Invitation to Session 2

12 Oct

 

ICAT__Story and Interactivity Seminar__invitation to 2nd session

 

Dear ICAT Students,

 

Hello!

 

The second meeting of the year-long Story and

Interactivity Seminar is scheduled for this

coming Friday, 17 Oct, at 2pm.  In Classroom 3.

 

All are welcome, even if you did not attend the

first session, and even if you may not be able

to attend future sessions.

 

Regarding some of the topics we might be

discussing:

 

The other day, I sat in on Prof. Jai Naressh’s

class about “Interactive Storytelling in Game

Design and Play”, in the Media Production module

for Game Design students.  It was a wonderful

class -- with Prof J discussing and illustrating

many narrative practices, such as 1) flashbacks

(tracking backwards); 2) stories in which the

realisation of why a character is behaving in

a certain way is not clear at first); 3) multi-

line stories (parallel storylines); 4) multiple

points-of-view by various characters within a

story; 5) story branching (by which a story can

go in various directions); and 6) convergence

(by which a story ends in a pre-defined way,

regardless of what branches had been taken

earlier).

 

In addition to new stories for new games and

movies, I have realised that we humans now

have “on the shelf” over 100 years of movies,

and 50 years of TV shows.  (Plus 1000's of

years of oral and written stories.)  All of this

material can now be re-cycled into interactive

media experiences, in which participants could

be able to act out characters -- that is, to

place themselves in characters’ situations,

role-play characters, control characters, be

treated as characters, etc.

 

It seems that it is not enough for us humans

to daydream and fantasize with only our low-tech

brains, our imaginations, about “putting myself

in that position,” about “what it would feel

like to be that person and experience what he

or she is experiencing”.  We also seem to like

media experiences that enable us to further

project ourselves onto other characters and

into other situations.

 

Recorded movies and TV have been a good start:

now interactive media experiences are becoming

increasingly possible, as interactive technology

is becoming more available, and expertise in

working with such technology is also spreading.

 

A great question then is:  How can interactivity

be designed in media experiences?

 

There are many possible ways, and we need to

experiment with as many as possible.

 

I have been thinking a lot about games lately.

Or rather, I have realised, I have been thinking

about interactivity in media experiences in general.

For game-playing is just one type of interactivity.

 

Two types of play are: games and art.  Games have

clear rules, and one plays to win.  Art is engaged

in by the art-maker (and the art-observer if

there is one) just for the sake of experiencing

beauty, however beauty is defined.

 

So an interactive media experience need not be

structured as a game.  However, it seems that

it may be a little difficult to imagine and

design an interactive media experience that

would be something other than a game.  If an

interactive media experience would not be

structured as a game (with clear goals for

characters, and clear ways to achieve those

goals) -- how else could a media experience

be structured?  Could it be some kind of

audience-participation theatre?  What could

this look like?  How would people know how

to engage in such media experiences?  Ways of

participating would need to be easily intuited

by participants, for as we all know, people

generally don’t like to read manuals.

 

Any comments regarding any of the above would

be most welcome -- either online anytime (I

could pass some cmments onto the group), or

on Friday.

 

Also, if you might have any ideas about how to

make games (or other interactive experiences)

out of any movies, or out of any other stories

you might know or make up -- let’s also discuss

this in the Seminar on Friday.

 

Many thanks,

 

- Prof E

 

Media Studies Dept, ICAT-Chennai

 

98403 94282

http://www.storytellinginstitute.org

http://www.storytellingandvideoconferencing.com

 

"Tamil Nadu in 2020", an essay --

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller/Tamil_Nadu_in_2020__in_English.pdf

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~emiller/Tamil_Nadu_in_2020__in_Tamil.pdf