Head to this website and scroll to the bottom to begin the immersive, branded, storytelling experience being used to promote the new Aussie flick Kill Me Three Times starring Simon Pegg.
The Story Lab 2015
What is story _now_?
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Creating a positive association with a product as mundane as a toaster is no easy feat. Yet this chef won me over in under two minutes. This proves you have the ability to persuade your listeners with every pitch. Don’t believe you have a dull product. As a former correspondent for CNN, I learned that how the message is told is as important as the message itself.
McLuhan is high-fiving himself in his grave…
It’s easier to reach millions of people than ever, and great stories are doing just that.
While a post on Buzzfeed or The New York Times is far likelier to get 5 million hits, a post on your personal blog can still accomplish that. It could hit the front page of Reddit or get shared tens of thousands of times on Facebook or get syndicated by a big publication.
Storytellers today have the best tools, the best distribution channels, and the largest audience in history.
Live from #StoryLabRMIT – @_Troy_ talks worldbuilding, codemaking, game mechanics and storytelling pic.twitter.com/Jra6bNPEs1
— Dan Binns (@DrDanielBinns) April 16, 2015
Hi team –
You can grab my garbled notes from Troy’s lecture here, just in case you’ll find them useful. Lots and lots of interesting tidbits were raised — both in the lecture and the subsequent discussion — that I think will be useful for a lot of your projects. Also a lot of good sparks for awesome blog posts: pitch me Story Lab as micronation! Write a constitution! Design a flag!
Even if you’d not thought about game mechanics and elements of gaming before, maybe you’ve been inspired to include some of these things in order to increase player/audience interest and engagement with your projects.
This article is an old favourite, for thinking ‘outside the box’ when it comes to story and how it should operate, and also for different ideas on where stories should come from.
Story gives humans a chance at survival.
Because of story and our willingness to guess, we achieve what most animals cannot: We pass along knowledge.
Naked and fragile, humans thrive in spite of a lack of armor or fangs because of story. All other animals must discover the world anew every generation. We iterate on each others’ knowledge.
It’s also handy as we move into our stories, and as we think about how to fracture them for different platforms.
Those of you looking at doing murder mysteries or immersive theatre-type stuff might be interested in this BBC Writers’ Room project.
200-500 words…
Reflect on your experience of presenting your research, and note anything you learnt from the presentations of others.
For the final 50-100 words, provide your new understanding/philosophy of what story is, based on your research.
Gal Gadot plays Wonder Woman.
With so many female superhero productions in the works, all signs are pointing to a new era of super-women in a genre that’s long been a boys’ club.
“It’s going to be really exciting for girls and women to see themselves represented on the screen,” says Sam Maggs, an editor for geek girl culture site The Mary Sue and author of the upcoming book The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Maggs says the surge of female superheroes is likely because women have been able to voice their desire to see more onscreen representation in recent years.
“I really feel like the advent of social media and these communities online has such a big impact on this,” she says. “Because before, 10 years ago, eight years ago, when we had a problem with it, there were no outlets to speak out about it.”
Full article here.
This week we move into looking at slightly marginalised characters and relationships, with a brief sojourn to ’90’s television!
We’ll be watching a few episodes of Julie Kalceff’s incredibly engaging web series Starting From… Now and looking at representations of non-hetero/non-cis characters and relationships in traditional and transmedia contexts.
I’ve added Natalie Krikowa’s article on creating low-budget transmedia projects to the Resources folder on Blackboard – check it out, and let me know if you need full reference details (or look here).
Go back over your notes from the screening, and think about the following:
- How is the character configured in each of the separate artefacts? i.e. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011 feature film), One Shot: Agent Carter (short film), Marvel’s Agent Carter (TV show)
- Hero’s journey – in what ways does Peggy Carter’s story adhere to Campbell’s notion of the hero’s journey? How does Carter’s story differ, and why?
- Pushing off points both in the ‘Carterverse’, but also in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)
- Gender roles – think of representations of women in other platforms, stories, universes. What tropes, conventions, stereotypes, are plugged into? What does the MCU do differently? How are those conventions subverted?
- Think about the way this would have been planned – both as part of the MCU, but also in terms of character
- Look up budgets, development, see how it was all put together
Your notes from the screening, plus this activity, should form at least one of your blog posts for this week
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