thatguywithglasses83-blog

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Proposed crew requirements for my collaborative project!

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This one’s about the practical, everyday challenge of finding time to create.

NB. No longer parodying Trump tweets as I feel that we need a new voice of reason in our modern society.

Ah, that’s better!

As I continue to develop my project, I am facing a really big challenge. Not a creative challenge, but a practical challenge that is impacting my ability to be creative.

You see, it's just so damn hard to find the time to juggle everything I have going on in life. Between work, study, having a partner and needing to sleep occasionally, I wish I could spend twice as much time as I have to work on my project proposal.

The good news is that I haven't lost any passion for my work or study, and I feel energised by what I'm doing with my life.

The bad news is that I don't have an extra three hours a day and I never will. As I get older my commitments in life will only increase so it's all downhill from here.

I guess the takeaway is that I have to use my time very effectively if I want to create a project proposal that I'm proud to put my name on.

It's also a really important lesson on limitations - think of it as a budget of time rather than money. When I first returned to study this semester, I was a bit surprised by the difference of how people see the concept of budget in the worlds of work and media study. In work, you have money but no time. Whereas in study, you have time but no money.

I think either way it's helpful to think of your time as a limited resource and to design a work plan based on this. It's better to keep it small and do it well than to be unrealistically ambitious and fail to deliver.

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Reflective Practice: My top 3 lessons

Hey class, after reflecting upon my blogging practice, I’ve collated some of my thoughts into a list of lessons that I have learned this semester. I hope it’s useful to some of you.

1. You network by doing, not by schmoozing

How I felt as a mature age student in week 1.

You build the strongest professional networks by working with people, contributing to the team and by being part of a community.

2. Be open to change

Don’t be this guy.

You don’t have to like every idea that is presented to you, but you can learn a hell of a lot by looking closer and trying to understand those ideas. Remember that you can also pick and choose which ideas you want to incorporate into your work.

3. Creative practice is a grind

This is how I feel after working 15 days straight.

Talent is one thing, but if you want to make it as a creative professional you have to be prepared to work consistently even when you don’t feel inspired or lack the time to do things perfectly. At the end of the day I feel really proud of the work I’ve done this semester and I hope you do as well.

Online image sources (accessed 17 September 2017) are linked via their captions.

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ASSESSMENT TASK 2: SELECTED POSTS

1. Back to the drawing board.

This was my first major blog post and it really shows how far I’ve come during the semester. My mindset was very much that of traditional narrative and I was trying to work out how to operate within the digital narrative paradigm. The blogging style was quite basic in comparison to the admittedly more baroque outings of my later blog posts, although I was beginning to develop the conversational voice that carried throughout the semester.

2. Andrew looked at interactive documentaries on the web and you won’t believe what happened next.

This is another early blog post and I think it’s a good one to show my progress within the first few weeks of undertaking the unit. There is a clear sense of development in style and content. However, I was still getting the hang of blogging, and more importantly, I was still trying to understand practical applications of ideas for new media presented within the unit.

3. Committing to a concept.

This blog post shows my first big steps towards realising my digital narrative project. At the time of writing I was still trying to work out how to make a digital multiplatform narrative work with all of the things that I love about traditional narrative forms.

4. It's time to pitch!

Pitch week represented a couple of major milestones for me within my blogging practice. Firstly, it was in this post that I really solidified what my blogging style was, namely through the use of comedy, image captions and the incorporation of references. It is also through this post that I changed what I used the blog for - rather than documenting my thoughts and artistic angst, I began to document my learning and progress in a way that has helped me to enhance my own confidence as a creative professional.

5. Learning from feedback

Following our pitches, I documented my reflections on feedback presented to me by classmates. This blog post shows my process in understanding, internalising and responding to feedback. It also documents what I have learned about the artistic process from the act of providing feedback to others. This post also reinforced to me the value of having a creative team to work with and really made me appreciate the knowledge, energy and perspective of my classmates.

6. I’ve had a breakthrough.

This is my most recent blog post at the time of posting. It shows that I have developed and refined my blogging style, and that I have come to terms with a lot of the ideas presented within the unit. While writing this post, I realised that I had embraced many digital narrative concepts within my project and was fully immersed in the group aspect of the course.

I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration.

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I’ve had a breakthrough.

I’ve spent the past few weeks really thinking about feedback from my wonderful classmates and my extraordinary, talented and generous-with-their-marking lecturers. This has given me some great perspective about my project.

One thing that stuck in my mind was a piece of feedback about the narrative world. Will there be confusion between the Paris we are seeing on screen and the version that is in Nathalie’s mind? For me, these were always one and the same in my narrative - we would be viewing the romanticised version of Paris that our protagonist would see. However, hearing about these as distinct concepts led to a revelation.

What if it was possible to have an unreliable narrator in Nathalie? What if she was living a very different reality, and what we were seeing is a simulacrum that exists in her mind? I don’t want to drop too many spoilers in a blog post, but this would be in concept similar to movies like Shutter Island (2010).

The things Leo went through to win that Oscar.

Rather than a plot twist or a central mystery driving the narrative, I will be using an “onion” story structure. Full disclosure - that’s a term I totally just made up for this blog post.

Anyhoo, on the surface you can just enjoy the narrative as a fun crime/romance story. Then there is the layer under that, for the art house cinema junkies, filled with references to French New Wave cinema that are placed in the world of our story by Nathalie. Then at the centre is a different, perhaps darker reality which Nathalie is trying to escape from through fantasy.

It’s a bit like Mulholland Drive (2001), but with fewer magicians or whatever the hell this guy is.

In terms of application, I’m hoping for a subtle, less-is-more approach. A great point of reference is the Iceberg Theory as described by Ernest Hemingway (1990). Basically, the writer only makes visible the immediate and important events of the narrative, allowing most of the backstory to lie hidden under water.  These hidden elements motivate the characters and add meaning to the project. 

Importantly, a digital narrative is the perfect form for this. It really gives me a lot of options to build out this hidden aspect of the story with online material, for those who wish to seek it out.

As an aside, I’m really confident as to my ability to use locations in Melbourne that look like Paris. However, a bonus of this iceberg device is that it also provides an internal logic as to why there may be any discrepancies between Paris and the actual locations used, should they be apparent in the finished film. I’m so happy, I could drop in a quote from The Simpsons (1999).

Online image sources (accessed 15 September 2017) are linked via their captions.

References:

Hemingway E 1990, ‘The Art of the Short Story’ in Benson J, New Critical Approaches to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, Duke University Press, North Carolina.

Mom and Pop Art 1999, television program, The Simpsons, 20th Century Fox, California, April 11.

Mullholland Drive 2001, Blu Ray, StudioCanal, London, directed by David Lynch.

Shutter Island 2010, DVD, Paramount Home Entertainment, Hollywood, California, directed by Martin Scorsese.

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Learning from feedback

No really, this actually happened.

Pitches are done and it was great to get up in front of the class and talk about my project. If nothing else, this is the moment a project becomes real. It's no longer just an idea because it has tangible material and has been shared with others.

Reading feedback from my peers was a great learning experience. It is really interesting to see both the good and bad as raised by others, even though it doesn't always align to your own original view of things.

When you have lived with a project for a while, you can take information for granted and don't always have the ability to see an outsider's perspective.

Before feedback.

After feedback.

A big part of the challenge of pitching is keeping within the three minute timeframe, so there was a lot of stuff I chose to not include or skim through in order to focus on “the vibe” of the project.

Apologies to anybody reading this who wasn’t in Australia in the 90’s and may not get this reference. Also, go see The Castle. I’ll wait.

So as a result, there were some aspects of my pitch that in retrospect were not clear to everybody in the class. Next time I will take a bit more time to really flesh out the basics and to explain how the project will be executed.

I also learned a lot from giving feedback, because it really trains you to analyse the fundamentals of a project and to think about how it would be structured and executed.

Often it is really valuable to hear an outsider’s perspective on a project, so when providing this feedback you learn to detach from your emotions and prejudices about a project and document them for your peers. This is a valuable skill to later apply to your own work.

Sharing feedback is also a really important part of being in a creative team, and you only get as much back as you are willing to give!

One of the hardest things was knowing how to find the balance between being positive and providing criticism. It’s counter productive and downright mean to criticise the value of a project. On the other hand, glowing feedback doesn’t help you to improve unless you had specific doubts - for instance, if you aren’t sure if a joke is working, it can be really useful to know if people found it funny.

When glowing feedback goes wrong.

Finding the balance between praise and criticism requires trust on both parties. As an artist, you need to put your ego aside and trust that your collaborator is providing you with a valuable opportunity to improve your project and to understand how an outsider views it. And as a collaborator, you need to trust that the creator is going to put aside their ego to genuinely work with you.

All up, I’m really grateful for all the feedback that my team members provided to me, and also for the opportunity to contribute in this way to their projects. Thanks team!

Online image sources (accessed 1 September 2017) are linked via their captions.

References

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace 1999, Blu Ray, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Los Angeles, directed by George Lucas.

The Castle 2004, DVD, Roadshow Entertainment, Australia, directed by Rob Sitch.

The Room 2004, Blu Ray, Wiseau Films, Los Angeles, directed by Tommy Wiseau

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ASSESSMENT TASK 1: PITCH PEER FEEDBACK

Jie - Firefly

During your pitch I was really impressed by your strong knowledge of tanks and the World War II setting. This inspires a lot of confidence in you and the project.

Although I was impressed by the setting, story and locations, I found myself wanting to know more about the “how” of your interactive narrative. How you plan to execute this as an interactive digital narrative? How will the audience “play” the narrative? Will it be video with choices at the end of each segment, or is it closer in nature to a video game?

In terms of the presentation, you started really strongly. I knew what you were pitching within the first 30 seconds, and had a strong concept of tone and setting.

I think it would be beneficial to reduce the amount of time spent talking about specific story details. This would give you more time to really explain some of the “how” elements of your project.

This is being picky, but I think your PowerPoint presentation would also be stronger with less text on your slides - I would rather be listening to you than reading from the screen!

A couple of narratives come to mind which might be useful for you to look at. The first is a movie called The Beast of War (1988). It’s tells the story of a Russian tank crew in Afghanistan in the 1980s - I saw it as kid and years later I can’t forget it. The characters are involved in a messy, ugly war situation and they are constantly presented with difficult moral choices and whether or not to turn on each other.

The second is a video game called The Wolf Among Us (2013). It plays as a multiple-choice branching narrative and is extremely compelling. It really draws you in as a player because it presents you with really difficult moral choices. The common theme with both of these narratives is that they involve the audience with ethical dilemmas instead of simply being action oriented. Have you considered taking your story in this direction to add an extra element to it?

You might like this movie!

Ksenia - 13 Weeks @ RMIT

From the very beginning of your pitch I was really impressed with the thought you put into the concept. You started with a personally-observed problem that your project will solve, which really grabbed my attention and created a connection with the audience.

Unfortunately you did have some technical problems during the presentation, which really halted your early momentum. It’s pretty common for things to go wrong with video embedded in PowerPoint presentations, so in retrospect it would have been worth having offline versions of the video ready to go just in case everything breaks down on the day.

As a presenter you were engaging and kept a fun tone throughout. It is a real strength of your personality and you shouldn’t be afraid to embrace it as a selling point for your future pitches.

Something that may present a problem to this project down the line is that it relies very heavily on video sourced from participants. I worry that this may cause a few issues. Firstly, it is possible that you may end up with lower quality vision than you would like. You could also find yourself in a situation where not enough vision has been submitted to realise the project in a meaningful way. Finally, as you identified during the presentation, you could be flooded with too much vision which would make it very hard for you to go through everything. The highly variable amount of footage would also make it quite difficult to budget editing time and for this project.

Have you considered “hiring” a select group of skilled students to create video material for you to use? This would ensure a higher overall quality of vision, guarantee a minimum amount of material and would also prevent the scenario where you have too much material to work with.

It was great that you explained the story world of the project, including overseas campuses. This really grabbed me and it definitely makes your project unique. It also really helped me to further buy in to this project being as something that is really worth being invested in.

Hannah - Dessert Story

You have a really fun, creative video game idea. It sounded like you have a great knowledge of the story world and game mechanics, which inspires a lot of confidence in your pitch. I really want to play your game!

You identified that the game is about making bright and colourful deserts but I didn’t get much of a sense of what the game would look like from your presentation. This would help the audience to imagine the game in their heads and have stronger connection to your pitch.

Similarly, I found myself wondering what the gameplay of the game would actually be like. How much interaction would it have an would there be a focus on simulation or action elements?

Have you thought about having a multiplayer aspect to the game? Perhaps you can compete with another player online to have the best dessert shop.

Another idea is that you could potentially have the option to design the look and layout of your cake shop. There are plenty of online Adobe Flash “room design” games that use this concept. 

I was also really impressed that you identified a very specific target audience (children aged five to ten years old), and identified why the game would have educational value.

There is a game you may be interested in called Cooking Mama (2006) on Nintendo DS and iPhone. In this game you cook various dishes with a focus on step-by-step cooking. It’s really fun and has a great visual style.

I hope you like this game!

Federica - Bana Yarrlji Bubu

Your pitch really grabbed me from the opening slide. You clearly identified a strong project idea and that it is an interactive journey, which really helped me understand what you were pitching. You also identified why the project was urgently needed, which helped me to invest in it emotionally.

The project works really well with the form of interactive narrative and your blend of traditional indigenous imagery and cutting-edge technology is really interesting. It is also a great idea to use short documentaries, 360 views and animation together.

The use of traditional Aboriginal art animation is a fantastic idea. I found myself really interested in how you plan to achieve this and find artists/artwork.

Have you considered making your project about an indigenous community facing similar issues in Victoria? This may make life a bit easier for you during production and would also allow you to make multiple trips if you have to shoot more material than initially expected.

I think your pitch could be improved by removing some of the slides that have a lot of text and replacing them with simple visuals that reflect the style and emotion of your project. I would much rather listen to you speak than read text from PowerPoint slides!

You also spent a lot of time on your pitch talking about the limitations and potential problems arising from your project. If you took this out, you would have found it easier to keep your pitch under three minutes. It would also allow you to focus on engaging with the audience and selling them on your fantastic idea.

Hardy - Online documentary project

I really like your concept for the documentary and it is fantastic that it is focussed on telling stories about people. It is also clear that you are very passionate about documentary, which is fantastic.

Apologies if I missed it on the day, but does your project have a title yet?

Have you considered delving deeper into your subject to create a more specific story than a wider portrait of his life story? You could look more deeply at particular issues within his life and make statements that have a strong social impact.

You could also explore a question relating to his life and answer it within the documentary.

My main concern with the project is that as it is already in post-production stage, it may be in the wrong stage of development for this unit. It will be hard for you to adapt the concept during workshops because it has already been locked-in to such a large extent.

Furthermore, if selected for production, other students may find that your digital narrative presents fewer learning opportunities and is less inclusive to their input than other projects that are being developed specifically for this course.

My suggestion would be to fully develop a similar but brand-new documentary idea for this course. You can of course use many of the ideas and learnings from your previous documentary experience to create an original and amazing film.

I really like that you talked about hosting the documentary online within a digital space, including photographs and other forms of information. However, I do think that there is a lot of room for you to further develop this as a digital narrative. This could include a more detailed distribution plan and working to investigate other new ways to tell your story.

In terms of your presentation, you gave a great sense of what your story will be like by explaining the life of your subject and including lots of photographs of him.

You kept to the 3 minute time limit very neatly and spoke directly to the class rather than reading text from slides, which was quite engaging.

REFERENCES

Taito 2006, Cooking Mama, video game, Nintendo DS, Cooking Mama Limited, Japan.

Telltale Games 2013, The Wolf Among Us, video game, XBOX 360, Telltale Games, California.


The Beast of War 1988, DVD, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Culver City, California, directed by Kevin Reynolds.

Image sources are hyperlinked via their captions.

I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration.

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It’s time to pitch!

Three minutes isn't long, but you can achieve a lot in that time.

In his book Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds, script expert Michael Hauge (2006) describes the secret of a great elevator pitch as clearly and succinctly conveying the most powerful elements of your narrative. He even goes as far to add that you should do so with passion.

This guy gets it!

And that's what I’m working towards with my pitch, but I’m finding that there are many challenges. The biggest of which is keeping it concise.

My first instinct is to try to cram in as much as I can, to throw as much information as I can at my poor classmates. But this is not the way forward.

To quote old mate William Shakespeare (1564-1616), "Brevity is the soul of wit”.

This guy also gets it. Nice earring, btw.

It is better to be clear, structured and emotive than it is to be overly informative. You need to cut through. James Cameron famously pitched the movie Aliens by writing the title “Alien” on a white board and then adding a dollar sign on the end (Obst, 1997).

Wait. Not this guy.

That's more like it!

It's also really worth considering the context and audience of the pitch. We will each be one of more than 20 to pitch on the day. No matter how good the pitches are, it can be hard to absorb a lot of information and remember every detail after the event.

But more than just a necessity of time, boiling down your idea to a 3 minute pitch presents a great opportunity. It helps you to find the most important parts of your project - the essence of your narrative.

Like Nic Cage's sweet, sweet mullet in Con Air. That’s all I need to know about the film.

For me and my project, the most important elements are story, concept, tone and aesthetic. As much as I would love to go deeper into story and technical details, they matter a lot less than sketching out the overall meaning, look and feel.

I’m actually really grateful for the pitching process because it’s helped me to gain a deeper understanding of my digital narrative and it’s core elements. This is powerful knowledge and it will guide me throughout the development process.

Bring it on!

Online image sources (accessed 13 August 2017) are linked via their captions.

References: Hauge, M 2006, Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds: The Guaranteed Way to Get Your Screenplay or Novel Read, Michael Wiese Productions, Studio City, California.

Obst, L 1997, Hello, He Lied & Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches, reprint edition, Broadway Books, New York.

Shakespeare, W 1564-1616. The tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Wordsworth, London.

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Good infographic.

Suspense, Horror and Mystery Genre Differences Infographic

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This is for the week 4 class - my example of an interactive narrative. Yes, I do have the original VHS game.

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Committing to a concept

Things are getting serious. In class, we’ve examined a variety of new and interesting forms for digital narrative. It’s been a wild and at times confusing journey to examine my own narrative concepts against these forms. But as the semester's clock is ticking forward, it is time to pick a project concept to develop.

Hey, is that the new Apple Watch?

My first requirement for a project is to find one with a story or message that I really want to tell. Not only do I need to live with this project until at least the end of semester, but potentially into production and marketing as well. I also firmly believe that the best narratives, digital or otherwise, are the ones that come from a passionate artist.

The second requirement is that the form is in some way new, interesting or at the very least trying to go beyond that of a traditional narrative. It could include audience interactivity (Murray, 2011), fulfil a desire for participation (Jenkins, 2002) or be modular in nature (Manovich, 2001).

This is an tricky one for me because I am deeply passionate about traditional narrative forms and find an incredible beauty within them. However, I am also a child of the digital era, work professionally within a multi-platform digital media space and grew up on interactive narrative games. How can I tell a story that has the structure and emotional weight of a traditional narrative, with the energy and potential of new forms?

It is also crucial to consider the audience when picking a concept - after all, they are the ones who will be watching and interacting with the narrative. Without narrative and form working together to create a compelling experience, why should they care?

Having considered the above, I have settled on a concept to develop into a digital narrative. Go me!

Thanks, kid. You’ve always been there for me.

The idea was one that has been floating around in the back of my mind for a while. It’s a romantic comedy inspired by French New Wave cinema, movies such as Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 masterpiece Breathless. I’m very much in love with the characters, aesthetics and themes within my story and believe that it has great potential as a digital narrative.

Seriously, what a movie.

Ultimately, though, this is just the beginning of a development process. That process is crucial to having an organic relationship between story and form, one that is tightly linked to the narrative and enhances the audience’s experience. As discussed in David Tiley’s (2017) interview with producer Sue Maslin, digital narrative also provides an opportunity to create greater engagement with the audience.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with where I am, and can’t wait to put in the hard work to develop this base story into an exciting digital narrative.

Online image sources (accessed 8 August 2017) are linked via their captions.

References

Breathless 1960, Blu Ray, StudioCanal, London, directed by Jean-Luc Godard.

Jenkins, H 2002. “Interactive audiences?” in D Harries (ed.), The New Media Book, British Film Institute, London, pp. 157-170.

Manovich, L 2001. The Language of New Media. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Murray, J 2011, Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Tiley D 2017, Sue Maslin: How to be a leader in a digital world, Screenhub, Viewed 8 August 2017 <http://www.screenhub.com.au/news-article/features/policy/david-tiley/sue-maslin-how-to-be-a-leader-in-a-digital-world-254070>.

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Andrew looked at interactive documentaries on the web and YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.

After the last workshop I was a bit underwhelmed by interactive documentary as a medium. On paper, it's an amazing idea. Cue utopian visions of eager users interfacing with and remixing works online. However, in reality there are practical and technological concerns that hamper the form.

Firstly, software requirements are a barrier to reaching an audience (no, I don’t want to install a different web browser!). With an infinite wealth of content online, it’s all too easy for a viewer to flick over to somebody else's website. Especially one with cats.

Authors such as Kate Nash (2012) argue that interactivity leads to greater immersion and therefore a better experience for the documentary audience. It's really worth interrogating this assumption and asking when and to what extent it is true.

Personally, I've found interactive video to be quite a detached experience. With a good traditional narrative or documentary, I can lean back into the storytelling and have an emotional experience. I remember feeling sick in the stomach watching a tape recorder spin the first time I watched Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line (1988). I have never had that sort of experience with an interactive documentary or narrative.

This is the most emotional I’ve ever been over an audio cassette since the release of Queen’s final album.

Despite all of the above negativity, I do think there are a lot of things these emergent forms do really well.

As an interdisciplinary form (Aston and Gaundenzi, 2016), interactive documentaries are fantastic at linking multiple forms of media together. If you want to make a documentary exploring the adaptation of novels into movies and video games, an interactive documentary would let your audience really explore these forms in a better way than a traditional documentary.

As discussed by de Michael and Zimmerman (2013), emerging documentary forms allow for greater flexibility, mobility, risk taking and the ability to be displayed in non-traditional and communal spaces.

I also think they are great at condensing viewing time. For instance Jonathan Harris’ I Love Your Work (2013) let's you scrub through six short documentary stories about adult video performers in New York. Although one could watch them all from start to finish, scrubbing through allows for a quick snapshot of the experience in a world where many people are too busy to sit down and watch traditional content.

Although it takes, like, 40 minutes to update flash and book in a viewing.

Another great use is within a corporate context. Let's say you are trying to market the new Ford Mustang. You could set up a section on the website where the user can watch videos, take a 360° tour, or even select your favourite colour. This would be a better experience than a traditional film explaining the features, and it would probably sell more cars too. 

Oh wait, they already did this (Ford, 2017).

So yeah, I definitely think there are a lot of advantages to interactive and non-traditional documentary forms when used for a good reason. Ultimately every medium, whether traditional or interactive, has a set of opportunities and limitations. I think it is really important not to take form for granted. Instead, you should work to pick a form that suits what you want to achieve as an artist.

Online image sources (accessed 1 August 2017) are linked via their captions.

References

Aston, J, & Gaudenzi, S, 2012, Interactive Documentary: Setting the Field, Studies in Documentary Film, 6(2), pp. 125–139. 

De Michiel, Helen, and Patricia Zimmerman, 2013, ‘Documentary as an Open Space’ in B Winston (ed.), The Documentary Film Book, British Film Institute, London, pp. 356-65.

Ford 2017, Explore Ford Mustang, Ford, Australia, viewed 29th July 2017, https://www.ford.com.au/cars/mustang/gallery/

Harris, J 2013, I Love Your Work, video recording, website, viewed 25 July 2017. http://iloveyourwork.net

Nash, K. 2012, Modes of interactivity, Media, Culture & Society, 34(2), pp. 195–210.

The Thin Blue Line 1988, blu ray, Criterion Collection, New York City, directed by Errol Morris.

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THIS. IS. WHY. YOU. SHOOT. AT. MAGIC. HOUR.

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Back to the drawing board

I went into the unit with a few ideas up my sleeve for potential projects. One was a traditional narrative short film, another was a traditional short documentary. By far my favorite was writing a traditional feature-length animated comedy screenplay - kind of like a Pixar movie but mostly aimed at children aged over 30.

You’ve probably noticed one big problem with all of these ideas - they’re all TRADITIONAL forms. As much as I’m excited about these projects, in their present state they don’t really fit the bill of being a “digital narrative”. Trying to create a traditional project packaged as a digital one wouldn’t really be within the spirit of the course and I’m certain that I would miss out on valuable learning opportunities by doing so.

This has left me with two options. The first would be to adapt one of these project ideas into a digital narrative. Of course, these projects would already be digital to some extent. I wouldn’t be writing a screenplay on pen-and-paper (Final Draft software is way too useful), nor would I be shooting a movie on an Arri BL film camera (even though that would be pretty awesome). But what I’m really talking about is adapting a narrative to be transmedia and participatory. This could be really cool.

The second option would be to come up with a new, organically digital narrative - to let the form inspire me. It would be great to explore the possibilities afforded by this and it is definitely an exciting prospect.

Option two is a little scary, given that I have more experience with traditional narrative. This isn’t something that I’ve explicitly set out to do before, and I’m anticipating a bit of a learning cure as I grapple with the new form.

Then again, the more I think about it, the more I realise that digital narrative is already at the core of my professional practice and has been for many years. In creating short web videos for organisations, those “micro narratives” work together to create a larger story. This meta-narrative can be viewed in any order and integrates with written web content and social media to create a much wider picture.

It’s also really important to find a project idea that is not only digital and participatory, but also one that I’m passionate enough about to see into full production should it be green-lit at the end of semester.

So yeah, for now it’s back to the drawing board. I’m going to spend the next few days thinking about digital narratives and how they can work with traditional and non-traditional forms. I’m looking forward to coming out of this process with a bunch of adapted, new and exciting project ideas!

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I adore the inky blacks and soft whites in these stills

The Elephant Man (1980)

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My first post!

Here I am, on a rainy day in Melbourne, sitting in class for COMM2450. Let the blogging begin.