Writing Sample: Micro-Stories Live Proposal

Micro Stories – Live
Shawn Van Every
ITP
Tisch School of the Arts
New York University

Abstract

Live two-way video is typically used for individual or group conversation for very utilitarian purposes, such as meetings or classes. The affordances of the internet may allow for novel forms of more expressive use, such as the creation and live presentation of fictional stories that take advantage of interaction among performers and audience. The Live Storytelling Lab will invent new forms of interactive storytelling, test them, and document the results for future inventions.

Research Goal

The goal of this research is to create and analyze new forms of live networked storytelling through video video and other media. Our hypothesis is that online storytelling will function best with small, highly engaged audiences that can interact directly with performers. This research will test that theory through the development of stories, modes of audience interaction, and a platform for creation and dissemination of these stories performed live.

For example, in one experiment, we will have student actors well versed in a fairy tale such as Jack and the Beanstalk be “on-call”, in a virtual set. When a potential audience member logs in, they are given the opportunity to participate in a telling of Jack and the Beanstalk. Assuming they are interested, the actors will begin with the story, inviting the audience member or members to participate by playing the role of a character or engaging by manipulating elements in the virtual set. We will judge our success on how engaged the audience is in the story, how much and the kinds of interactions they take advantage of and whether or not they continue watching and if they return at another time for another story.

Of course, we will be tweaking the variables throughout. Offering up different stories, different audience sizes and different modes of interaction. The ultimate goal is to demonstrate that this is a viable medium and to produce stories that take advantage of its strengths.

In the end, what we are proposing is to experiment with a new form of networked play that is only recently possible. In this form, the participants are both driving the play through their interaction and being directed/prompted by the interaction opportunities presented by the story being performed. We expect that our work to make this type of play viable and engaging will extend beyond storytelling into many different fields—distance learning for adults and children for instance.

Background

Despite the internet’s many affordances for interaction, most online video is being created within constraints imposed by 20th century broadcast technology, while merely using the internet as a means of distribution. This pattern is obviously viable — video can now be delivered on-demand because channels aren’t scarce — but the medium’s flexible and participatory affordances have not been much used for the creation of experiences that are both aesthetic and participatory.

One conceptual hurdle to creating such experiences is our expectation of scale. The requirement for media forms that support large-scale audiences has been largely economic: traditional TV or movies are expensive to produce and disseminate, especially live media. Scale was required to make the economics viable. Unfortunately, this greatly limits the possibilities for interaction to those forms of interaction that can support large audiences, such as voting or trivia, because the potential communications complexity of group grows with the square of its members.

With recent advances in technology, bandwidth, and equipment, this cost has dramatically lessened. It is no longer beyond the realm of possibility to create live fictional media designed for small audiences, encouraging more direct participation and interaction. These interactive performances would scale up through replication of many small versions of a performance, each one differing from the others, because of the unpredictability of audience interaction.

Research Plan

This proposal represents a starting point, enabling us to begin experimenting with live stories while creating an initial physical and virtual footprint. Ultimately, we envision this becoming a full lab: the Live Storytelling Lab at ITP. With the level of funding we have asked for, we should be able to perform several experiments and put at least one story into full production over the course of a year.

While we could divide the year into 3 portions, the first portion building the physical and virtual presence, the second planning and scripting the stories and interaction, and the last portion putting them into production, we feel that a better plan would be get started building the digital, physical, narrative portions in parallel quickly to learn from experiences and then iterate. The initial setup can be put into place immediately using a WebRTC video conferencing setup with existing stories that can be simply read aloud with interaction from the audience.

Following that, we will add more virtual set and interactive elements—animations that track along with the book, different means for the audience to interact with the story—with the ultimate goal being a full virtual set with multiple actors, multiple cameras, and the ability to test different modes of audience interaction.

Ultimately, the Live Storytelling Lab at ITP will be a small scale physical and virtual studio: a hands-on environment for students from across Tisch to explore this new medium by easily altering the physical and virtual platforms, the production elements within the studio, the online footprint/presence of a particular story, the experience of the end user, and even the rigging of physical objects within the set.

With this, we believe there is a great potential for exploring a large variety in the types of audience interaction that might work in the context live fictional media along with the type of performances that might inspire an audience to do so.

Live networked storytelling aims to engage audiences in new ways. It’s easy to imagine applicability to online education, advertising, and live online events such as those that take place via YouTube Live or via Google+ Hangouts. This research offers a front-row seat to the exploration and discovery of new types of live online interaction as they emerge.

Required Funding

To realize our goals, we will develop a small scale lab which would encompass both a physical space and have an online presence. It would take advantage of recent technical advances for live interaction and media in the browser such as WebRTC and the virtual set will rely upon technologies such as WebGL and related APIs.

The physical studio will employ networked pan-tilt-zoom cameras and audio capture, including those that can be used separate foreground and background such the Kinect along with green screen technology. The studio would also have elements for audience interaction including speakers for audio and projectors/screens for audience generated video and finally networked objects that the audience may have control over depending on the story itself.

Creating a physical/virtual studio and platform for media distribution along with the actual story production is an ambitious undertaking. Funding from this grant would be used to hire students to help build and produce the live stories and the infrastructure required. A postdoc researcher will help manage the endeavor, compile and publish results.

[BUDGET BREAKDOWN]

ITP and Tisch

ITP is the Interactive Telecommunications Program within NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. ITP has been described as the “center for the study of the recently possible” and for more than 30 years has been on the forefront of imaginative uses of new technology to make people’s lives better. Tisch is a world-renowned school of acting, theater, film, dance, musical theater and new media.

Conducting this research at ITP places it in the center of a performance based school and will allow it to draw upon students and faculty who are interested in practicing their craft with new forms. It may draw upon Acting and Theater students to participate in the performance of stories, Musical Theater students would be invited to do the same but with a musical twist, Film and screenwriting students will be invited to explore their craft in real-time and explore camera movements, live switching, and dialog improvisation.

References/Inspiration

The Subservient Chicken: A very successful interactive marketing campaign created by CP+B for Burger King in the early 2000s. This shows an appetite for highly interactive content, with the audience acting as director simply using written commands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Subservient_Chicken

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. by Henry Jenkins, et al.. In this paper, a “participatory culture” is described along with an outline of the important elements. We find that it is a nice way to break down and analyze a participatory project but can also be used to inform the production of one.
http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/NMLWhitePaper.pdf

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson: A very influential article, blog, and book describing a new type of economic condition brought on by offering easy access to a large body of content in a low cost manner.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

Dungeons and Dragons: A very popular role playing game which are highly interactive socially interactive games where the participants assume character roles and act with their own agency through a game or story.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/

Second Life: An open-ended online virtual world where participants may construct an identity, build, trade, socialize, and interact with each-other as will.
http://secondlife.com/

Rocky Horror Picture Show: A participatory movie event where the audience assumes roles in the movie and acts out the movie while it is playing.
http://www.rockyhorror.com/

Transmedia Storytelling by Henry Jenkins
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/401760/transmedia-storytelling/

Dora the Explorer: A popular children’s TV character which “interacts” with the audience by asking questions and pausing to wait for the answer.
http://www.nickjr.com/dora-the-explorer/

Fahrenheit 451 by François Truffaut: A movie version of Ray Bradbury’s book. In particular, the scene where the female lead participate in an interactive television show, entitled “The Family”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060390/

Sleep No More: An immersive theater experience where the audience roams freely through a hotel, watching, and participating in a version of Macbeth
http://sleepnomorenyc.com/

Fan Fiction: Fan fiction is the result of fans individually and collectively scripting stories using characters from popular media. It has become a popular activities among the former passive audience. Fans are now empowered to take control of a storyline, continue it, and make it their own.
http://www.fanfiction.net/

Hamlet on the Holodeck The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace by Janet H. Murray
Describes the relationship between stories and digital environments, in particular participatory stories.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hamlet-holodeck

The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson
A work of science fiction in which a storybook, referenced in the title as the Illustrated Primer is central. The storybook itself is backed by live actors who play roles within the book and interact with the main character.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age

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