Transmedia narratives

Transmedia narratives
Games or Worlds?

From immersion to interaction

In the book ‘Narrative as Virtual Reality’ Ryan (2001) points out that there is a clear difference in language and associated thought patterns between computer games and computer worlds. (P. 192) For instance in games language can be used to develop an understanding of the matrix or toolbox that allows a player to navigate or play the game. In virtual worlds language is used more to develop a picture or mirror like virtual image of a supposed reality. Of course the confusing thing is that many computer games are hosted within virtual worlds, whilst others such as ‘Tetris’ or ‘Chess’ etc are clearly games defined and confined within a set of rules that describe both game-play and layout, whilst ‘Civilization’ is a synergetic format of world and game. The distinction does have its uses however. In order to solve a game or puzzle you have to be ‘lucid’ but in order to fully be immersed in a ‘world’ you have to fully suspend disbelief. You can ‘explore’ a virtual world but you would perhaps examine permutations in order to solve a game. The underlying text involves a change in language and therefore associations that we take from the differing experiences. Ryan points to authors that have approached writing as if it was a game, and the suggestion is that those of us that like to remain aware of ourselves when engaging with literature as opposed to being immersed in it would gravitate to these authors. Writers such as Laurence Sterne, Jorge Luis Borges, Georges Perec and Italo Calvino have all at times engaged with the processes of writing as subject matter and have used the notion of writing as a game, gambit or ploy that is used to engage the audience's intellectual awareness of the process of literary construction.
However at the core of the process is narrative. This according to Todorov (1971) requires 5 stages. 1: A state of equilibrium. 2: Disruption of equilibrium. 3: Recognition of disruption. 4: Attempt to repair the disruption and 5: A reinstatement of the initial equilibrium. Using this format we could conceive of this as an alternative gaming strategy that can be used to describe not only computer games hosted within virtual worlds but also any other game format. Chess can be seen as a particular type of narrative whereby an initial state of equilibrium is disrupted as players move their pieces, as players become aware of possible strategies they attempt to repair the opponent’s disruption of their territory, eventually we ether arrive at a stalemate or a winner, in both cases the initial equilibrium or stasis is re-established. Of course this is a much easier fit when used to describe the various stages of a game such as SimCity.


Pokemon trading card

The differences in language pointed out by Ryan are pointers towards ways of analyzing transmedia narratives. In video games language is needed to help a player to navigate the game-world, at the start of a card game two players may initially set out the rules of the game using a short conversation or in the case of trading card games, rules may be printed on the card itself. (See above) A film may use opening credits to familiarize an audience with the type of film language to come or a book may have an introductory chapter. In each case a specialized language will be developed and this can be a useful guide as to the media specific nature of the narrative and the cross or trans-media aspects of it. As Henry Jenkins points out, “Each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story”. (2006) In this case you could examine how each medium necessitates a change in language because of its particular structure and relationship with users. However within a transmedia environment the entry point for analysis is perhaps different.



“ When I first started, you would pitch a story because without a good story you didn’t really have a film. Later, once sequels started to take-off, you pitched a character because a good character could support multiple stories. And now, you pitch a world because a world can support multiple characters and multiple stories across multiple media.” Hollywood scriptwriter cited by Jenkins. (2006 p.114) Instead of starting off with the narrative, you need to unpick the various possible narratives out of the world view. Once this is done, it is easy to spot the differences as storylines move across platforms. Some support intense game play, others suspension of disbelief and immersion. Therefore we have evolving stories and ‘deep’ content. (The bigger story that drives all the mini-narratives).

At this point can I make a plea for why we are undertaking this area of the course. In order to achieve ‘deep’ content you need to develop a completely furnished world that has an encyclopaedic amount of information. It may use sociological, pop, religious, philosophic, psychological, ethnic, mythological, historic or other academic references and mix them up and make new things from them, but without serious research this ‘world’ will not stand up to user investigation. Think of Tolkien’s years of researching the culture and myths of northern Europe before writing the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. This area of critical and contextual thinking, opens out into everything that can be read, looked at and listened to as potential grist to your creative mill and without your growing immersion in culture, your designs and ideas will lack that integrity and layering necessary for an audience to become seriously engaged.

“ If you give people enough stuff to explore, they will explore. Not everyone but some of them will. The people who do explore and take advantage of the whole world will forever be your fans, will give you an energy you can’t buy through marketing ” Ed Sanchez: Blair Witch Project

Sometimes of course society looks for something beyond consumption and some transmedia narratives seem to evolve out of political necessity. The so called ‘Arab Spring’ has been driven by narratives using contemporary social media. Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media are perhaps going to be the main narrative drivers of the future and as the recession bites what will happen to all those who can’t afford to access digital technology?
The deeper question that may be asked however, is how much of this ‘reality’ story is a response to ‘real’ events and how much is driven by the need to see oneself as part of a story? A Baudrillard take on the events in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen would suggest that the merging of fact and fictional narratives is the ‘reality’ behind all stories.

References
Ryan, M. L (2001) Narrative as virtual reality London: John Hopkins Press
Tordorov, T (1971) The two principles of narrative. (Find this on JSTOR)
Jenkins, H (2006) Convergence Culture
http://www.slideshare.net/leorayman/transmedia-narratives-ddb
Apperley, T. (2008). Citizenship and consumption: Convergence culture, transmedia narratives, and the digital divide. In: Proceedings of IE2007: Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment, RMIT University.

Truth and Illusion

Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” has just won five Oscars, for cinematography, art direction, visual effects, sound mixing and sound editing. It’s not just a technically interesting film though. The first films were direct recordings of reality and Mêlées (The early film director that is the subject of Scorsese’s film) was the first film maker to challenge this by introducing stop motion effects and the possibilities of fantasy to the general public. This dialogue between film as truth and film as illusion lies at the core of film theory.
Sometimes these polar opposites however seem to change places. In Godard’s 1967 film La Chinoise, the character Guillaume gives a lecture and in it he states that Méliès, was the true originator of the documentary film. “They say Lumiére invented current events. He made documentaries. But there was also Méliès, who made fiction. He was a dreamer filming fantasies. I think just the opposite…” (Godard, 1967)
Godard was filming at the same time as McLuhan was developing his communication theories; both were fascinated by how media affect our perception of reality and the world. These views would inform Baudillard’s postmodern awareness of how media creates "the death of the real". Eventually, as Baudrillard wrote, wars such as the Gulf War of 1991, wouldn't take place in reality. For Western audiences they would only be aware of war as a series of hyper-real images on television.
Film theory mirrors these polar oppositions. Bazin stressed the importance of ‘reality’ and truth to the filmed document, whilst Parker Tyler stated that “Camera trickery is really camera magic, for illusion can be freely created by the movie camera with more mathematical accuracy and shock value than by slight-of-hand or stage illusion”. (1947, p. 586)
Tyler was the first theorist to compare audience reception of Hollywood stars to the worship of Gods in ancient rituals. All films were essentially like ghost stories or they operated as time machines. The trick of illusion being at the centre of film’s attraction, its power coming from our deep rooted need to seek that other spiritual reality on the other side of the membrane. (Once again ‘the Mind in the Cave’ provides a useful image)
Mêlées was a stage magician and like many others at this time recognised the potential for film to extend his powers of illusion. (In England the magicians Fèlician Trewey and David Devant introduced film projections into their acts). Derren Brown has been at the Grand Theatre in Leeds this week, and several of his illusions rely on the fact that video footage can be edited. Our fascination with illusion is obviously very powerful, the fact that Brown’s performances were all full, reflecting the fact that even in an age of scientific scepticism we yearn for a world of magic and illusionistic tricks.

Stan Brakhage sees Mêlées as a precursor and this reminds me that as film students perhaps you ought to be looking at a much wider range of film-makers. It is worth investigating screenings such as ‘Future Shorts’ last seen at Temple Works in Leeds. Future Shorts highlights the communal experience of film, and how the physicality of the media affects an audience’s responses. This year David Reilly’s The External World (2010) was shown in Leeds as well as Juan Pablo Zaramella’s stop-motion film Luminaris (2011). This is a film you ought to see in conjunction with Mêlées’ work, because it highlights how traditional techniques can still be made relevant to contemporary work.



References:
Tyler, P (1947) Magic and Myth of the Movies in Mast, G & Cohen, M (1974) Film Theory and Criticism New York: Oxford University press p. 586)

Check out Saturday Guardian, 25. 2. 12. J Hoberman’s article ‘A History of Trickery’, is a detailed response to Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” and opens out many of the issues above.

Developing emotional attachment in a video game or film

Polanski: End credits: The Pianist: 2002


The ability to empathize with the characters portrayed in a narrative is vital to both film and game. The actions of a character are designed to enable an audience to develop empathy with a particular emotional experience in the expectation that this will allow the audience to understand why the characters feel the way they do. However in a game both the player and the developer have control over a character’s actions. In fact the association between a player and a particular character can become extremely intense. I can clearly remember my sister an obsessive MUD player, being totally obsessed with her character. She used her involvement in the game’s fantasy world to "shut off" her own life so that she could become part of another reality. The writer Sherry Turkle (1997) wrote extensively about this and in particular how participants might create more than one personality which would allow them to act out several types of roles. The interesting issue here is that these ‘personalities’ are partly a construct of the game designer and partly the player. The character is not a ‘tabula rasa’ or blank slate, it is designed to fit into a particular world and respond to the rules and principles laid out for it. (See previous post: 14 December 2011: “Therefore when designing stages one of the first issues is how to begin the narrative and then how to get the player to learn the rules.”) So what are the ways a designer can set out conditions for character development and how does a player develop these further?
The designer will usually start with a decision as to the type of world the game will exist within, (science fiction, war, fantasy, historical, etc. etc.) this world will already have associations with pre-existing stereotypes which the player will subconsciously take into the situation. (If a combatant in a war game, the player will expect to behave in certain ways probably using clichés developed by going to war movies/reading books or comics etc). The formal design of the game may be emotionally suggestive, (dark colour palette, high contrast, a section where everything goes purple, sharp angles to all the forms experienced, soft out of focus feel, lots of shadow, intense colour saturation etc etc) and background sound may be used to either sooth out tensions or build anxiety. However it is through the game-play that most emotional intensity will be experienced by the player. As each challenge is overcome or not as the case may be, the way this is achieved will add to the player’s understanding of their character. This understanding will then be laid upon a growing awareness of the ‘narrative’ of the game and its particular goal. Thus narrative consequence will have a direct influence on emotional engagement, in particular when the player’s character is involved with other characters within the game world, the player will be unconsciously comparing and contrasting his/her own player’s characteristics with others.
Emotional intensity is often associated with player accomplishment. The balance between player skill and game difficulty is central to this. “If the game is too easy the player quits because they are bored. If the game is too hard players quit because they are too frustrated.” Lazzaro (2008) The diagram below designed by Lazzaro sets out some of the issues.



N. B. Fiero is ‘the Italian word for “Personal triumph over adversity.” It is the emotion that accompanies the experience of mastery.


In film emotional intensity is partly developed by the building of empathy with particular characters and partly by creating a general emotional atmosphere as a formal quality. This can be through the use of sound (I will be putting up a post on this at some point), editing style, cinematography, actor’s ability to give depth and weight to a character, and of course directorial ability as co-ordinator of all these elements. What is sometimes being aimed for is ‘emotional catharsis’ Once again this is a very old term. Aristotle pointed out that in a play or drama what was important was the controlled release of pent-up emotion. He also outlined the fact that this was both on the part of the audience and the characters in a play. This has also been called, ‘emotional cleansing’ as a result of experiencing strong feelings. Through these emotional experiences the inner turmoil built up in an audience can be released.
For instance, in the Roman Polanski film ‘The Pianist’ (2002): the ending is a wonderful catharsis. The body of the film deals with death, persecution and destruction but at the end redemption occurs. Over the end titles, the central protagonist plays Chopin’s ‘Grande Polonaise for piano & orchestra’ with the Warsaw Philharmonic in a concert hall, a close-up on the sensitive concert pianist’s fingers setting the scene for a cathartic balance between emotional release and spiritual yearning. In order to achieve this there are no opening credits or titles, all the text, including the title, appear at the end of the film, thus allowing Polanski to direct the audience to focus on the cathartic moment. Again we experience ‘personal triumph over adversity’.

What is a MUD? Originally this term came from Multi-User Dungeon, (As in Dungeons and Dragons) with later variants Multi-User Dimension and Multi-User Domain. A MUD is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, usually text-based. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat.

If you wanted to explore these issues further the texts below would be a useful start.
Bellantoni, P. (2005) If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Colour in Visual Storytelling New York: Focal Press
Freeman, D. E. (2003) Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering London: New Riders Games
Lazzaro, N (2008) Why We Play Games. Baltimore: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Lazzaro, N (2008) Halo Vs. Facebook: Emotion and the Fun of Games. Etech Conference. http://en.oreilly.com/et2008/public/schedule/detail/1589
Lazzaro, N (2007) The 4 most Important Emotions of Game Design Available at: http://www.2007.loginconference.com/session.php?id=46
Turkle, S (1997) Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet London: Simon & Schuster

More Thoughts on Communication Theory

Frame from the Piers Sanderson film: High on Hope

The interesting thing about communication is that it is a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create a shared understanding. It requires both intrapersonal and interpersonal skills and it is through communication that we can develop collaboration and cooperation. As an old fashioned Socialist I strongly believe in communication as being at the core of all political activity and a lack of communication is usually at the core of organisational dysfunctionality and poor politics. I therefore worry about individualism. What can happen when the deep underlying reasons for collective, communal communication are lost is the rise of cultural fragmentation and individualism, a state that the Rowntree Foundation (Lawson and Thake, 2008) has argued as being one that needs to be confronted and replaced. "This individualism was seen to have damaging consequences, fuelling selfishness and greed and leading to isolation and fear as people struggle to cope and live fulfilling lives."

As DFGA Students you specialise in moving image communication techniques. We presume that a visual message with movement and sound has a greater power to inform, educate or persuade a person than a static visual. I.e. it is a synchronistic concept, whereby two or more forms of communication come together in order to achieve a powerful effect. In The Mind in the Cave by Lewis Williams (I do believe this is essential reading and I know I have mentioned it several times before) it is pointed out that sound, vision, dance and touch were all used to convey shamanistic messages to the tribe. Perhaps the rave is the clearest modern format for this. The film/music documentary ‘High On Hope’ which commemorates the 20th anniversary of acid house, telling the story of the infamous ‘Hardcore Uproar’ warehouse parties in Blackburn in the late nineteen eighties is a good illustration of this. Over 10,000 people dancing in cavernous warehouses across the north-west every week was the nearest to a Shamanistic experience I think we could get. For a brief moment perhaps our individualism is shed and we operate as one with the group.

You could say that one implication of communication theory is that evaluation of a good visual design/communication can be done by measuring the comprehension by its audience, not by aesthetic or artistic preference. In this case the problem in terms of communication theory is that if the people evaluating the art, media product or design are themselves media professionals they are too 'attuned' to the business to be aware of how a non media specialist would receive the communication. I.e. the best critics are those experiencing the communication, in the above instance the ‘ravers’.

Rhetoric
However it is within the old history of rhetoric that I find a deeply fascinating series of narratives. It is strange and wonderful and as it covers memory training, body language, voice projection as well as the well known 'rhetoric tropes'. It is indeed a deep river to fish. (To use the rhetoric trope 'metaphor'.)


An image from Yates: The art of memory

A key book to look at is I would suggest, ‘The Art of Memory' by Yates. For DGFA students this book can be an entry into a way of thinking of writing a film script as a memory aid (cues can help with memory retrieval) or developing a navigation theory for game design (Developing a system within which players' decisions are limited but significant). In fact if you follow Cicero’s rules for mind walking as a memory aid, you realise that the whole construct feels like an interactive video game. He suggests leaving odd, memorable images in significant places as you walk around a building. You ‘collect’ these as you retrace your memory steps, in a similar way to the collection of weapons or tokens as you navigate through a game. Cicero was when at work, a teacher of rhetoric to the powers that were in control in Rome. His texts were written to explain how rhetoric worked. What is interesting is that modern day computer games often outline how their ‘worlds’ work and there are several analogies between how Cicero pictured a controlled political environment and how game designers such as Hideo Kojima and Sid Meier set up the control systems for game parameters.


An orator speaks to the Roman senate

As Galloway (2006, p. 90) states in relation to a discussion of Meier’s work, “The gamer is learning, internalising and becoming intimate with a massive, multipart, global algorithm. To play the game means to play the code of the game.” I.e. you need to learn a process or set of rules in order to be able to calculate how to solve problems. This is very similar to Edward Channing’s (1856) definition of rhetoric; he stated, “rhetoric undertakes to show man rules or principles which will help to make the expression of his thoughts effective”. If you want to progress in a game such as ‘Civilization’ you need to internalize the logic of the program, once you understand the rules and principles you can make your thoughts effective. It could therefore be argued that a good game designer like Meier is someone that clearly understands how to use a contemporary type of rhetoric. In both cases, Cicero and Meier, their work can also be used to understand things about the wider political culture within which they both operate. In the game ‘Civilization’ the “massive electronic network of command and control”, as Galloway (2006) puts it, reflects the reality of contemporary power structures, whilst Cicero’s principles of rhetoric reflect the organizing principles of the Roman senate.


Sid Meier’s Civilization

Galloway., H. R. (2006) Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture London: University of Minneapolis Press
Lawson, N and Thake, S (2008) Why individualism has created "social recession" York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Title Sequences for video games

Deus Ex: Human Revolution 2011

It was interesting to see how many level 4 students wanted to write an essay on title sequences. In the examples we looked at in the seminar we were concentrating on film, however Goldtooth Creative’s title sequence for the game ‘Deus Ex: Human Revolution’ really works well as an opening for the Eidos-Montreal designed video game; a game which revolves around the development of a cybernetic reality, where reality and fiction, the artificial and the real are all merging. The setting of an operating theatre for the film’s title sequence, within which shattered human organs are being replaced by artificial organs is somewhat reminiscent of the scene in X-Men Origins:‘Wolverine’ (2009) where the title character has his skeleton replaced by a fictional super metal; ‘adamantium’. A particularly interesting connection to Deus Ex: Human Revolution is that in both sequences we see fleeting images of a lost past, suggesting that a former life is being erased. Underlying both films are very old story lines that have mythic associations. One theme is the concept of the duality. For example, individual control over a new body versus the altered human as agency of dark controlling forces. This metaphor occurs within many story and plot lines. We are shaped by the Gods who give us life, however once we have life we have a tendency to want to exercise control over it and forget our debts to our creator. In Christopher Booker’s ‘The Seven Basic Plots’ this type of plot centres on what he calls, ‘the rebirth’. Darkness is presented as centred within the hero’s own personality (2010, p. 226) and in order to liberate himself he will need to go through some sort of psychic shift, usually by some sort of quest or adventure in order to come to terms with a deeper, ‘true’ self.
The concept of ‘rebirth’ is echoed in the fact that the operating table is very similar to the birthing table or bed.
The opening credits blend live-action with CGI to introduce an audience to a world at the dawn of a cybernetic renaissance. The operating table provides a platform for the birth of a new life-form that has yet to develop a soul. Lens flare type light streaming into the image from an unseen operating table light source, allows cuts to be made seamlessly, whilst a layering of x-ray images with white text that rotates with the camera becomes a ‘backbone’ grid that stabilises the images as the text moves through. An overall high tonal contrast but restricted colour palette of warm yellows, blacks and browns is tinged with blue, while graphic elements such as circles and heartbeat indicator lines underpin the invisible typographic grid. Vector drawn diagrams float in white over underlying images of bones, suggesting the integration of organic and manufactured materials. The totality produces a dream-like quality that suggests that these are images glimpsed by someone moving in and out of consciousness, flashes of memories and dreams, interspersed with a low level awareness of the operating procedures being enacted.


An illustration of what goes into the composition of each shot within the opening sequence

The suffering experienced by the lead character Adam Jensen could, I would argue, be related to another mythic series of stories that surround the North American Indian concept of the shaman. Often the shaman’s transformation into a being that can straddle both the world of the flesh and the world of the spirit is said to be accompanied by physical pain. The stories of shaman are often told as if all of the actions take place in a dream world, half way between reality and another world that exists on the other side of death. This is echoed in other stories and religious myths, the one we are of course most familiar with is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. After enduring his time of suffering on the cross, he will eventually rise and assume his true position as a God. Jesus again reminds us of the dualism that lies behind many religious stories. In his case the duality is centred on whether or not he is a man or God. In all of these cases the individual is elevated into a new consciousness because of their traumatic experiences. There are also several myths that focus on what is called ‘the dismembered God’ thesis. In prehistoric times leaders of tribes themselves played the part of a god and were at certain points in the year slain and dismembered then ‘planted’ to ensure that next year’s crops would grow. Again some form of death is necessary for a rebirth. The opening credits therefore operate as a type of mythic doorway into the game and set up the conditions for the first level of immersion. (See post on immersion Wednesday, 14 December 2011)

The background to the development of the images used is interesting too. A trace memory of James Whale’s original ‘Frankenstein’ images still runs through this title sequence as well as ghosts of Rembrandt’s ‘Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Tulp’.


Image from James Whale's Frankenstein


Rembrandt: ‘Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Tulp’

In order to start your own research into all this a good start would be an interview on the Blog http://www.artofthetitle.com/ with the film credit director Paul Furminger of Goldtooth Creative and ‘Human Revolutions’ game director Jean-François Dugas of Eidos-Montreal. They talk about concept development and how they combined the digital and live-action footage. A clip of the opening sequence is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIqJaT3cvf8