Interactive Takeaways and Leftovers

The Allnighter

‘I’ve started so I’ll finish!’ Studying this interactive media module has brought some unexpected consequences. The breadth of the subject has been mind bending, skimming the entire industry, across multiple sectors. I’ve been shaken out of complacency, having expected a narrower focus on our role as creative writers and instead found myself questioning assumptions about where I might go creatively in future.

Here’s a link to the wonderful Laurie Anderson talking about VR and disembodiment, and real and unreal. I love her idea about extending our dreamlife and different states of attention, and spatial awareness. Her ending remark is a cracker!

https://youtu.be/3OJx5lWJrY8?t=349 

This next link is to a parliamentary inquiry into Immersive and Addictive Technologies. I was digging into some of the topics raised by Brian’s last presentation. 

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1846/184607.htm

Lastly I was researching the history of the board game Cards Against Humanity as a case study for my proposal. This helped make my mind up about why I want to work in projects that feel true to what we have been defining as our ‘purpose’ as writers. Until now I hadn’t realised how much this helps steer you towards meaningful enterprise.

I hope that we’re all able to hold onto our idealism. It certainly was apparent in all the efforts that we’ve all made to get these proposals over the line!

Arial view of Holyrood Park

This post is about perspective, hence the photo.

I’ve been meaning to post for a while, to note my takeaways from the pitching sessions. I missed the day of the group pitches because I was called up for jury service, which ended up taking me out of things for the best part of a fortnight, such was the impact of a very disturbing case.

My takeaways from the individual feedback were mostly about perspective. I was glad I waited 24 hours before responding, and when I did I was glad to get clarification on points that had me very confused on the day but that made perfect sense when explained, just in different terms.

It was also painful but important to watch through the pitch again. It was astonishing that I had only noted negative feedback, and omitted to really ‘hear’ anything positive.

I have taken onboard many points from the feedback to hopefully improve my proposal. I have focussed on the app and and highlighted income and not just development costs, and I have simplified as best I can.

Other panel ideas have given me food for thought, and I have made many notes of useful advice to keep close to hand. Other comments cemented my own thinking around what the project meant to me, how and why it had evolved over the weeks, and I doubled down to express the concept more simply and concisely.

Sadly, there’s no branding, though there are a few pictures and diagrams. And 3,500 words of proposal for a transmedia project I still get over-excited about whenever I think about it. I couldn’t have come this far without all the input from Brian, David and Phil-so many thanks again for waking me up to all these possibilities!

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

This week, while working on my business plan, I realised I urgently need an online portfolio of work. Nobody just wants to see a plan. They want to see a plan that worked. I want to be in a position to showcase more than one project that I've done to completion, no matter how simple.  

Working on this interactive media project has been all-consuming! Feeling inspired and having ideas was the easiest bit. I've now got the concept, the story outline and I'm closer to finalising the mechanic for the interactive element.

But having a business plan that shows how to realise a project is really hard. Even if it looks foolproof, it won't be enough. There needs to be a body of completed work that demonstrates how that strategy works.

So I've been reading up on transmedia strategy case studies and came across this excellent piece of research https://eprints.qut.edu.au/103325/1/Cameron_Cliff_Thesis.pdf  

I found this helped me to distinguish clearly beween various transmedia strategies. I've now chosen examples to include in my proposal. 

I've included one that demonstrates a route to market that started small using social media to capture an audience and eventually created a franchise (’Sofia’s Diary’).

But while I can show other people's projects, and yes that's helpful, why would backers not just go to them with the idea? At this stage loads of people are having the same ideas about what the next big thing could be, looking at what's out there and aiming to copy it with a tweak, finding gaps and looking to plug them. 

Ultimately the question needing addressed is why would anyone back me? I may be bursting with ideas, but do I have the necessary drive to see a project through to completion? And where's the proof that I have a vision worth realising? There's no end of serious competition.

There's one particular example of a large project I saw through from my original concept to break-even. Like now, I started out with nothing and was learning as I went along. I learned a lot from that experience about how long these things can take and the risks involved. I learned to be realistic about the gap between the skills and resources needed and what I had to offer. By necessity I also gained relevant skills and experience.

I also have supportive friends and family, but I still need to build up confidence in myself as a creative. I need to be prepared to reach out to others looking to collaborate on a transmedia project that they can use for their own portfolios, whether they're students or not. This is why I've come to the conclusion that I urgently need an online portfolio showcasing some completed projects.

It may be that an independent production company just happens to be looking for a transmedia project like mine to pitch to the BBC, and of course I'll be doing my best to get ready to approach them and persuade them to take it on. Realistically though I’m a long way short of what’s needed. I have to work with what I’ve got and build outwards.

My ambition for my project has grown arms, legs and tentacles over the past few weeks of the course. That's been the fun part of waking up to what interactive media has to offer creatively.

Working with the maxim of 'best tool for the job', I'm aiming to design a transmedia experience that cherry picks across the different platforms. There are other advantages: the different schedules across platforms could be used to demonstrate a scalable project in the business plan.

I listened to a BBC podcast on transmedia storytelling which gave me some encouragement. I particularly liked the comments concerning the positives of allowing space to try stuff out and fail. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20130702112136355

So the period drama is best on a lush big screen, but I'd like to include animated sequences illustrating Sarah Huttons inner world of ideas, as she assembles her Empathy Machine in her mind's eye. 

This in turn bridges to a colourful iPad/PC/laptop interactive animated version of her Empathy Machine with controls to play with. 

The final platform is the smartphone (simplified) version of the Empathy Engine. This includes a sound based experience for a walk outdoors that links back to Sarah's walks and observations in 18th century Enlightenment Edinburgh.

On the 'mobile first' principle, this would be created and released first. But since all these platforms have different resource requirements and timescales this would need careful coordination. The Phil Harris sessions stressed the benefits of having a fully detailed narrative design right from the start to avoid some of the pitfalls, and the BBC podcast details examples of this too.

So when I was getting stuck with the app I went back to my original story and things feel like they are falling into place. The work on the narrative design document continues to be central alongside the development of the mechanic. Now I've got a firm outline and am working on the shading, and I feel more confident that the whole can hang together in a very satisfying way, but it will need thorough feedback/testing to make sure.

This week, apart from having made the final decisions on the overall scope of the project, my aim has been to produce a simple visual illustrating a mechanic. It's clear how important it is to have a well-designed simple interface to draw an audience in, no matter what the platform. I've been playing around with balsamiq, a wire-framing app, although I'm still using sketches on little bits of paper before inputting them.

I've also been thinking about how to capture an audience and grow it from a standing start. Audio is a rich medium that remains hugely popular in its own right, from radio through music to podcasts, so I'm sticking to using the interactive sound/walking experience as my detailed example. I think it's a good place to start.

Review of Trajan’s Column, National Geographic (2015)

Trajan’s Column is in two sections: part one is an interactive piece with a series of infographics and an embedded video by FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA, DANIELA SANTAMARINA, AND EMILY M. ENG and part two is a conventional text article by ANDREW CURRY with photos by KENNETH GARRETT. 

When you land on the piece there is a large box across the middle of the screen with clear instructions. You then click conventionally on a cross top right of the box to close it and proceed.

The sections are designed to look like tabs and there’s also a photo with a link to the next section at the foot of the first. You can scroll up and down, left and right on the main photo of the sections of the column. There’s a small diagram of the column on the left of the page with colour coded dots corresponding to the section your attention (cursor) is on. These colours are used consistently across the infographics. You can zoom in and out and the graphics remain very crisp.

According to Statista.com the NG audience in March 2015 was 39K. By platform, 7.4K would have been able to access the interactive element (6K desktop and laptop; 1.4K mobile web). The demographic was split almost 50:50 between male and female, with a median age of around 50 years. The median income bracket is above the lowest and most are home owners. There was a high number of households with children. This is a ‘glossy’ subscription magazine.

The title suggests this Roman artefact could be read as an ancient comic strip, which straight away is an engaging idea. The style is educational; a factual article which offers contrasting opinions from experts, accompanied by easy to read graphics. The whole could be understood by the average 12 year old, a benchmark of accessibility. The mechanics make it easy to examine the photos of the surface of the column, giving the illusion of a third dimension on the page and give the reader choice on how to digest the information. It allows for a freer exploration.There’s a good balance of text and visuals.

Overall I felt a little disappointed when I realised that the coloured buttons were not action buttons, the factual content was really the same information repeated across different styles of graphics, and the written article left me cold. 

I could see it being useful in an educational setting, formal or informal, perhaps as preparation for a family or school visit to the site in Rome, or a stepping off point for discussion or further research into strands of particular interest. With this in mind, some relevant follow-up links would have been appreciated. I expect this would be an attractive space for travel companies to advertise.

An exciting development this week was reading about how Nonny de la Pena’s VR film telling the story of Mary Katherine Goddard (see above) was used in a submission to Congress which then passed into law just two months ago. This creates the first women’s history museum.

https://www.vox.com/22206468/smithsonia.n-womens-history-museum-american-latino-omnibus 

This week’s highlight for me has been attending the PlayAway Festival, still underway https://tinderboxcollective.org/playaway/

There was a keynote speech from Jane McGonigal, and then I opted for panel discussions on Gaming for Health, Education and Wellbeing and also Mixed Realities: Virtual and Physical Interaction. These had contributers who were both articulate and generous, and there was just too much to take away from them all to do justice here. But I’ve made loads of notes for reference and follow-up.

Perhaps the last session was most relevant for my project, in particular I enjoyed hearing from Mona Bozdog from Abertay University talking about the immersive experience she created on Inchcolme Island and how it allowed for participants to include found objects or ephemera in their experience. Her interests and motivation seem similarly aligned to my own.

I’ve also continued looking for projects with qualities that I aspire to and I was inspired by the iPad Biophilia app (illustrated below), a collaboration between Scott Snibbe and Bjork. I love how this explores the relationships between musical structures and natural phenomena. There’s an interesting clip on YouTube where he discusses how they collaborated. I must admit I was pretty daunted by the long list of people credited with creating each app within the suite.

Paula Rego’s Angel (1998): Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance

Inspiration

This image captures the heart of my story’s main character, Sarah Hutton.

I have to admit I had never heard of the term psychogeography until a few months ago but when I did I almost cried with relief because I recognised immediately that this was the closest description to what I had imagined being Sarah’s m.o. 

So that continues to be really useful and ongoing research this week has led me to discover interactive projects originating from artists with an express interest in this, such as artist/dramaturg Cathy Turner (artist)

This week I've also looked at apps like Dérive https://deriveapp.com/s/v2/  that claim to aid walkers engaged in this activity. For me they're missing the anarchic spirit that’s at its heart, as well as being firmly embodied in my characterisation of Sarah. 

What’s interactive about the experience?

Imagine you’re walking around Edinburgh's Old Town with your smartphone and what you are seeing is Sarah’s imagined view of the future, but she’s describing it in terms of her present (1700’s). Depending on how closely that corresponds with your reality, there would be some defamiliarization. She’s able to do this because she has a strong understanding of the ‘forces’ at work. (This is what eventually ties in with her son’s view of the world, but his interests lie with rocks rather than people).

As you walk, you write yourself into her story through your own feelings and sensations, knowledge, experience and observations. Playing more than detective, you extrapolate backwards and forwards in time, enriching your understanding of present surroundings, and where and how you fit into the scheme of things. How exactly has still to be developed!

It's like an alternate history of our present, as imagined in the 18th century by Mrs Sarah Hutton, the mother of the ‘Father of Geology’, see James Hutton. 

Newton is credited with saying he could only see further because he was standing on the shoulders of giants. My project plays with this notion of ideas not existing in a vacuum.

Where’s the storytelling?

There will be filmed sequences with strong characterisation to provide context and narrative entertainment.

For example, the opening sequence could have the newly widowed Sarah clutching her cloak around her little son who’s sheltering beneath from the elements. She's pointing out directions to a lost passer-by: "Edinburgh is a city of layers, it refuses to be 2 dimensional. It even refuses to be 3 dimensional!" James tugs urgently at her cloak, she knows what he wants, and in spite of how unseemly it is, she lifts him onto her shoulders to carry him home. 

It's not my intention to take any of the credit away from James Hutton, but rather to honour Newton's magnanimity, so taking a more overtly feminist viewpoint and writing Sarah back into history.

I’m not sure if FOMO is the right phrase but it feels about right in relation to my general reaction to interactive media. Faced with a needless choice I get anxious and stroppy. Why would I choose to fumble in the dark or go down blind alleyways when I know someone has a bird’s eye view they’re not sharing? It’s for their amusement, their analytics. No thanks. Give me a site map. Let me be the judge of your structure. Let me make a free choice of whether I want to experience this path or that destination.

So why did I set all this aside for Bandersnatch, the interactive episode of Black Mirror? Because Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones. I trust them. I watched it and enjoyed the experience at the time, but now I can barely remember anything about it. I just googled Bandersnatch site map. Ah the relief! 

My then 18 year old hated Bandersnatch. It made him uncomfortable and he thought it was taking the piss. It was I think, I said. It didn’t help.