Universe Creation 101

After finding TNT’s efforts to include Net-based content alongside TV programs I’ve just stumbled across a TV and iPod marriage. SCIFI.com offers viewers the ability to watch Battlestar Gallatica and listen to the executive producer comment with the use of podcasting. With these audio files you have to pause the commentary during a break. Just like the TNT trivia content the idea of having another channel that offers meta-data or extra-diegetic information seems like a distraction, and a bit extreme. I have to try it though. I must say that I find the idea of bi-channel navigation the most interesting form of multi-channel or cross-media storytelling so far. Perhaps because it is how my own creative work is skewed but I also think that the two can permit an intimacy with the overall work.

Other extra content is an episode available for download with deleted scenes (a DVD aesthetic perhaps?). On the subject of mixed aesthetics: I was shown at a seminar the cool scenes the Battlestar series has for those with digital television. In a scene, which I saw a few weeks ago here, there is a space battle. Those with digital TV have the option of playing a game at the same time: a split screen opens and on one side is the linear episode and on the other is your view from the cockpit. As you fly through the scene explosions that are seen in the episode are seen in the game version (it looks exactly the same). I thought this was sooo well designed. It was interesting to watch the episode knowing that it works with a parallel game element. It was self-sufficient as it was which is important. This is an example of the mix of narrative and game poetics that I believe cross-media works play with.

Interesting movement in the iTV (interactive television) world with TNT — Turner Network Televison. They have a site called ‘We Know Drama’ that keeps viewers up to date with what is showing but also provides parallel viewing. The idea is you watch the movie on TNT and at the same time have this website up with the specific trivia page playing at the same time. The trivia panel cycles through slides that provide details about the making of the film, background info about the actors and writers, and hints on what to watch out for. You can click forward or back or just let the slides cycle through whilst you watch. I had a look at the trivia panel for Bloodwork:

There were quizes during the ad breaks, questions about whether I was an organ-donor (to promote discussion in the lounge-room?), facts and anecdotes. And the trivia info basically cycled throughout the film so if you were immersed in one scene you could pick up the facts in one when you’re not. I think the system has great potential for playing with plot points and character development — making the questions more of a game version of the film or a puzzle part to aid in the figuring out of the film. Perhaps renegade creators can experiment with the form by just putting up sites for TV shows or films that are being shown on free-to-air TV or the like. The problem with free-to-air is that you have to know before what is coming up and then you only have one showing. For now though, I found the concept interesting and inspiring but the content dumb.

The ‘Lost’ TV series is currently airing in the US and here in Oz. In the US it has a website on the channel’s webpages: US. What is interesting is that in the series there are numbers repeatedly being displayed or referred to. For example 4 is

- # of years Locke was in his wheelchair
- # of guns in Marshall’s case
- # of aces on Boone’s t-shirt
- years ago that Hurley’s grandfather got his pacemaker
- years ago that Sam Toome died
- years ago that Sawyer made a birthday wish to be tackled in the jungle by a woman
- Leonard playing the game Connect Four
- Charlie shoots Ethan 4 times

To summarise, these seem to be the numbers of contention: 4, 8,15,16,23,42. Now there is a website with those numbers: http://4815162342.com/. The website was apparently setup by the Lost team, but this is not confirmed. There are plently of websites referred to in the forum so go exploring.

This is obviously an example of a cross-media work. The website and the activity on it and others is an example of participation. What I find interesting is that there are many viewers who watch the show and have no idea that there are these other parallel activites that go with the show. For me, I assume that I’ll be given some clue as to cross-media nature of the work but I’m wrong. The clue that is left is some pattern or activity that is not addressed. This implies that there is something more that is being addressed elsewhere. It takes a certain type of person to recognise this obviously. Do these cross-media ‘operators’ or ‘additive comprehenders’ all suffer from/or are blessed with apophenia?

Apophenia is the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena. The term was coined by K. Conrad in 1958 (Brugger).

Or am I drawing a comparison that isn’t there?…

I’ve spoken twice about the online interactive drama Jupiter Green on this blog: originally when the work was being user-tested online and then about director Kylie Robertson’s latest offering: Girl Friday. Well, now a refereed paper on it is online for the inaugural issue of Performance Paradigm. It is a fascinating and timely journal that investigates the media technologies and live performance. The journal interrogates pertinent questions:

The articles and interviews we have assembled here ask questions as to how we can best use the heightened audio-visual experience offered by media technologies to best effect and what might such performance experiences communicate? Does the performance come to be about the media interface alone or are other possibilities suggested?

And the editor, Edward Sheer, said nice things about me, the writer of the paper titled ‘Elements of “Interactive Drama”: Behind the Virtual Curtain of Jupiter Green’:

Christy Dena’s essay extends Auslander’s trajectory from acting to performance to interactive online drama. Her discussion of the specific kinds of interactivity afforded by the example of Jupiter Green, a recent web based drama, represents an important piece of scholarship on an emergent form which suggests that the notion of spectatorship in digital performance is more active and assertive than in conventional performance forms. Her elements of interactive drama will serve as a useful guide to other scholars and practitioners working in the field of new media performance, digital narrative and drama.

You have to subscribe to get a username and password to read the articles (no fee) but I assure you it is worth it. There are some fascinating papers by Andrew Murphie, Jon McKenzie, Yuji Sone and Ray Langenbach with some essential reading in the artist interviews.

Read Performance Paradigm now!