GOALS OF THIS COURSE - web-app.usc.edu · Web viewWrite one of the scenarios and give a 300 word sketch of at least one other scenario/branch of the story. The result should be

CTWR 526 Special Topics: Advanced Storytelling for Interactive Media

USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS


2 Units

Prerequisite: CTWR 518 or permission

Instructor: Maureen McHugh 512-547-9061Email: [email protected]

Class meets: 1-3:50 on WednesdaySection: # 19354RLocation: SCA 245Office hours: By appointment

GOALS OF THIS COURSE

• To facilitate the development of artistic technique and imagination.

• To develop ideas for stories and characters that have depth and tension

• To understand the particular issues surrounding balancing interactivity and narrative.

• To develop a fundamental understanding of the dramatic scene and maintain it against the demands of interaction.

• To understand the importance of rewriting and learn practical skills for effective revision.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This is an advanced course in interactive storytelling. The student is expected to have a basic understanding of the classic storytelling techniques of constructing a compelling plot, creating tension and compelling characters, and writing vivid dialogue. This class will examine what happens when you add interactivity, which as has been observed, can work on narrative like acid on metal.

We will explore the issues that interactive storytelling raises regarding the construction of narrative and character.

The course will begin with the most established of the interactive artforms we are going to examine, the video game. The video game developed as a response to the availability of personal computers. The internet has opened up new possibilities in interactive artforms. These new possibilities are still be explored.

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The video game has a history of less than fifty years: much of the rest of the course will be exploring a space which is being defined even as this course is occuring.

Each class period will have three parts: a workshop where we will read and critique a series of weekly

assignments; an in-class exercise exploring technique; a discussion of storytelling and interactive topics.

Requirements:

Each student is required to do weekly written assignments building to a final project. The final project will be a larger assignment in the form of a design document of twenty to thirty pages describing a narrative-based interactive project. The design document must show a clear application of techniques practiced in the class. That is, it must emphasise the integration of interaction and story. It can be a video game, an MMO, and ARG, a multi-screen project, an app, a live event or theatrical experience, or it can be some other interactive/story-based project (if cleared with the instructor) but it must be story-centric and interactive. (There are lots of highly effective, interactive projects that don’t have stories, and lots of stories that aren’t interactive, but they are not the point nor purpose of this class.)

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Assignments:Assignments are due Monday night by 9:00pm. Late assignments will lose half a letter grade, and penalties will increase the longer the work is late.

Each week four people will send their assignment to the WHOLE CLASS for notes.

EVERYONE (all twelve people) will send their assignment to the instructor. Everyone will get notes from me, every week. Only the four up that week will get notes from the whole class.

Each week, for the workshop portion of the class, all students will comment on the four pieces being workshopped. Students will bring written notes to give to the author of the piece. (Handwritten or typed, handed in person or by email.)

The instructor will give notes on ALL assignments, including the assignments not being workshopped that week.

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ExercisesIn-class exercises are understood to be written without preparation or opportunity to prepare, revise, or even spend significant amounts of time composing. It is their nature to be rushed and full of errors. You should look at them as chances to experiment, to take risks, to try things you might not otherwise try. Try to enter into the spirit of the exercise.

Each week for the first nine weeks, an in-class exercise will be the seed of the homework assignment. Although you are free to throw out the in-class work and do something completely different, you will always leave class with something on which to build your next assignment.

DiscussionsDiscussions will sometimes lead directly into exercises that will then lead directly into assignments. Particularly in the first part of the course, the discussions will often be about storytelling at the most primal level. But as the class continues, the discussions will get more far-ranging and theoretical. Students have said in the past that something said in the discussion will sometimes come back to them a couple of years later, when they are writing, and then, suddenly, they will have this a-ha! moment. They understood it before, but they understand it in their writing in a whole different way now.

ASSIGNMENTS & GRADING:

In-class exercises 10%• Students will write 10 in class exercises, each is worth 1% of their final grade.

Assignments 30% • Students will create 9 assignments as part of the course. Each assignment will be worth 3 1/3% of their final grade.

Final Portfolio (Final Project and four revised asignments) 50%• Students will revise four of these assignments and submit them, along with their final project, as a portfolio of work to be graded.

Participation 10%.• Class participation includes full involvement in and contribution to all class discussions, as well as reading the assignments of the other students and offering thoughtful, constructive comments. Participation will be heavily weighted towards preparation for the discussion of other student’s assignments.

In class exercises: 10% Assignments: 30%*Final Project: 50% Participation 10%---------------------------------------------

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100%

All grades are letter grades, and calculations will be done on a 4.0 scale with an A equal to a 4.0 and an F equal to a 0.

Writing Division Attendance Policy:

Students are expected be on time and prepared for each class. Two unexcused absences will result in your grade being lowered by one full point (ex: A to a (A-). A third unexcused absence will result in your grade being lowered another full point (ex: B to a (B-). Your grade will be lowered by one point for every absence after. Two late arrivals equates to one full absence.

In order for absence to be excused the student must have approval from the professor and provide documentation at the next attended class session.

Please note that if you are a Writing for Screen and Television major/minor you must receive a grade of a C or better in order to receive degree credit. If you have any questions about the minimum grade required for credit please check with your home department.

If you have an emergency and must miss class please contact your professor prior to class or contact the Writing Division at 213-740-3303.

BE ON TIME. IT IS HIGHLY INCONSIDERATE OF YOUR CLASSMATES NOT TO BE.

COMPUTER USE:

Laptops may be used in class (for class-related business only!).

OFFICE HOURS:

By appointment.

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THE COURSE

8/23: Interactive Storytelling

Discussion: The issues of Interactive Storytelling or Is Hamlet a Better Story if the Audience Gets to Choose the Ending?

A brief history of the successes and failures of interactive storytelling; video gaming, the ARG, interactive theater like Sleep No More, and multi-screen experiences.

Exercise #1: Character in Situation

Homework:

Assignment 1: complete the scene and end it so that the audience wonders what will happen next.

8/28 Mechanics

Workshop: class workshops ‘Character in Situation’ pieces.

Discussion: Game Mechanics and Story

The limitations of technology are both a curse and a blessing in video games. Rendering abilities, the uncanny valley, the clunkiness of dialogue trees, the complications of rendering the physicial world, all of these concerns shape the game. Every game is a compromise. But like a sonnet is made beautiful by the restrictions of its form, sometimes the limitations of the world lead to solutions that are quite beautiful. Ideally, of course, the programming and the story develop together, working out solutions.

The class will discuss their three favorite moments in games, and their three most hated moments in games.

Exercise #2 Conflict in Setting

Homework:

Assignment 2: Write a 3-5 page game ‘scene’ showing a conflict between two characters in an interesting setting.

9/13: VR The gift of immersion and the challenges

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Workshop: Conflict in Setting pieces

Exercise #3: Where does it happen?

Homework:

Watch: Dear Angelica (VR)Read: “The Storyteller’s Guide to the Virtual Reality Audience”

Assignment 3: Scene setting, scavenger hunt, no dialogue. Show an immersive environment where something is about to happen. Two Parts. 4pp total.

9/20: Conflict, Character in Interaction.

Workshop: Assignment 3 Assignment 4: Introduce character into the dynamic. A scene with character.

9/27: Branching Narrative

Workshop: Introduce character into the dynamic

Discussion: Branching Narratives (Multiscreen or VR)

The problems with having the audience chose what happens next in the story— Structuring a story is a skill.

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Audiences want to ‘solve the character’s problem’ when good storytelling requires that conflict get worse.

Or audiences will often choose to test the boundaries of the storyworld. In LA Noir, the first thing many players did was try to shoot their partner in the head. (The game won’t let you.)

How do you allow the audience to interact?

Exercise #5 Secrets

Homework:

Assignment 5: Write the scene to a crisis point where the secret will either be revealed or not and end the scene at that point (a cliffhanger.) This must be a script This assignment will continue in Week 6.

10/04: Branching Narratives (Cont’d)

Workshop: Secrets

Discussion: How to make branching narratives satisfying. A Branch shouldn’t necessarily lead to to closure. Branches can run in parallel. Examples of branching narratives (The Walking Dead Game and Mass

Effect) and how they deal with multiple branches.

Exercise #6 Branches

Homework:

Assignment 6: Write one of the scenarios and give a 300 word sketch of at least one other scenario/branch of the story. The result should be that an audience member has a different but equally strong experience no matter which option they choose.

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10/09: Interaction in the Story versus Beyond the Fourth Wall

Workshop: Branches

Discussion: There are always going to be issues with interacting within the story. At the very least, from a pure monetary standpoint, with branching story lines, unlike, say, a movie, your audience is never going to see all of the content you make. The more branches, the more expensive your project. The smaller the percentage of that content any percentage of your audience will ever see.

Not all interaction has to be with the plot. There are time honored mechanisms for interacting with an event without allowing the audience to alter the event. One of these is placing a bet on it.

Predicting ‘who done it.’ Quizzes

There are risks to interacting. Inattentional blindness is a phenomena where an observer is given a task, say, counting the number of times a basketball is passed during a game. In studies, when observers are asked to do this, and a woman wearing a gorilla suit walks through, 50% of the observers later do not recall ever seeing the woman in the gorilla suit. Moral of the story, your interaction should drive your audience into the story, not away from it.

Exercise #7: Beyond the Fourth Wall

Homework:

Assignment 7: Write an app or multiscreen script with a ‘beyond the fourth wall’ mechanism.

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Live Interaction, Social Media, MROnce smartphones put computers in our pockets, stories could go anywhere. Geo-caching, flashmobs, and ARGs capitalize on live interaction. Not everyone wants a live experience, but the people who want to do it are among the most committed, most hardcore fans of interactive anywhere.

10/18 Dispersed Narratives, Conventional Plots, Innovative Characters

Workshop: Beyond the Fourth Wall

Discussion: Putting the narrative in the world. Scavenger hunts. Clues, billboards, live events and rewards.

Exercise #8 Adaptation

Assignment 8: Write the piece of story that will be broken into pieces for the audience to find, share, and reassamble.

Describe how once this piece is broken into pieces you will distribute the pieces for the audience/players to find. It would be nice if the method of distribution matched what the piece was about in some way.

10/23 Social Media and Narrative

Workshop: Adaptation

Discussion: Mad Men, Sanditon and experiments in telling stories with Social Media. Soon after Man Men went on the air, the characters from the show started tweeting. The people tweeting as Don Draper, and Roger Sterling, Peggy Olson, and Betty Draper turned out to be ad execs who were fans of the show. Their tweets gained thousands of followers and created alternate storylines when the show was on hiatus.

Now shows lock up their character’s twitter accounts. The Pros and Cons of social media—it’s real time in a world when someone may not want to experience a project when you want to do it—you can’t come back to Twitter six months from now.

Exercise #9: Characters in Social Media

Homework:

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Assignment 9: This assignment has two parts, writing and publishing (posting).

Writing: develop a scene from the story you started in week 8 using social media—this can be on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google +, or any combination of social media platforms.

Publishing: Post the story (on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, or any combination of social media platforms) over the course of the week and either print it out or screen capture it to submit as homework.

11/01 Recap and Prep for Final Project

Workshop: Characters in Social Media project

Discussion: Requirements of Final Project Overview Description of the audience for the project Characters (1-2 pages of document, total)

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Settings (1-2 pages of document, total) 10 pages of very specific walkthrough with detailed description and full

dialogue.

Exercise: Write a one paragraph ‘elevator pitch’ of your project.

Students get in groups of four and pitch each other their projects—this gives them a chance to see how they feel.

Weeks 11/08, 11/15 and 11/29: the Final Project.

Note: There will be no class Nov 22 because of Thanksgiving.

Workshop: Students workshop their Final Project.Discussion: topics in story and/or interactive as prompted by design docs

FINALS WEEK

Portfolio is due Wednesday Dec 14 at 1pm

Submit the portfolio by email to my account.

The portfolio will consist of: Final project Up to four pieces of previous assignments, revised

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WorkshopEach week we will critique two assignments in the workshop. The assignments will arise out of the work you do in class and are designed to help you understand the fundamentals of storytelling across a variety of forms.

Students will submit their completed assignments by email by 9:00pm Monday night.

Pieces that are going to be workshopped that week will be emailed to the class Monday night. Students download them and write a critique for Wednesday class.

It seems counterintuitive, but you’ll find that you learn more in your critique of other people's work than you learn in the critiques of your own.

Critique

When people hear ‘critique’, they think ‘criticism.’ You'll be worried about hurting other people's feelings. So when you get a piece of writing that really sucks, what do you do?

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First, you are critiquing the writing, not the writer. So comments will be about the writing. Neither ‘you are awesome!’ or ‘you suck!’ is a useful comment.

Second, the more specific you are, the better the critique is. 'This sucks’ is as useless as 'You suck.' Better is 'On page two, where the character jumps out of the helicopter armed only with dental floss, breaks his fall by landing on the bad guy and garrotes him, I just found I didn't believe it. Could you maybe have them land the helicopter?'

Here's a template for how to give a critique. You may not need it, although some people always use it. I find it useful when I don’t know how to articulate how I feel about a piece.

1.) 'This piece is about…' Sum up what you think the piece is about in one line. Some people do headlines.

2.) 'The strongest part of this piece is…'3.) 'The weakest part of this piece is…'

4.) 'One suggestion for revising this piece is…'

Most of what you learn in this class will come out of the workshop.

Statement on Academic Conduct and Support Systems

Academic Conduct:Plagiarism – presenting someone else’s ideas as your own, either verbatim or recast in your own words – is a serious academic offense with serious consequences. Please familiarize yourself with the discussion of plagiarism in SCampus in Part B, Section 11, “Behavior Violating University Standards” https://policy.usc.edu/scampus-part-b/. Other forms of academic dishonesty are equally unacceptable. See additional information in SCampus and university policies on scientific misconduct, http://policy.usc.edu/scientific-misconduct. Support Systems:Student Counseling Services (SCS) - (213) 740-7711 – 24/7 on callFree and confidential mental health treatment for students, including short-term psychotherapy, group counseling, stress fitness workshops, and crisis intervention. https://engemannshc.usc.edu/counseling/

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - 1-800-273-8255Provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Services (RSVP) - (213) 740-4900 - 24/7 on callFree and confidential therapy services, workshops, and training for situations related to gender-based harm. https://engemannshc.usc.edu/rsvp/

Sexual Assault Resource Center

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https://engemannshc.usc.edu/rsvp/

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

https://engemannshc.usc.edu/counseling/

https://policy.usc.edu/scampus-part-b/


For more information about how to get help or help a survivor, rights, reporting options, and additional resources, visit the website: http://sarc.usc.edu/

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Bias Assessment Response and SupportIncidents of bias, hate crimes and microaggressions need to be reported allowing for appropriate investigation and response. https://studentaffairs.usc.edu/bias-assessment-response-support/

The Office of Disability Services and Programs Provides certification for students with disabilities and helps arrange relevant accommodations. http://dsp.usc.edu

Student Support and Advocacy – (213) 821-4710Assists students and families in resolving complex issues adversely affecting their success as a student EX: personal, financial, and academic. https://studentaffairs.usc.edu/ssa/

Diversity at USC Information on events, programs and training, the Diversity Task Force (including representatives for each school), chronology, participation, and various resources for students. https://diversity.usc.edu/

USC Emergency InformationProvides safety and other updates, including ways in which instruction will be continued if an officially declared emergency makes travel to campus infeasible, http://emergency.usc.edu

USC Department of Public Safety – 213-740-4321 (UPC) and 323-442-1000 (HSC) for 24-hour emergency assistance or to report a crime. Provides overall safety to USC community. http://dps.usc.edu

PLEASE NOTE:FOOD AND DRINKS (OTHER THAN WATER) ARE NOT PERMITTED IN ANY

INSTRUCTIONAL SPACES IN THE CINEMATIC ARTS COMPLEX

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http://dps.usc.edu/

http://emergency.usc.edu/

https://diversity.usc.edu/

https://studentaffairs.usc.edu/ssa/

http://dsp.usc.edu/

https://studentaffairs.usc.edu/bias-assessment-response-support/

https://equity.usc.edu/

https://equity.usc.edu/

http://sarc.usc.edu/

Documents

GOALS OF THIS COURSE - web-app.usc.edu · Web viewWrite one of the scenarios and give a 300 word sketch of at least one other scenario/branch of the story. The result should be