Transmedia Projects Classes Undertake Work in the Areas of Healthcare, Culture and History

Professor Larry Weiner’s Transmedia Projects class has begun some important and groundbreaking work for a number of high profile clients this semester, which include the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack Medical Center, The Metropolitan Opera Guild, and the upcoming centennial of one of the first acts of terrorism on United States soil.

The work of the cancer center can be considered truly innovative because it takes the hospital’s byzantine and confusing online presence and turns it into a storytelling journey that puts the patient and his or her family in charge of the information flow.  The first project for the center will be its Bone Marrow Transplant division.  A group of students in Beverly Peterson’s Transmedia Projects class will be joining in the work.  The project will continue into the Spring semester.

In addition, the class is preparing a project to recognize the January 11 centennial of the terrorist attack on Lyndhurst, New Jersey’s Canadian Car and Foundry plant, which was a complex of 40 buildings.  The explosion destroyed the entire facility and was one of the catalysts for the U.S. entry into World War I.  Munitions for the allied forces were made at the Lyndhurst (formerly Kingsland) facility and then shipped by train to the docks at Jersey City (known at the time as Black Tom), where they were then transported overseas.  Just five months prior to the Lyndhurst incident, German saboteurs blew up the docks at Black Tom.

Virtually all of the 1,700 workers were saved thanks to the heroic efforts of telephone operator Tess McNamara, who stayed on her post despite having the flames “lick at her ankles.”  A website about the incident is being built by the class, social media to promote an audio reenactment of the aftermath of the explosion, which will be broadcast on the exact moment of the explosion 100 years ago.

In addition, the Metropolitan Opera Guild is back for another round of transmedia to support the Guild’s educational efforts in teaching Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Magic Flute” to students around the New York Metropolitan area.  Students in the transmedia class will produce a series of short animations that focus on character development, story, and the basics of opera.