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The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation Is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories [Paperback]

Frank Rose
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

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Book Description

March 5, 2012

"A broad and deep look at how electronic media are changing storytelling . . . . Completely fascinating." —Booklist, starred review

Not long ago we were spectators, passive consumers of mass media. Now, on YouTube and blogs and Facebook and Twitter, we are media. No longer content in our traditional role as couch potatoes, we approach television shows, movies, even advertising as invitations to participate—as experiences to immerse ourselves in at will. Frank Rose introduces us to the people who are reshaping media for a two-way world, changing how we play, how we communicate, and how we think.

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The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation Is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories + A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling: How to Captivate and Engage Audiences Across Multiple Platforms + The Producer's Guide to Transmedia: How to Develop, Fund, Produce and Distribute Compelling Stories Across Multiple Platforms
Price for all three: $50.09

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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Before the Internet, people were accustomed to storytelling, that basic human impulse to try and make sense of life, as something linear and passive. But the multimedia dynamics of the Internet have changed all that, encouraging participation that often takes control from the creators of the story. Wired contributing editor Rose takes a broad and deep look at how electronic media are changing storytelling, inviting an immersion that drills down beneath surface information and encourages a deeper level of emotional involvement. Rose interviewed movie producers and game developers, including the creative minds behind Avatar and The Sims, to explore innovations in storytelling since the creation of the novel. He provides historical context for the evolution of storytelling from television to the movies, from role-playing games to blogging and tweeting. Creators, in essence, are losing some control of their stories as fans take them over. Star Wars fans maintain a Wookieepedia of detail beyond anything envisioned by its creator, fans of Mad Men began unauthorized tweeting in the role of characters from a show set in the 1960s, and the Potter Wars have erupted over control of the popular series as fans start blogs and websites. Rose asserts that in the new world of immersion storytelling, stories become games, and games become stories. Completely fascinating. --Vanessa Bush --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

“A highly readable, deeply engaging account of shifts in the entertainment industry that have paved the way for more expansive, immersive, interactive forms of fun.” (Henry Jenkins )

“An intriguing snapshot of where media will continue to move in the near future—great for rabbit–hole spelunkers.” (Kirkus Reviews )

“Like Marchall McLuhan's groundbreaking 1964 book, Understanding Media, this engrossing study . . . . is an essential read.” (Library Journal )

Product Details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (March 5, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0393341259
  • ISBN-13: 978-0393341256
  • Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #176,055 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Frank Rose is the author most recently of The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories, published in the US and the UK by W.W. Norton and hailed by the International Journal of Advertising as "an essential overview" of the fundamental changes affecting media. He has explored this theme as a keynote speaker at such conferences as ad:tech Sydney, Sheffield Doc/Fest, and the Guardian's Changing Media Summit in London, as well as in talks at Google, Lucasfilm, Unilever, and other major companies.

Before writing The Art of Immersion, Frank spent many years reporting on the impact of technology on entertainment, advertising, and society. As a contributing editor at Wired and a contributing writer at Fortune before that, he covered such topics as the making of Avatar, Sony's enormous gamble on the PlayStation 3, and the posthumous career of Philip K. Dick in Hollywood. His articles have also appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, New York, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Travel + Leisure, and Rolling Stone.

Frank's books have been translated into Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Italian. His 1989 best-seller West of Eden, about the ouster of Steve Jobs from Apple, was named one of the ten best books of the year by Businessweek and was recently republished in an updated edition. Among his other books is The Agency, an unauthorized history of the oldest and at one time most successful talent agency in Hollywood. He lives in the East Village of Manhattan, where he got his start covering the punk scene at CBGB for The Village Voice.

Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
(15)
4.4 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars I Was Not Immersed In This Book May 4, 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Rose's new book, The Art of Immersion, provides an interesting behind-the-scenes look into the conception, creation, and promotion of many products of popular media from Christopher Nolan's film The Dark Knight to Xbox's Halo; from George Lucas' Star Wars suite to the Nine Inch Nails' album Year Zero; from ABC's Lost to Evan Williams' sites Blogger and Twitter.

Yet for all of its contemporary pop culture references and social media anecdotes, The Art of Immersion feels quite dated. His thesis ("A new type of narrative is emerging--one that's sold through many media at once in a way that's non-linear, that's participatory and often gamelike, and that's designed above all to be immersive.") is obvious to even the most technologically un-savvy reader. Nearly everyone, from Topeka, Kansas to Tokyo, Japan has understood that intuitively (if not explicitly) for 10 years.

I enjoyed reading the first few chapters in which Rose discusses the transformation of media and the creation of increasingly immersive worlds through the advancement of the technology, content and delivery method of newer forms of media. Rose outlines a rough sketch from the invention of the printing press and moveable type to the advent of the motion picture to the seductive glow of the living room television to the immersive and participatory "deep media" of the Internet. Yet as I continued to read, I kept waiting for the book to "start".

Each new chapter felt like a slight regurgitation of the one before it; each felt like an introduction to the theme, yet the book never fully developed the theme. True to his subtile, Rose answered How the Digital Generation Is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way we Tell Stories. But each chapter begs the questions: WHY? What effect does this have on our culture? Are there any positive or negative consequences? What can we expect for the future of media? Etc. Rose's point that media has changed to be more immersive is obvious and could have been articulated clearly in an introduction. I hoped he would go deeper.

The Art of Immersion is interesting at points and offers its readers great tidbits about their favorite television shows, films, music, and websites. But it left this reader wanting more.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars The Internet is teaching us new ways of storytelling February 14, 2011
Format:Hardcover
"The Internet is trying very, very hard to tell us." That quote is from Elan Lee, one of the early pioneers of Alternate Reality Games. Lee created I Love Bees to promote the Xbox game Halo 2, and was part of the 42 Entertainment team (along with Alex Lieu and Susan Bonds) behind Year Zero, which engaged thousands of Nine Inch Nails fans in the creation of a story around the album of the same name.

The quote above quote appears in Frank Rose's new book, The Art of Immersion, due out in February 2011. Rose, a long time contributing editor at Wired, where he's covered everything from the fall of the music industry to the impact of digital technology on television, offers an assessment of where story-telling is going in an age when narratives are no longer linear and more often than not are told, or at least informed, by the participation of a consumer community.

Rose labels this "deep media." Story-telling that offers an immersive experience. It refers to everything from the online audiences that gathered on their own to decipher the convoluted plot line of Lost, to the MadMen fans who hijacked the show's characters in the form of Twitter personas, playing Don and Betty true to their `60s personas.

To his credit, Rose doesn't simply regurgitate examples of current entertainment and gaming industry campaigns like Avatar or Grand Theft Auto. He frames the challenges and emerging formulas in light of all the story telling changes that have come before, from the serialized novels of Dickens, to the early breakthroughs created by D.W. Griffith that gave film its own identity as a medium, to the trans-media narratives about which Henry Jenkins writes so intelligently.

Multiple themes emerge in Rose's book. The first is that conventional entertainment doesn't work they way it used to. We know that just from looking at the numbers. Box office sales, DVD sales, music sales have all plummeted in recent years.

Secondly, the command and control world of the author (or auteur in the film world) is over. As soon as the audience can step in, create content and direct, the old model crumbles.

Three, stories and games have become more inextricably linked than ever. A game may never be able to offer the full "sensory wallop" of a motion picture, but they certainly allow the viewer to insert himself directly into the experience. Given the desire to participate, games become a magical way to connect and influence.

And four, it's normal for there to be confusion and even resistance as a new definition of story telling develops and movie makers, publishers and ad agencies all struggle to figure it out.

One of my favorite quotes in the book, memorable to any film student of the 70s or 80s, is from Jean Luc Godard, the French New Wave director whose approach to story telling challenged Hollywood and even French convention. Asked if a story shouldn't have a beginning, middle and end, he answered, "Of course, just not necessarily in that order."

Today's question might be, "Shouldn't every story have an author?" The answer might be, "Of course, but why limit it to one."
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not quite what I envisioned March 21, 2011
Format:Hardcover
I wanted a lot from this book, but didn't get quite enough to satisfy. I was surprised that Mr. Rose had a lot of discussion about various television shows, including 'Lost' and 'The Office', yet not even a mention of a true pioneering web show like 'The Guild'. And can we have a discussion of the digital generation without an in depth examination of The World of Warcraft phenomenon? It gets a one page mention.

I felt at several times that I was being told what was 'cool' in the digital universe. I had hoped for a more careful examination of the art of immersion, less a history lesson on how mainstream media tries to make money off the marriage of old technology and new.

I would, however, recommend this book on the strength of just one chapter, 'Control'. In it Mr. Rose examines piracy and controlling copyright in this digital age. I would go so far as to say that politicians should have to read this chapter before saying one damn word on digital piracy.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars a biz book as fun to read as a novel
A lot of business books are so poorly written, you wish you could just jam a thumb-drive into them and download info into your brain without having to actually ingest the pages. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Helen Ross
3.0 out of 5 stars So so...
An interesting read, although as some other reviewers have mentioned, it contains a lot of chatter and not a lot of real substance. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Graham Daley
5.0 out of 5 stars Strongly recommended
Love it. Comprehensive, insightful, packed full of historical information, case studies and first hand interviews with ground breakers that put transmedia in perspective. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Couchviewer
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting immersion
It is a very interesting book, where the author explores the different paths of creating stories in the new media environment. Read more
Published 22 months ago by juan avellaneda
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Reporting on a Timely Topic
Frank Rose is a great reporter, which means, he's a storyteller. (I've been reading his stuff for years in WIRED). Read more
Published 24 months ago by Nicholas R. Demartino
4.0 out of 5 stars Today, We are All Media - if we choose...
For me, perhaps the most insightful take-away from reading "The Art of Immersion" is how the various forms of media are being impacted by an apparent loss of control. Read more
Published on April 12, 2011 by David H. Deans
5.0 out of 5 stars The ART of IMMERSION as Immersive Experience
Who knew that storytelling is no longer a one-way affair from author to us but has become a multidirectional group activity? Not this baby boomer. Read more
Published on March 27, 2011 by Joan K. Peters
5.0 out of 5 stars Must read
Media as we knew it is forever changed.
A must read for anyone who loves stories and the media culture we live in today. Read more
Published on March 18, 2011 by Guruwoolie
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant must-read
Mr. Rose's extremely well-researched and well-written, compelling book about old and new media -- and the history and future of what he aptly calls "storytelling" -- is, quite... Read more
Published on March 13, 2011 by J. Wallace
5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to the New World
For this professional book person, Frank Rose has performed the enormous service of cutting through the noise and confusion of the current media landscape, connecting the dots... Read more
Published on March 7, 2011 by lifelong booklover
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