Cross-Media Entertainment

This Blog shares Christy Dena’s research into cross-media entertainment. It is about storyworlds that are experienced over more than one medium and arts type. (Previously ‘crossmediastorytelling’)

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February 20, 2006

Some great interactive narrative workshops

by christy @ 4:35 pm. Filed under Industry, ARG, Interactive Narrative, Interactive Design, Cross-Media Courses

Excellent line-up at sagasnet:

Developing Interactive Entertainment Workshop

Headed by: Greg Roach / Guest Speaker (on ARG): Dave Szulborski/ March 03 2006 - March 09 2006, Academy for TV and Film Munich, Germany

In this intensive workshop the relationship between storytelling, visual media techniques, game design and interactivity will be explored in depth. Participants will learn to apply their knowledge of media and narrative to the new arena of digital technology by developing their own ideas for an interactive product, which are then processed in a group design and presentation phase. Participants will develop, in teams, presentations for an interactive narrative product which is then discussed and evaluated by the entire plenum. If you need to apply for a scholarship for attending this course, please (there is a limited budget available, only) apply before February 20 2006.

Developing Narrative Games/ On-line Worlds Workshop

Headed by: Ernest Adams / Guest Speaker: Jessica Mulligan / March 31 2006 - April 06 2006, Academy for TV and Film, Munich

In this intensive five-day workshop, the participants will work both alone and in teams to develop a design treatment for a narrative game/an online world. They will begin by studying the fundamental principles of computer game design, and then go on to explore the relationship between interactivity and narrative. There will be a few lectures, but most of the activities will be fully hands-on, involving brainstorming, discussion, and presentations from the participants to the group. If you need to apply for a scholarships for attending this course, please (there is a limited budget available, only) apply before March 14 2006.

Developing interactive narrative content seminar

In 2006 the Developing Interactive Narrative Content Seminar is foreseen to take place, again, in Stuttgart, Germany - parallel to and in cooperation with the fmx/06 from May 1 - May 7 2006.

During the Developing Interactive Narrative Content Seminar up to 10 pre-selected interactive narrative projects in development (no limitation on media, genre or target audience) will be provided in parallel with up to ten high-profile face-to-face consulting sessions (on financing, project management, marketing, story structure, interaction design…). Consultants will be chosen according to the needs of the selected projects.Application deadline for the seminar plus consulting sessions is February 20 2006. 2006 sagasnet selection board: Sean Dromgoole, Mark Stephen Meadows, Brunhild Bushoff 

February 1, 2006

New Media Arts Design Tiddly

by christy @ 7:15 pm. Filed under Cross-Media Design, Creative, Mobisode, Interactive Narrative, Interactive Design, Mobile Arts

Announcing my first TiddlyWiki. It is a single webpage that just keeps going. You’ll see. It houses alot of info, like a wiki, but it not editable by anyone else except me. (Though the interface leads you to believe you can, I’ll have to tweak that element.) Otherwise, the page is a handy collection of artist essays, articles and papers about the design of particular new media arts types. I have some areas that need beefing up, and am slowly transferring info I have on wikis etc into it. I also have not put info about cross-media design in it. This I may soon. I am actually working on a cross-media database for that. I may also add academic papers in there too. But, I think those of you who teach, or are just interested in experimenting may find the page a good resource. I’ve put a link to it in my Resources section. Enjoy.

January 7, 2006

Corvus’ “Interactive Storyscape”

by christy @ 7:57 pm. Filed under Participatory Design, Interactive Narrative, Interactive Design, Immersive Design

Interesting post by Corvus Elrod, describing his approach to story/game creation: Interactive Storyscape.

I refer to the Drachurae Cycle as an Interactive Storyscape, as not only is it a narration built for interaction, but of interaction. Rather than craft linear plot lines and usher players through them, I create, characters, environments, and situations, which I invite players to explore, effect the outcomes of, and add their own ideas to the mix. This atmosphere of co-creation is at the heart of my storytelling and the digital incarnation of my work will incorporate it as much as conceivably possible.

Now, this seems on the face of it to be a description of a virtual world/MMOPG and the like — where players make the world come alive in many ways. But what Corvus is burrowing deeply into is the peculiar experience of writing for interaction. In such circumstances, one needs to create a world with characters and events that people want to be a part of, persistently; but also, one needs to consider what sort of events and characters and environment encourages co-creation. It is one thing for someone to like the space and the skin they’re in, it is another for them to want to (and feel they can) build upon it. How does this change a story? Well, I don’t have a quick list for you right now. For now, consider the following questions:

  • What sort of stories would you like to watch?
  • What sort of stories would you like to be in?
  • What sort of stories would you like to co-create?
  • What sort of stories would you like to create?

Can you say yes to all of them for the same story?

October 19, 2005

Interactive Narrative Guide

by daniel @ 8:02 pm. Filed under Industry, Interactive Narrative, Interactive Design

A collection of 22 articles, brought out by sagas writing interactive fiction and sagasnet, looks like an excellent resource for researchers, practitioners, lecturers and commissioners of interactive content. Developing Interactive Narrative Content covers a range of arts types & concerns.

[T]he reader explores the expanding field of interactive media itself by covering iTV, interactive film, games, mobile applications, installations, etc. and by gathering interactive theory essays, descriptions of experimental applications, articles on legal issues or teaching methods for interactive film.

Contents include:

# Ernest Adams: Design Considerations for Interactive Storytellers

# Richard Adams: Behaviour, Intelligence and Invisibility and its Effect on Narrative

# Frank Boyd: The Perfect Pitch

# Matt Costello: The Big Question& about all those horrible, terrible videogames

# Noah Falstein: Natural Funativity

# Steve Dixon, Magnus Helander and Lars Erik Holmquist: Objective Memory: An Experiment in Tangible Narrative

# Christopher Hales: Interactive Filmmaking: An Educational Experience

# Michael Joyce: Interactive Planes: Toward Post-Hypertextual New Media

# Sibylle Kurz: The Art of Pitching

# Craig A. Lindley: Story and Narrative Structures in Computer Games

# Michael Nitsche: Film Live: An Excursion into Machinima

# Teijo Pellinen: Akvaario: you are not alone at night

# Bas Raijmakers and Yanna Vogiazou: CitiTag: Designing for the Emergence of Spontaneous Social Play in a Mixed Reality Game

# Greg Roach: Granularity, Verbs and Media Types in Interactive Narratives and Narrative Games

# Volker Reimann: Authoring Mobile Mixed Reality Applications

# Vincent Scheurer: Adapting Existing Works for Use in Games

# Jochen Schmidt: Behind the Scenes Before the Screens Interactive Audience Participation in Digital Cinemas

# Tom Söderlund: Proximity Gaming - New Forms of Wireless Network Gaming

# Stale Stenslie: Symbiotic Interactivity in Multisensory Environments

# Maureen Thomas: Playing with Chance and Choice Orality, Narrativity and Cinematic Media: Vala s Runecast

# Christian Ziegler: 66 movingimages - Interaction in Filmic Space

# Eric Zimmerman: Narrative, Interactivity, Play, and Games: Four naughty concepts in need of discipline

Incidently, Monique has just come back from attending a sagas future TV workshop…I look forward finding out how it went.

September 16, 2005

Gary has a blog

by christy @ 12:55 am. Filed under Industry, iTV, Interactive Design
Gary Hayes, who was the Senior Producer and Development Manager of the BBC for 8 years and who is currently the Director of LAMP, has a blog. If you want to be privvy to the thoughts and insights of a producer who has his finger firmly on the pulse of the future, subscribe to his blog.

August 27, 2005

Impetus to Act

by christy @ 8:25 pm. Filed under Cross-Media Design, Cross-Media Navigation, Interactive Design, Academia
One of the most important aspects of cross-media storytelling is having the audience move to each unit of your story. Without the cross-media or cross-story movement, your work collapses. Areas of research and practice that you can utilise are the advertising industry (motivation to buy) and hypertext rhetoric (research into hyperlinked stories). On the former there are plenty of examples. An excellent resource is the International Database of Corporate Commands. This blog allows anyone to submit a ‘corporate command’, which is described as:

A Corporate Command is an instruction work, a call to action in the form of an imperative: “Just Do It”, “Turn on the Future”, “Live without Limits”, “Tap into great taste”, “Think different”, “Ride the light”. 

The funny part of this site is the project that is associated with it: The Institute for Infinitely Small Things actually do what is commanded and take photos. The hypothesis of the research project/performance is that the commands are

largely and consciously ignored by a public over-saturated with advertisements, function at the level of the infinitely small. Tiny events that do not disturb one’s consciousness or disrupt one’s identity as “free” agents, these commands seep under the surface of the individual and lay claim to the territory of the Deleuzian Virtual. 

The later (hypertext rhetoric) was a recent topic in my teaching. I asked my students to offer up examples of hyperlinks that motivate them to click. [No harm in utilising students for research!] Here are some funny sites that (ironically) inspire you to click:

The Really Big Button That Doesn’t Do Anything

Take your photo online for free

Do Not Push the Red Button

Click the Button

There are some more here at Nick Ciske’s site.

I know you, the readers of this blog, are very quiet (you like to watch), but I’m working on a paper that describes lots of different examples of cross-media motivation. If you have one to offer, please do so.

LAMP Update

by christy @ 5:39 pm. Filed under Cross-Media Design, Cross-Media Navigation, Industry, Stats, Enhanced TV, Audiences, Interactive Design, Cross-Media Courses, Immersive Design
Here is info about what some of the best cross-media creators are doing in Australia, from the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production that was run in Melbourne yesterday. It was great being around producers and creators who are committed and contemplate cross-media storytelling. I cannot upload my presentation, as there are still more workshops being run around Australia (I’ll be at Adelaide and Sydney over the next 2 weeks). But, I can pass on (some) details about fellow cross-media creators and their projects.

Sohail Dahdal of 6moons Interactive showed his 2 projects: Long Journey, Young Lives (which I’ve seen before and have been impressed by); and one that is just started: Swapping Lives.

Gary Hayes gave a fantastic talk, showing the various projects that have an excellent user-navigation that is ‘in-story’ most of the time. Of particular interest is what is perhaps the post-boy of the cliff-hanger style of cross-media navigation: Mitsubishi’s ‘See What Happens’ commercial that was broadcast during the SuperBowl in 2004. The first part of the cross-media ad is a TVC with two drivers dodging ever-increasing items being thrown out of a truck. Just when 2 cars start tumbling towards them the commercial stops with the website address of www.seewhathappens.com. The site received over 31 million visits during the Super Bowl. Since then, the site has had over 8 million unique visits and so Mitsubishi have launched another (web only) campaign, feelwhathappens. The campaign is housed at the seewhathappens website. They should of kept the original work at the seewhathappens site because people are going there to see it. It was good, and could continue to be good. I understand the idea of reusing the site address, because it has guaranteed traffic, but the abuse of trust and not rewarding the effort to visit the site is a big negative.

There is a case-study on the ad, written by Joseph Jaffe, the creator of the ‘word-of-mouse’ term and the author of an excellent book I’m currently reading: Life After the 30-Second Spot. But more about that in another post.

More info about cross-media production in Oz and beyond coming soon.

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A cross-media creator is a conductor of an orchestra of media channels & arts types; an imagineer, constructing fictional worlds that cover the planet; a programmer, interpreting conversations between technology and nature; a sorcerer conjuring awesome events even they are surprised by; an audience member that wanted more, and so made a pact with The Creator to change the world.
— Christy Dena, 2005

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