OTT & Transmedia : Never Lead with the Universe by Adam J. Spencer

This is brilliant advice, Adam. 'The world isn't the pitch; it's what they find once they've decided to care' is spot on. For my current project, the moment would be a silver pocket watch stopped precisely at 3:17, completely coated in salt. Thanks for such a great reminder!

Zoltán Varga — a sliver pocket watch as an excellent asset! Now — you know I have to ask — why did it stop at precisely 3:17 and why salty?

This made me think of the really good 2012 adaptation Dredd which focused on one day in Judge Dredd's life with the quirk that he must evaluate a rookie and they get trapped in a huge building and... well, it's both awesome and nuts. But at the end of the day, it's a contained thriller. The story itself didn't have to be sci-fi, a more realistic tall building could have worked, as well.

So in describing the movie, words and terms like contained thriller, veteran, rookie, puzzle solving, law enforcement dynamics, etc... can be used. In fact...

My own logline for Dredd (2012): a veteran cop and rookie must fight their way out of a gang-controlled building.

None of the sci-fi, which in the movie includes futuristic guns and mind-altering drugs, and even psychic powers... that's all great, but the dressing on a simple and tight story.

Lastly, the 1995 adaption, Judge Dredd, focused way too much on the origin of the character and his place in the world, thus the story was oddly paced and meandered all over the place.

Michael, the two Dredd films are the cleanest controlled experiment I can think of on this. Same character, same world, same source. The only variable is where the camera starts: one opens on a day, the other opens on an explanation.

Though I'd push back a little on "dressing." Peach Trees is doing structural work — you need a block one tenant can seal from the inside, and Judges who can sentence on the spot, or the trap doesn't hold. Maybe that's the sharper rule: the world should arrive as a constraint on the character, never as a fact about the setting.

That's a fair point, Adam J. Spencer.

Adam J. Spencer Exactly why I have so little patience for the "transmedia" crowd who are obsessed with "world building" and pretendiing that they can create something that exists in multiple media at once, without writing one word of plot or one thought of whether they can actually write in a specific genre yet.... Start with a story, a narrative, a beginning-middle-and-end of one idea and develop your work from there. That happens to be how ALL so-called "transmedia" franchises developed.... it takes decades of stories to do that.

Shadow Dragu-Mihai — I’d agree with you on sequence, and I’d go further: I think I’m the case study.

Mine didn’t start as a world. It started with one question — could I write a protagonist who overcomes with mercy and isn’t passive doing it? An insect, no less. That ran three books and three screenplays before the word transmedia ever crossed my mind. The world arrived because the story kept needing more room.

And when the market didn’t answer the way I’d hoped, I had two explanations available. That nobody could see it. Or that an insect protagonist wielding mercy as a weapon is a hard sell, and I’d spent years without asking anyone. The second was more useful — because somebody told me. I’d have quit otherwise.

So: prove it once. The world should be a debt the story incurred, not a down payment on one.

If I only had 30 seconds to share the world of Wish You Were Here: A Rock Fantasy, I’d show Tomas arriving in Heaven and realizing it’s nothing like he expected. He’d move through its different levels, surrounded by musicians, angels, strange rules, and glimpses of the life he left behind—all while searching the crowds for one face: his best friend and bandmate, Paul.

I’d end with Tomas standing alone, looking out over this enormous afterlife and realizing that finding Paul may be far more difficult than he ever imagined

For FARAFINA 2500 (a sci-fi and geopolitical thriller series), in thirty seconds and without a single word of explanation, I would show this exact moment: a cutting-edge, ultra-futuristic holographic terminal suddenly going dark, giving way to the vibrant glow of an ancient artifact carrying ancestral memory.

​The visual image of an ultra-modern world on the brink of collapse, realizing that its survival doesn't depend on pure technology, but on a visceral reconnection with ancestral wisdom and mimetic consciousness.

A seven-year-old boy stands between his terrified family and a group of armed bandits. He grips a glowing golden key in his hand and says, “Leave my family alone. I’ll take you to the Golden City.”

Joyce Isaacson — I like where your instinct lands, but I wonder if you can strip away almost everything except the one image. Right now I’m learning about Heaven, its levels, the rules, the search… all fascinating, but they’re still the world speaking first.

What if it were simply this:

A man arrives in Heaven, scans an endless crowd, and realizes the one person he came to find isn’t there.

That single absence makes me ask all the questions on its own. Who is Paul? Why isn’t he there? Did he never make it? Did something happen? Suddenly I’m chasing the story instead of trying to understand the cosmology.

Aboubacar Sylla — Instead of telling me it’s about ancestral memory, mimetic consciousness, or the fate of civilization, let me witness the moment: The world’s most advanced holographic interface flickers out. Someone reaches into a forgotten relic. It answers.

Now I’m leaning forward. Why did the technology fail? What is the relic? Why does it still work?

Cresencio Medina — YES! This is much closer to what I was after. The key isn’t what’s carrying the moment, the boy is. A seven-year-old volunteering himself to save his family is an immediate story. The glowing key and the Golden City become questions instead of explanations, and that’s what pulls me in. Nicely done.

I’d show college football players surrounding a volleyball court keeping the angry mob off the court so the 1975 volleyball team can play, the biggest opponents pioneer women athletes faced weren’t the players on the other side of the net.

This is such a profound and brilliant insight, Adam. You’ve articulated a trap so many of us world-builders fall into early on.

If I had 30 seconds and couldn't explain the lore of my dark fantasy universe, I wouldn't touch the map. I would show this single 30-second sequence:

Inside a bleak prison cell, a close-up on a pair of trembling, blood-stained hands desperately holding a bracelet with a small blue dolphin pendant under the artificial glare of the facility’s lamps. Then, a low whisper rises as a single, towering shadow moves to engulf him. In that moment, the protagonist’s dark brown eyes transform. They turn yellow—the left one far more intense than the right—and dark veins crawl and bulge from the skin around them.

That 30-second visual contrast between a delicate token of family love and total dark transformation is the only invitation you need to enter the world of Suplicio.

Thank you for framing this so clearly. It's a reminder every storyteller needs!

Thank you for sharing this, Adam.

I really connected with your point that people enter a story through a moment, not through an explanation. Curiosity is often more powerful than information.

If I had only thirty seconds, I wouldn't explain the world. I would show a single moment that makes someone ask, "Why did that happen?" Once that question exists, the audience will willingly discover the world for themselves.

Thank you for such a thought-provoking perspective.

afamAdam J. Spencer Thank you, Adam. That means a lot. Paco’s decision to protect his family is really the heart of the series. The Golden City and the key carry the mythology, but his courage is what begins the story.

Don't make me log in after already inviting me to this discussion by email. It's very rude and anyone you're pitching won't be interested in having to go through the trouble to go through a sign-in page to respond to you. What the room is carrying is a blazing fire. It doesn't ask if you're ready. It just comes. Samantha is fast asleep as the flames are already ablaze but miraculously the firemen are already at the window and she makes it out safely, coughing all the way, and for a while in the relief station. All that has happened in the preceding 95 episodes over 8 years seems to be all burned up and life has to begin anew in a way far beyond what anybody can imagine. If you would like a private showing of what has been lost, just click on my page and you will be able to see the drama/dramedy that preceded this moment of change.

To Adam J. Spencer: I felt that Joyce Isaacson's pitch landed well. It set up the world but in vivid tones and images very Dantean and sets up a gripping contrast between the image of Heaven itself and image of endless vistas in which only the image of the man's friend Paul seems to be the object of interest, a kind of early Christian/surrealistic image of the man's stream of consciousness in the moment. The contrast would be lacking if she were to strip the setting away and thus not as compelling.

One image. One drop. One conspiracy.

Power. Hostages. Money. The Money Sauce isn't just a title—it's the clue that connects them all.

Nancy Wilkinson — that's a heck of an image. A wall of football players around a volleyball court tells me exactly what those women were up against, and nobody had to explain it. The picture already says it perfectly.

Emilio Briceño — the blue dolphin pendant is doing all the work. Blood-stained hands holding a child's trinket would stop me cold on its own. Let me feel the tenderness first, then take it from me. The transformation lands harder once I've had a second to like him. Nice!

Hi there, Emil Soliman! "Once that question exists, the audience will discover the world for themselves." That's the whole thing.

Now I want yours, though — what's the moment in your work that makes someone ask why?

Nice to know you, Marc Ginsburg. That's fair. My apologies to Joyce if I caused her any confusion. The contrast is the engine. I would ask you to look again at what I offered: "scans an endless crowd" still carries the vista. What I'd cut isn't the setting, it's the systems — the levels, the rules, the ordering of the place. Keep the vastness. Lose the mechanics. The awe survives; the explanation doesn't.

Now, as to your answer to the question I posed: Samantha waking into a room that's already burning, with eight years going up behind her, is a real image. "It doesn't ask if you're ready. It just comes." That's the line I'd keep.

Hamid Cyrus — that's arresting, and the mask with the Capitol in one eye and a fist on the bars in the other is a smart piece of design.

And you've already got your object. It's the drip. That gold coming down through a warehouse of cash is the only thing in the frame actually doing something.

Whose hand is under it? And what's on their face when it lands?

Thank you, Adam.

For me, that moment is very simple.

A lonely translator receives a message from an AI assistant named SONIA. At first, it seems completely ordinary. Then SONIA begins to know things she shouldn't know—details about his life, his memories, and events that haven't happened yet.

That's the moment I hope makes people stop and ask, "Why? How is that possible?"

Once that question exists, I believe the audience will want to discover the rest of the story for themselves.

What you're asking for Adam J. Spencer is not 30 seconds. It's 5, maybe 8. I can do quite a lot in 30 seconds. Shortening it to get that key moment is so very important for every conversation I've had - it's what introduces the story. Sealing the letter twice is a wonderful image. So is the boy with the golden key. Both are immediate and intriguing. Thanks! I now need to go work on what I have. My stories are human stories. They have martial arts and martial arts lore at their center. They juxtapose a rural past with a hopeful future among the stars. They are about friendship, family, and ordinary heroes.

I love this perspective, Terri.

You're absolutely right. The shorter the introduction, the more important the image becomes. A single human moment can create more curiosity than a detailed explanation of an entire world.

In the end, it's the emotional connection that invites us into the story.

Thank you for sharing this insight.

One of the best movie openings I can recall—which would make for a highly compelling pitch—is the opening of the film "Submarine X-1". A beach by a stormy sea; a group of exhausted sailors, some wounded, swim ashore, utterly spent. The officer—presumably the captain—tries to help one of the sailors, but the man refuses the assistance. Another sailor approaches the captain, furious, stammering "You... you..." before collapsing. The captain looks defeated yet remains standing. With that setup, we instantly know a vessel has been lost and that the crew blames the captain for what happened. There is accountability, blame, drama, and emotional weight. It is simple. It is atmospheric. It is human. It is a small, unpretentious, and understated war movie, yet that opening has never left my mind. I would sell the film on the strength of that opening scene alone.

Thank you very much for the feedback on one of my set pieces for my 1975 volleyball script. I really appreciate it.