Crossmedia Thesis Defence
On 5th of June our first Crossmedia MA students successfully defended their final theses.
On 5th of June our first Crossmedia MA students successfully defended their final theses.
Hannes Sarve and Barbara Kaminska-Napora presented as their final MA thesis the Melchior transmedia project that consists of multiple platforms and elements the audience will have access over time. The main platforms involved in the project are the feature film and TV series to be produced by Exitfilm. The main character is an apothecary living in the first half of the 15th century in Tallinn – the sharp minded apothecary Melchior, who has his own pharmacy and who is able to solve mysteries others cannot. The story word initiated with the series of books published by the Estonian author, Indrek Hargla. The cornerstone of the transmedia extensions of the Melchior stories is Tallinn Old Town itself. With the help of Melchior, audience will be able to explore the history of Tallinn and experience the stories themselves in the town. The transmedia project involves games, a real pharmacy, webisodes, mobisodes, but moreover, an interactive location-based application.
Dagmar Mäe and Tõnis Vassar presented as their final MA thesis a project called Nullpunkt. Nullpunkt is a novel written by a young Estonian author, Margus Karu, in 2010. The story is about a 17-year-old teenager, Johannes, and his struggles of defining his role in the society. Besides the book, Nullpunkt story world consists of a feature film, to be produced by Allfilm. The transmediatic experience involves several different elements, such as an alternate reality game, book-crossing, video-blog, user-generated content and a TV mini series.
Alessandro Nani’s final thesis was called Crossmedia Practices for the Enhancement of Civic Engagement. Thesis focuses on the use of crossmediatic practices for the enhancement of civic engagement. In order to do so, it first provides a set of established terms common to the discipline, such as crossmedia and transmedia storytelling; it defines some other concepts relevant to the understanding of this thesis argument, such as engagement and civic practices; it explores a number of existing models describing the practices of crossmedia applied to the enhancement of civic engagement; and then presents its own specific model for the same purpose. Later in the thesis, the suggested original model is testedby the empirical research, which encompasses three case studies: The Cove, Born into Brothelsand Landshare. This work consciously narrows its reach to the investigation of crossmedia for civic engagement as a media practice and therefore it does not focus on the social aspects that could spark it or be the result of it. Given the contemporaneity of the subject and the lack of scientific research, it surely leaves open windows to further researches in this field.
This year the admission to Crossmedia MA for Estonians lasts from 28th of June until 9th of July, for foreigners it ends on 1st of July.