Redesigning the Story

8/12/2019 Redesigning the Story

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/redesigning-the-story 1/38

Redesigning the Story: Liberating

Narrative from Form Using Organic

Transmedia Storytelling

Muhammad Babar Suleman

Professor Anezka Sebek

Major Studio | May 19, 2014

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Documentation URL: http://babarsuleman.com/newyork

Project URL: http://babarsuleman.com/fourbrokenhear

http://babarsuleman.com/fourbrokenhearts/

http://babarsuleman.com/newyorkstory/





TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT 3 INTRODUCTION 5 CONTEXT 7 QUESTIONS 14 STORY DESIGN 15 THE STORY 16 THE DESIGN 18 Target Audience 18 User Personas and Demographics 19 Strategy 20 Process 21 USER EXPERIENCE SCENARIO + PROTOTYPE 22 Web 22 Theater 25 Film 26 Spatial Experiences 28 CONCLUSION 31 COLLABORATION CREDITS 33 BIBLIOGRAPHY 34 FAQS 36

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ABSTRACT

This paper explores the future of storytelling through theory and practice by chronicling an

experimental storytelling project and positing a new area of design practice, which I have

conceived and termed as ‘Story Design’. I argue that stories no longer have to be conceptualized

in terms of specific media. By opening the forms of expression to single as well as multiple

mediums, the artist/author can choose the most effective storytelling device. As a theorist as well

as a practitioner, I document my own process of applying this methodology to my original

fictional work, a story titled ‘Four Broken Hearts’. Because of the needs of this particular story,

the form has taken the shape of an original transmedia storytelling project. However, this paper

strongly argues that transmedia was the result of the needs of the specific story and not an

objective in itself. I consequently argue that effective transmedia projects can only be created if

they evolve naturally because of the needs of a story and not as an exercise in themselves.

Nonetheless, I’ve attempted to categorize the decisions that I made in my storytelling project as

either story-specific or general with the latter being applicable to other transmedia projects.

Because of the scale and diverse expertise needed for transmedia projects, collaboration is

emphasized as a solution for production but I also argue absolutely for the need for a single

authorial/artistic voice in storytelling projects as opposed to ‘story-making’ endeavors or ‘games’

which are out of the scope of this work. I also detail the process for creating an independent

large-scale project like this with information on how I found collaborators and funding etc.

The paper is structured to provide an introduction to the work, followed by a detailed

contextualization of transmedia storytelling within the fields of narratology and media. Existing

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research, theories and relevant work is used to build a framework for which this work can be

judged against. Questions and considerations related to the relationship between narrative and

media, as well as the specific objectives for the field of inquiry are outlined and the target

audience is identified as both academics as well as the users of the resulting experience. The

prototyping process is broken down into sections for content, strategy, milestone plan and

process. The output is discussed in the form of a user scenario and, befitting a transmedia project,

complete with images and multimedia links from the project in question.

Conclusions include an emphasis on the narratorial directive, the importance of collaboration for

organic transmedia storytelling projects and the web as a paradoxical medium of both

opportunity and limitation. Since this is a work in progress, my findings are in process.

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INTRODUCTION

We have read the books, heard the songs and seen the films. The textual, visual and/or sonic

media that we employ have impacted the stories that are told through them, simultaneously

fleshing them out while confining them in other ways. I want to change how storytellers tell their

stories. I want us media makers to be storytellers first and foremost and not just writers, visual

designers and filmmakers. To do so, I’m researching storytelling methods in which the form of

expression is a secondary choice. I’m arguing that stories no longer have to be conceptualized as

novellas, plays, films and social media etc. One way to do so is to open stories to all media types.

There will definitely be stories that are best told through a single medium (it is hard to challenge

the best works of literature- for instance, no other media has yet been able to compete with the

potent text that is Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina). However, for increasingly many other stories, the

most effective form can be transmedia storytelling, an emergent discipline at the intersection of

narratology and media. While the phrase ‘Transmedia Storytelling’ is currently well known to

franchising businesses in the entertainment industry, very little attention has been paid to how

technology and media today present a myriad of opportunities and challenges for independent

storytellers to ‘organically’ build narratives via an effective combination of media.

For my ongoing project, I am telling my original story ‘Four Broken Hearts’. Originally written

as a short story, I believe that the story works best in other forms of expression. Exploring those

forms and making story-specific as well as more general decisions have transformed my story

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project into a transmedia project. Since creating a transmedia project was not my objective, I am

arguing that the only way to create effective transmedia storytelling projects is to adhere to the

needs of a story. Not every story can be successfully turned into a transmedia story. Similarly

trying to create a story to fit inside a transmedia project is similarly futile and the reason why the

bulk of work done in transmedia today is unimpressive (for evidence, see the projects nominated

in the Transmedia category at the TriBeCa festival this year). Instead of arguing for the form, I

am instead proposing my theory of ‘Story Design’ that is a more effective approach to creating

story experiences in the future. After establishing the principles of ‘Story Design’, I will be

examining original transmedia storytelling through both theory and practice and identifying

decisions I am making that pertain only to the story I am telling while also recognizing some

creative choices that could be applicable to other stories.

I am not only analyzing the future of storytelling by engaging with the existing body of

knowledge concerning modern narrativity and new media but also learning through first hand

experience as an artist building a rich transmedia experience for an original story of my own

creation. This blend of theory and practice will propose a new way for how we approach

storytelling, and in doing so, become a useful resource for critical and case-study based studies

in narratology and organic transmedia storytelling.

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CONTEXT

As a theorist and practitioner, I am interested in the future of storytelling and, specifically, the

creation of single medium or transmedia story experiences. Thus, my research interests largely

pertain to the overarching domains of Narratology and Media Studies. While transmedia practice

has been studied before on a macro level (Christy Dena, 2009), very little has been written for

the artist choosing the mediums for an original undertaking and what it means for democratized

storytelling (which essentially means that, thanks to technology, media making is accessible

enough for independent production). My work here aims to start filling this gap.

As an offshoot of Semiotics- the study of signs and meaning- and constituent of the field of

‘Poetics’- the systematic study of literature as literature (Benjamin Hrushovski, 1974 page?)-

Narratology and, consequently, narrative have most thoroughly been explored in literary studies.

However, to give it meaning outside literature, ‘Narrative in a wider sense are texts that represent

a change of state and, consequently, a story (in the minimal form, “The King Died”); narrative in

a narrower sense are texts that present a story through the mediation of a narrator” (Wolf

Schmidt, 2010 page? ). ‘Text’ here is any message preserved in a form whose existence is

independent of both sender and receiver.

It is even more complicated to define ‘story’ and rather than attempt to distinguish it from

narrative or situate it in relation to the same, I am choosing to adhere to the statement that ‘a

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story is not what a narrative represents, it is a narrative, since no story exists outside or

independent of a narrative discourse’. (Thomas M. Leitch, 1986 page?). Similarly circuitous is

how we understand narrative fiction: ‘the narration of a succession of fictional events’ (Shlomith

Rimmon-Kenan, 1983 page?).

Turning to the other main focus of this work, ‘media’, there is yet more complexity to navigate

through. Merriam Webster defines ‘media’ as a ‘medium of cultivation, conveyance, or

expression’, and ‘medium’ as ‘a means of effecting or conveying something’. However, both

these definitions do not hint at the effects media has on the ‘something’ it conveys. To

understand the significance of media choice for narrative and stories, one needs to look no

further than the following famous statement:

“The medium is the message” (Marshall McLuhan, 1964).

It is, thus, more accurate to say that ‘even when they seek to make themselves invisible, media

are not hollow conduits for the transmission of messages but material supports of information

whose materiality, precisely, “matters” for the type of meanings that can be encoded. Whether

they function as transmissive channels or provide the physical substance for the inscription of

narrative messages, media differ widely in their efficiency and expressive power’ (Marie-Laure

Ryan, 2004 page? ).

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Media-specific analysis, one of the key objectives of this work, can be described as ‘a mode of

critical interrogation alert to the ways in which medium constructs the work and the work

constructs the medium.’ (N. Katherine Hayles, 2002 page?)

It is particularly important to reassess narratology though the lens of digital technology because

‘stories that exploit the capacity of digital media (that is, those that necessitate the computer for

their production and display) have provided vital new territory against which the tools of

narrative analysis could be tested and refined’. (Ruth Page, 2011 page?)

For delving deeper into the symbiotic relationship between media and content, Studies in

Intermediality (SIM), a series of books (starting from 2006) with currently six volumes, provide

investigation and evidence for the implications of different media for important aspects of

narrative such as framing, description, and aesthetic illusion.

The multimedia aspects of this work require an understanding of Hypertextuality (Ted Nelson,

1965) and Multimodality (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001). Hypertext, which forms the basis of

interactivity for my project, refers to ‘works which are made up from discrete units of material,

each of which offer the user a number of choices as to which unit is next encountered. That is to

say: pieces of text which carry within them paths to other texts. The work itself is made up from

discrete bodies of representational content, linked together in a web of connection, which the

user must navigate. Each block of content, in a hypertext is commonly referred to in literary

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theory as a ‘node’; to progress to other nodes the user must make choices from the ‘links’

embedded within it by the authors’ (Jon Dovey, 2002).

Henry Jenkins coined the term ‘transmedia storytelling’ in 2003 and fully defined a transmedia

story in his book ‘Convergence Culture’ as follows:

A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms, with each new text making a

distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole. In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling,

each medium does what it does best — so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded

through television, novels, and comics; its world might be explored through game play or

experienced as an amusement park attraction. Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained so

you don’t need to have seen the film to enjoy the game, and vice versa. (Henry Jenkins, 2006)

Transmedia storytelling can, thus, also be understood through the concept of ‘distributed

stories’ (Glorianna Davenport, 2000), elsewhere known as ‘distributed narratives’ (Jill Walker,

2004). To understand the connections linking these distributed pieces, it is best to see these

systems as networked narrative environments (Andrea Zapp, 2004).

I will be evaluating my project through a framework developed by Latitude, a research

consultancy, that conducted a highly informative study on the future of storytelling (see the

figure on the next page). Their research revealed four key metrics:

• Immersion

• Interaction

• Integration

• Impact.

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There are many ways to approach these four dimensions. For example, one could examine their

effect on ‘narrative transportation’ (Melanie Green and Timothy Brock, 2000).

While these ‘4 I’s of Storytelling’ are full of exciting possibilities, Interaction also poses the

biggest paradox for the future of storytelling because ‘to have interactivity in storytelling we

need flexibility in the way the story flows allowing the user to influence such a story. On the

other end, authors of stories need to keep some structure and some pre-defined flow of the

narrative, guaranteeing the climax of the story’ (Daniel Sobral, 2003).

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http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Melanie_Green&action=edit&redlink=1



To actually implement and execute a transmedia project, I sought direct advice from experts in

the fields of narrative. My conversation with critic and author Dale Peck revealed that, for

instance, text is able to easily frame a setting in a way that is much easier (with a simple line)

than it is with other media. Award winning game designer Nick Fortugno helped me deepen my

understanding of interactivity and a user’s agency and Media Studies professor Vladmir Nikolic

pointed me to the works of Jenkins as well as the Submarine channel, an online media portal that

regularly covers transmedia projects.

I also kept up with contemporary transmedia projects to inform my work. For instance, the off-

Broadway show Fuerza Bruta is a great example of immersive non-linear transmedia storytelling

experiences while Melcher Media’s ‘Future of Storytelling’ website posts regularly about new

projects related to the field.

The nature of my work- steeped in both theory and practice- is not without precedence as ‘the

intersections between theory and practice have always been central to the development of digital

narratology. Many of the foundational writers in this field (such as Michael Joyce, Jane

Yellowlees Douglas, and Shelley Jackson) continue to produce both creative and critical outputs

that feed into each other synergistically. It might then come as no surprise to find that the

continued innovation in narrative practice has gone hand in hand with profound challenges to the

ways in which such texts can be theorized.’ (Ruth Page, 2011) However, instead of having my

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QUESTIONS

My project is primarily concerned with answering three holistic questions:

- What is an effective approach to creating storytelling experiences in the future?

- What opportunities and challenges exist for storytellers and artists to utilize transmedia

storytelling to create original story experiences?

- How do I practically utilize transmedia storytelling to create a multimedia experience for the

stories I want to tell?

Questions and considerations that have strong implications for the above include:

- Agency vs. Interactivity, Storytelling vs. Storymaking- and what they mean for carrying the

narrative through the time a user spends with the work.

- What are the strengths and weaknesses of media types (visual, textual, sonic, web-based, live

performance etc.) and how do we decide what media and/or combination of media is the best

vehicle for the stories we want to tell? (Media-Specific Analysis)

- Can the easy access to media creation, technology and collaboration truly democratize

storytelling? Can artists and storytellers free themselves of being tied to certain media types

and choose media (or a combination of the same) depending on the story?

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STORY DESIGN

Content and Form, Story and Design.

The answers I’m proposing to the questions raised in the previous section are summed up in an

approach to storytelling that I’ve devised and termed as ‘Story Design’. Here is a working

definition.

“Story Design is a metamodern approach to storytelling that utilizes a certain set of values-

auteur theory, design thinking, collaboration, pragmatic use of technology and the 4 I’s of the

Future of Storytelling- immersion, interaction, impact and integration- to create complex yet

effective single medium or transmedia story experiences.”

In the near future, I will be furnishing the principles and values of ‘Story Design’ through a

manifesto that will become a part of this document as well.

I envision Story Design to become a new area of design practice where artists, designers and

storytellers conceptualize a story independent of medium and then flesh it out using a single

medium or transmedia. I am primarily interested in applying ‘Story Design’ to fictional

narratives but it also has strong implications for non-fiction story experiences.

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THE STORY

Since this paper argues that effective single-media or transmedia projects can only be built if

they are based on the needs of the story, it is important to be familiar with the story I’m using in

my case study in order to judge the effectiveness of the subsequent transmedia experiment.

FOUR BROKEN HEARTS

Four Broken Hearts was originally conceived as a text-based short story of around 5000 words

that I wrote in 2012, and the short story in its full form as well as the derived script can be

accessed on my documentation website.

Plot

Have you ever made the choice to part ways with a person you love deeply?

Four Broken Hearts follows the intertwined relationships of four people across space (Pakistanand US) and time (over ten years) as they grapple with the randomness of fate and the trappings

of choice.

Characters

’Four Broken Hearts’ is a story about two Pakistani-born painters (and ex-lovers) Maha and

Zayn who studied art in New York, American photojournalist Lisa (who completed a stint as a

foreign correspondent in Pakistan during the early 2000s) and media tycoon Ahmad (who is

American but of Pakistan descent).

Notes from the Original Story

• The narrative progresses as the perspective shifts between the four characters.

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• The events take place over a single evening

• In a crucial moment at dinner, the characters reveal significant events that occurred in their

lives during the past 10 years. Here is a tentative timeline that I plan on exploring by fleshing

its non-linear form.

Reasons for selecting ‘Four Broken Hearts’

• I want to demonstrate how independent storytellers can mold a work of fiction.

• To preserve the authorial/artistic vision for the project, it is important for the storyteller to

maintain primary directive over their work (see: auteur theory)

• As a Pakistani, it is also important for me as an artist and a person to tell stories about

individuals from my part of the world

• Out of all my fiction work, I was most dissatisfied with the form of ‘Four Broken

Hearts’ (originally a 5000 word short story); Though I definitely believed in the strength of the

story, I felt the story could be better told through other media.

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THE DESIGN

I applied the values and principles of ‘Story Design’ and devised the following target audience

and strategy for ‘Four Broken Hearts’.

Target Audience

I’m undertaking this project primarily as an artistic expression for myself. However, my process,

analysis, output and conclusions have strong implications for:

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- Academics and analysts interested in my research areas of narratology and media

- Artists and storytellers interested in new ways of self expression

- Western audiences who should be exposed to the full diversity of Pakistani stories- and not just

the stories that are primarily about the post-9/11 landscape (which has become a lucrative

subject to explore for stories about Pakistan and its people)

- Young adults (especially Pakistanis and Pakistani/Americans) grappling with issues of dual

identity and conflicted desires,

- Fans of fiction in the romance and adult relationships genres

User Personas and Demographics

The users (educated young adults in the middle socioeconomic bracket and above) of this project

are fluent in social media, enjoy art in its many forms (especially theater and film) and, above all,

love a good story. They are knowledgeable about social media narratives like ‘The Lizzie Bennet

Diaries’, have read short stories and novels, enjoyed short films and feature-length movies, seen

plays (perhaps even some Broadway) and are interested in a project that combines elements from

all of it for a really rich story experience.

The ideal audience will appreciate my attempt to not only tell a unique Pakistani story that is

outside of the larger 9/11 narrative (‘changed image of Muslims/Pakistanis/Islam’, ‘America’s

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war on terror’ etc) as well as create a cohesive transmedia experience that builds a more effective

story world than just a textual short story, a standalone play or a feature film would have been

able to do alone.

Strategy

• Web experience comprising visuals, text, sound, film and social media as the online

home for the project. I chose to have web as one of the mediums because of

hypertextuality, and the Interaction and Immersion it provides in terms of the

individualized ways in which the audience can discover and construct the story

• Live performances (and filmed instances of the same for online distribution) for

crucial events in the story to heighten the sensory experience (Immersion) as well as

see the Impact of the project through ticket sales

• In terms of interactive experiences, Four Broken Hearts is classified as an ‘embedded

choice’ narrative rather than an ‘emergent’ one. Thus, user Interaction will come

through the character perspective they choose to explore as they piece together the

story puzzle (to provide both immersion as well as a semblance of agency)

• Users can also interact with the characters’ social media

accounts (possibilities range from giving advice to characters to

real time interaction)

• Since the story is based in New York, I’m figuring out ways to

bring the city into the story fold (Integration) by leaving clues in

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actual physical spaces around Manhattan that New Yorkers can

seek to solve the puzzle. Moreover, story locations such as Maha

and Zayn’s art studio make for interesting spatial experiences.

Process

Over the last few months I’ve been able to:

• Recruit collaborators (the cast and crew)

• Build a prototype for the web experience and construct the first episode of the story (Maha’s

perspective) through web elements

• Conduct small live previews of the theater component

• Make the first short film (in the series of films that will be released strategically to build the

non-linear narrative)

• Create the first film in the series that will be released strategically after the play

I plan to continue working on the project and polishing what I already have in the future. This

summer we will be taking the project to crowdsourced funding (Kickstarter) and, ideally, the

project should be ready for launch by the end of the year.

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USER EXPERIENCE SCENARIO + PROTOTYPE

The output at this point is an experience that works as follows:

Web

When users access the project’s website (best viewable in full screen mode on Safari), they are

greeted by a visual from a dinner setting with the caption that the four characters in the story will

be having a dinner at a particular date (for prototyping purposes, it says December 15).

The user has the option to purchase a ticket and/or begin the story by scrolling down (clicking on

‘Begin the Story’ currently pulls up footage of the rehearsal- which is not how it would work in

the final version where it would instead be replaced with a carousel of available films). Once the

user scrolls down, they are greeted by a four-column layout from which they can choose the

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character whose perspective they want to explore. Currently only the character ‘Maha’ is

available.

When the user clicks on Maha, they are taken to the character’s page where they see a painting of

her (an important foreshadowing element in the story that becomes an object of betrayal in the

characters’ relationships) and, when they scroll down, they can read about her character and use

her ‘phone’ to check her messages (and see her conversation with her husband, Ahmad). There

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are also options for checking out her pins from popular social networking website Pinterest and

seeing her schedule.

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Theater

Chronologically, the play/live performance, a preview of which took place on December 12,

2013, (see image below), follows the exchange of the phone messages displayed on the website.

A different live performance was also done within a spatial experience conducted on May 08,

2014 that helped create an immersive theater environment (which is also an avenue of possible

exploration for the project)

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Film

After the run of the live performances (currently planned for a week-long engagement with

possible extension) the first film (in a series of films) will be released that will take audiences

into the past and show the lead characters at pivotal moments in their lives in March 2002.

I produced and directed the film, tentatively titled ‘March’, this semester. It has not yet been

released publicly but can be accessed upon request.

Plot: ‘MARCH’

Content-wise, the film shows the four characters in the story at pivotal moments thirteen years

before the evening that the play chronicles (see Storyboard).

The first film is set thirteen years before the events of the play and we see the character Lisa,

who is a journalist, in the middle of making the important decision to move to Pakistan and work

as a foreign correspondent in the wake of 9/11. However, this is largely a plot device as my story

is not political and centers around the romantic relationships between the characters. Lisa will

eventually meet her future husband Zayn while she is working as a reporter in Pakistan. At the

time of the film however, we see Zayn in a playful and sensuous painting session with his

girlfriend Maha. We also see the character Ahmad (who is Maha’s future husband) doing his

routine morning run in Central Park. Even though this is just another one of his regular runs, it is

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http://babarsuleman.com/newyorkstory/2014/03/storyboard/



used as a foreshadowing element since one day Ahmad will meet Maha on this same run. This

routine task in his life will change his life forever that fateful day but for now, he just finishes his

regular run while Maha is frolicking with Zayn at an art studio.

Essentially, the film’s experience will allow the users to further explore the characters’ history

and make connections to the play as well as build the narrative in a non-linear way.

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Spatial Experiences

On May 08, 2014 (at the screening of the first film at Parsons The New School for Design), I

invited the guest critics and the audience into the same art studio where we filmed the painting

scenes for the film. One of the actors, Brennan Lowery, (who plays Zayn), did a small

performance where he, in 2014, interacts with the art work and objects in the studio and

reminisces about the past. We then screened the film within the same space and effectively,

through a mix of the physical and the digital, put the past and present side by side. This spatial

experience was the first instance of an ‘immersive theater’ aspect of the project that was very

well received. My team and I now hope to explore the possibility of other such experiences, in

and around New York, that can augment the Four Broken Hearts story world.

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Notes:

• The film I created this semester as well as any others that follow will be released on the

project’s website. The films are short in length and represent moments from the characters’

past. They will be easily shareable and consumable on the web.

• The web/social media components, the spatial experiences and the films will be free to view

and interact with. The play will be a premium event that the audience will have to buy tickets

to experience. Since the play gives the audience one of their only chances to see the cast in-

person as well as have a heightened sensory experience, it is the best candidate for being a

priced component.

• The conversation currently displayed as a text message exchange on Maha’s phone was

originally a traditional face-to-face conversation in a bedroom setting in my short story.

However, I felt it serviced the story well to not only have the dialogue take place through our

modern vessels of communication (smartphones) but also strip it of any emotion and make a

statement about how our modern conversations appear devoid of tone because of our mediums

of choice. This is important because I wanted that dialogue to reveal very little about how

Maha actually feels about what she is talking about and a text message conversation perfectly

accomplishes that.

• To increase immersion, I wanted real actors to portray my characters. That way, users can not

only see them enacting the characters in real time (such as through live performances) but also

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follow their fictional digital personas to find out more about them, interact with them and

actually hear back!

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CONCLUSION

(As the project is in progress, this section is still in works)

Transmedia Storytelling represents an exciting and interesting self-expression opportunity for

artists and storytellers because it makes the media dependent on the narrative and not the other

way around. Also, the easy and inexpensive access to technology and collaboration allow

independent storytellers to create and distribute their stories without the impediment of an

industry or business model. Moreover, the ‘audience’ enjoy transmedia experiences because of

the level of Immersion, Interaction, Integration and Impact possible.

However, there are many challenges to transmedia storytelling, and while I hope to deepen,

refine and document my understanding of organic transmedia storytelling as I progress further

with the project. I’ve been able to derive the following conclusions so far:

• The narrator (the artist and not the character) is crucial to fiction and therefore storytelling will

need to limit user interaction from violating the artist’s vision. Understanding the role of

interactivity and agency in storytelling vs story making will allow us to make these choices.

• Collaboration is an imperative for transmedia storytelling because of the impossibility of

achieving mastery over a number of media compared to a single medium like writing, directing

(stage or film) or photographing.

• The web is a medium of interactivity as well as a useful channel to organize a transmedia

project to ensure the audience is able to follow the story (and not miss out if they haven’t been

able to track every component as it happens). However, it is also paradoxical because the web

is a medium in itself and, thus, requires a conversion to media that can be distributed through

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it. So, for instance, a live performance can only be revisited partially through filmed footage

that is viewed retroactively.

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COLLABORATION CREDITS

Cast

Asol KarimBrennan Lowery

Gabriela Nobrega

Joe Loper

Director of Photography, Music

Alexandra Tosti

Editing

Kassahun Elia Villa

Set Design

Lucy Matchett

Lighting

Jiaqi Liu

Storyboard Artist

Daniel Mastretta

Make-up

Stephanie Burgess

Special Thanks

Anezka Sebek

YuChen Zhang

Tariku Shiferaw

Nausheen Ishtiaq

Cecil Chen

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works Cited

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" The Future of Storytelling Which Audience Archetype Are You?" Latitude — The Future of

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Hayles, N. K. Hayles, N. Writing Machines. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT PressPrint.

Heinen, Sandra Sommer, Roy. Narratology in the Age of Cross-Disciplinary Narrative Research.

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Jenkins, H. "Transmedia Storytelling." Technology review (2003)Print.

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York

University Press, 2006. Print.

Kress, Gunther R., and Leeuwen Theo Van. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of

Contemporary Communication. London: Arnold, 2001. Print.

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Leitch, Thomas. What Stories are : Narrative Theory and Interpretation. University Park [Pa.]:

Pennsylvania State University PressPrint.

Nelson, Theodor H. Literary Machines. Swarthmore, Pa. (Box 128, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081):

T.H. Nelson, 1981. Print.

Rieser, Martin. New Screen Media : Cinema/art/narrative. London: BFI Pub.Print.

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Schmid, Wolf. Narratology. Berlin %3B New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010. Print.

---. Narratology. Berlin %3B New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010. Print.

Thomas, Bronwen Page,Ruth E. New Narratives: Stories and Storytelling in the Digital Age.

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011. Print.

Wolf, Werner Bernhart, Walter. Description in Literature and Other Media. Amsterdam %3B

New York: Rodopi, 2007. Print.

Wolf, Werner, and Walter Bernhart. Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media.

Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. Print.

Zapp, Andrea. Networked Narrative Environments as Imaginary Spaces of Being . Manchester:

Manchester Metropolitan University, MIRIAD, 2004. Print.

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FAQS

They seem to be missing a description of how the project works overall -- can you add that?

*See user scenario in paper*

I am not really understanding this experience across media in TIME. How long does the

project take to experience?

The project experience is currently scheduled to last around 6 months. But there’s possibility of

expansion as we create more content and everything we create will be made accessible one way

or the other online ‘forever’.

Tentative Timeline:

Phase 1: August 2014

Phase 2: December 2014

Phase 3: December 2014

Phase 4: January 2015

How will you be launching it?

With a promotional blitz that publicizes what the project is and interrupts mainstream media as

well. Will play off on the Pakistani-American angle.

Is there a specific "run" of the theater component?

Yes. For now, the performances will run only for a week because of budget/space constraints as

an indie production.

A map of interactions visualize on a time line might be good. Perhaps a bit more

information on the plot.

*See ‘Story’ section in paper

Where is the mystery we are "hooked" on from the start of the experience?

The hook to the story is the four characters are meeting in real time and that they have a past.

The interest will be generated both on the strength of the characters and plot as well as the

innovative way the whole story is released to the public.

What is it that we are after as people participating in the plot?

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A good story told in an interesting manner.

What will we remember after the experience is over?

The characters and the story, hopefully. But also the groundbreaking transmedia aspects of the

project.

Will we be longing to have the experience again?

Hopefully! Another objective is to have the audience want more and more immersion into the

characters and ‘what happens to them’. This will allow us to go deeper into the story and create

more content.

Is the experience repeatable?

Yes but that depends on the availability of the cast and crew. For instance, if the actors drop out,

the entire project will have to be remade so that the web, theater and films align.

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Have you ever made the choice to part ways with a person you love deeply?

FOUR BROKEN HEARTS

A STORY DESIGN1 PRODUCTION BY BABAR SULEMAN

WHAT IS FOUR BROKEN HEARTS?

Content and Form, Story and Design.

’Four Broken Hearts’ is a story about two Pakistani-born painters (and ex-lovers) Maha and Zaynwho studied art in New York, American photojournalist Lisa (who completed a stint as a foreigncorrespondent in Pakistan during the early 2000s) and media tycoon Ahmad (who is Americanbut of Pakistan descent).

‘Four Broken Hearts’ is told through transmedia. It encompasses web (the project’s officialwebsite as well as social media), live theater (a full length play), a series of films that arereleased non-linearly and spatial experiences.

HOW WILL THE NARRATIVE WORK?

Users would get familiar, and interact with, the four characters through the web and social mediawhere the actors would be assuming their fictional identities. They would then be prompted to get

tickets to a live event, a full length play, that happens in real time where the four characters meetfor dinner in 2014 at a New York restaurant. A series of films will be released strategicallyafterwards that will let the audience explore the characters’ past and figure out the puzzle. Sincethe story is set in New York, spatial and location-based experiences (such as Maha and Zayn’s artstudio which you are visiting today) will allow for further immersion into the storyworld.

WHAT IS BEING SHOWN RIGHT NOW?

An incomplete, modified and highly condensed version of the experience is being showcasedtoday:

Web: You can see a prototype of the website and explore Maha’s character profile

Theater: Zayn, in 2014, is reminiscing about the past in the studioFilm: The highlight of the evening is the first film which takes a look at pivotal moments in the fourcharacters’ lives in March 2002Spatial Experience: You are inside the same art studio where Zayn and Maha used to painttogether.1

Story Design is a metamodern approach to storytelling that utilizes a certain set of values- auteur theory, design

thinking, collaboration, pragmatic use of technology and the 4 I’s of the Future of Storytelling- immersion,

Four Broken Hearts follows the intertwined relationships of four people across space (Pakistan and US) and time (over ten

years) as they grapple with the randomness of fate and the trappings of choice.

Documents

Redesigning the Story