies, TV and Video on the Web, Social Media, Mobile and TV
From Variety
Starlight Runner Entertainment and Curious Pictures have paired up to package and produce four entertainment projects for a variety of platforms.
Deal will begin with the original properties “Dinodozers” and “Shadow Angels.”
“Dinodozers,” from Curious Pictures, revolves around a team of dinosaurs who are fitted with construction tools like bulldozer scoops and crane booms to rescue people, demolish buildings or excavate landslides.
Meanwhile, “Shadow Angels,” developed by Starlight Runner, is a music-driven action adventure about a teen with mysterious powers and a dark past who is chosen to become the guardian of a civilization of strange beings hidden below the streets of New York City.
Properties will be developed for television, film, books, online and mobile.
The companies partnered to use Curious’ animation talents and Starlight Runner’s ability to strategize and develop franchises.
Curious produces animation for Nick Jr.’s “Umizoomi” and Disney and Nickelodeon shows “Little Einsteins” and “Codename: Kids Next Door,” as well as for games like Harmonix’s “Rock Band” franchise.
Starlight, founded by Jeff Gomez and Mark Pensavalle, has packaged books, comics and graphic novels, and developed videogames and alternate reality experiences for Disney, Hasbro and Fox while working on “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Tron Legacy,” “Transformers” and “Avatar,” as well as Coca-Cola’s “Happiness Factory.”
At MIP TV, Jeff Gomez will direct a workshop titled Principles of Transmedia Storytelling on Tuesday, April 13th, from 3:30 – 5:00 PM, alongside Nathan Mayfield, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Hoodlum, an Emmy Award-winning entertainment company based in Australia that specializes in producing high quality stories for multiple platforms. As part of the workshop, Gomez will reveal the fundamentals of strategizing and creating transmedia narratives that yield multiple revenue streams and increase the breadth of an intellectual property. Drawing from his expertise in producing and creating interactive multi-platform campaigns for successful franchise shows including ABC’s Lost and Flash Forward, Mayfield will elaborate on how to create the content from a narrative framework. Both Gomez and Mayfield will present case study items and visuals. http://bit.ly/a8m7a3
Following MIP TV, Gomez heads to Cartoons on the Bay to participate on the Cross-Media and Animation Panel taking place on April 17th, from 3:00 – 4:30 PM. Joining Jeff on the panel, Christy Dena, Australian producer and cross-media pioneer, and Derrick de Kerkhove, Professor at Toronto University, will address which narrative models are the most efficient marketing strategies for creating and planning a promotional campaign for today’s entertainment and animation industries. www.cartoonsbay.com
The new moniker recognizes the growing role of transmedia storytelling, which can be described as the creation of major franchises—think “Star Wars” and “Batman”—via the extension of their storylines across multiple platforms, from film and TV, to comics, broadband and mobile. Now that the PGA has lent its stamp of approval, “the “transmedia producer credit may start appearing on movies, TV series and other media to designate those involved in steering a property through multiple incarnations.
Jeff Gomez will be speaking at DIY DAYS NYC at The New School.
DIY DAYS is a roving conference series for those who create – a division of the WorkBook Project an open creative network
“Digital books are a reality. Around the globe, recently held summits along with countless launches of e-book devices (e-readers) prove this affirmation. Now is the time to identify and promote those tools which make the digital book a crucial element in future business for the sector, bringing out the best in new technology.”
Congresso Internacional do Livro Digital, March 28, 29, 30, Sao Paolo, Brazil (site in english)
Jeff Gomez is a featured Speaker at TEDxTransmedia, true to the spirit of the TED conference aims to inspire broadcasters, and in particular, public service broadcasters, to “DARE” more for creating innovative content and borderline strategies to connect with the audience of the future.
Check out Jeff Gomez’s thoughts on his recent trip to Brazil in his new column Cosmic Streetcorner.
“The world is changing so rapidly, and it’s my job to keep up with a lot of it, especially where it impacts popular culture, children and young adults and storytelling. I’m going to use this forum, so graciously furnished by KidScreen, to try and make sense of it all in the hopes that my observations and experience can give you a new or different perspective.
I’m also actually hoping that it’ll work both ways, and that through your email and posts to this blog, I might learn a thing or two, myself. The resulting dialog can only have a positive and dynamic impact on our shows and movies, web sites and games, characters and storyworlds…”
Our imprint Kissena Park Press proudly announced WHAT BIG TEETH by poet Lana Hechtman Ayers. Cover by Chrysoula Artemis. Coming soon!
(9-9:45) Digital Keynote: New Narrative Paradigm
February 12, 2010 – 9:00 AM to 9:45 AM –
In his Digital Media track keynote, leading cross-platform strategist Jeff Gomez will talk about how to transform intellectual properties into highly lucrative transmedia franchises.
Jeff conceived, co-wrote and produced one of the most successful transmedia storylines of the decade with Mattel’s Hot Wheels comic books, video games, web content and animated series. He has gone on to work with such franchises as Fairies, Pirates of the Caribbean, Prince of Persia and Tron for Disney, Halo for Microsoft, Happiness Factory for The Coca-Cola Company and, most recently, Transformers for Hasbro.
Coverage of Jeff Gomez’s keynote to the Association of Brazilian Advertisers: in Portuguese.
Jeff Gomez and Mark Pensavalle spoke via video message to audiences at Cartoons on the Bay in Rome, Italy. Video available in Italian with English subtitles at Comunicka.tv
“We are watching a generation rise to power that is plugged in and expects to be heard. They are learning to use these amazing tools and are becoming enormously savvy. They interface with gadgetry and any number of screens intuitively—but right now, most of the entertainment and brand messaging does not do that! The principles of transmedia storytelling address this, which makes transmedia narrative the most powerful in existence today.” — Starlight Runner CEO Jeff Gomez
Read Smart Planet’s interview with Jeff.
“Starlight Runner’s CEO, Jeff Gomez, spends a lot of time talking about ‘transmedia,’ a hybrid editorial, product development and marketing strategy that extends intellectual properties across multiple media and product platforms. In the contemporary world of product development and brand recognition, “transmedia” is a hot topic, and the results of this approach can be seen in blockbuster multiple-platform properties like the video-game Halo as well as multimedia publishing projects like HarperCollins’s Amanda Project and Scholastic’s 39 Clues.”
Read more at the Publishers Weekly site or download a PDF of this article
Ethan Whitehill, Two West CEO and host of The Brand Show, interviews Starlight Runner CEO Jeff Gomez about the changing industry and the growing connection between storytelling and branding. Use the audio player below to listen to Jeff’s interview:
“The filmmakers were able to go back to the essentials — the true, deep conflict that the character faces — and they managed to make it resonant with our current conflicts as a society.” — Jeff Gomez in Variety
Starlight Runner Entertainment, a leading creator and producer of highly successful transmedia franchises, announced today that the company has secured the services of Chris Pfaff and Chris Pfaff Tech Media to engage and manage the firm’s growing roster of clients and partners.
A Conversation Among Innovative Writers and Industry Professionals Working Today on the Web.
The web today is more than a repository for old t.v. shows, films, and user-generated content. Today’s new media professionals are developing original properties that are part of a new narrative structure for viewers: whether through transmedia storytelling – across multiple platforms – or through online “serials” that hone a dedicated web audience.
