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Transmedia Analysis - The Walking Dead

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"The Walking Dead" is a horror drama transmedia project that is based on a comic book series. Comic book series was written by Robert Kirkman and it shows the travels of main character’s family and other survivors. Although it doesn't follow with exact detail and needed to be expanded and modified in order to fit the media platform on which it was developed, the TV series started the real buzz around this project. That is why the project is best known after the apparition of the core TV series which encounter sheriff deputy Rick Grimes awakened from a coma to find himself in a post-apocalyptic world which is dominated by flesh-eating zombies. In his journey to find his family and other survivors he encounters sever other survivors who become part of the storyline and influence the whole project in different ways. The storyline and the base of the project take place in a non-fictional world. The earth is being hit by a virus and all that can be done is to survive in the remaining of the world as it was. The events, however tend to be fictional, since it involves unworldly creatures – zombies. The survival methods tend to stay in the ordinary world’s range which makes the project close to reality. The fundamental purpose of the whole project is to entertain the user and to create an alternate more violent reality on which he can feel as being part of that world. Given the fact that the storyline revolves around a post-apocalyptic event, it can be seen as an informative project regarding survival in the case of a real zombie scenario. The target audience of the project are people over 18 years old. Enthusiast of horror scenarios. The kind of people who long for thrilling action and post-apocalyptic stories which involve survival in the given circumstances. Because of the thrill and suspense that surrounds the whole project, the viewers who tend to be attracted to this kind of project are real-time viewers. They tend to be actively engaged on all platforms and enjoy everything each platform has to offer. That is because of the way the whole transmedia was constructed, making the line between reality and fiction very thin. This kind of rapport between reality and fiction tends creates more interest and engages the viewer by making him more curious. Also by offering so many platforms for reaching for favorite content, which interlace very well by creating entry points one for each other, the reflective type of viewer might be very attracted to the whole story, not only because of the action in the storyline but also because it has a coherence which tends to make it so real that it could be happening in the moment of engagement. Although the navigational viewers will be also very satisfied with the whole story’s development, the real-time viewer looks to be the main target and has more reasons to be attracted to such a project. Not only because it fulfills its thirst for adventure but also because it gives plenty of material and information that the viewer can interact with so it doesn't get bored. The target audience of this television definitely loves blood and violence. The whole story revolves around the survival instinct of some human beings in a hostile territory which once was their home. The whole story involves chaos and horror which look like a puzzle that needs to be put together by the whole characters in order to survive. Making the audience enjoy all the fiercely challenges that the personas involved in the story come across. The viewers can follow the story through various devices, from a PC desktop to a smartphone or a tablet. The platforms on which The Walking Dead project is present are user-friendly and invite the users to interact and find out more about the stories that happen behind the curtains or other stories that revolve around episodical characters. This type of project appeal to the market because of the way it is constructed. Although the original comic book version was much more explicit when it comes to graphic and sexual violence, the TV series adapted to platform’s requirements and developed the same story but in a different way. From the apparition of new characters to maintaining the same brutality but making it less graphical explicit. Besides the TV series adaptation, the online interaction with real-time viewers made the story more interesting by showing uncensored scenes which were too violent to appear on screen. Offering the audience what they long for, but first teasing them and then engaging with them, grew the rate of interaction on all platforms with the producers and also the number of fans. The Walking Dead project could represent a good-case practice in the branch. Although there are several other types of transmedia project which could definitely be set as examples, The Walking Dead project shows a good example of a comic book which grew fast into a success TV series and in just a few years managed to adapt to a variety of platforms on which active

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