Interactive Storytelling

For this creative project, I am thinking of ways that stories could change if certain elements were added. I suppose I can start out with the classic "Three Little Pigs" story. There are a lot of different ways that this story could have played out differently had there been choices to make. I have come up with a few ideas as to how things would play out.

To start, the pigs could all have different options as to what their houses are built out of. The selection may include the classic straw, sticks, and bricks. In addition to those, there could be other choices such as logs, dirt, glass, stone, and metal. I cite the part of the reading about Adam and Eve, where Eve had multiple fruits she could take from the tree. Also, I can really cite Minecraft as an inspiration for the actual housing materials.

Next, the pigs could have some different dialogue options when the big bad wolf decides to swing by. They could say different things in order to persuade the wolf to leave, intimidate the wolf and scare him away, or cause the wolf to attempt to blow the house down (maybe there could even be some different options for the wolf as well. I will discuss this later.) The part of the reading that inspired this was in the section that involved a more interactive story of Adam and Eve when was Adam having the option to refuse Eve's offering, which is essentially saying something else. For outside inspiration, I can say that most role-playing games have this sort of element in them.

One more idea I had was to give the wolf different options as well. Instead of always blowing the house down, maybe he could attempt to blow it up. Maybe he could smash his way in with a hammer. Maybe he could break down the front door. All of this discussion of breaking things brings part of the text to my mind. "'Film is monolithic, like a block of salt,' [Roach] says, and for interactivity to be possible, the monolith must be busted up into fine pieces." A traditional story can be thought of in this way as well. If one wants to give a story more interactivity, it needs to be broken down into manageable pieces.

Mini-Sagas

Instructions:

Write two fifty-word mini-sagas. The origins of the saga comes from Icelandic

prose dating back to the 12th century when locals would recount their warrior 

battles. Today, a saga is referred to as a modern heroic narrative. 

 

Your mini-saga should have 50 words. No more, no less. The stories must 

have a beginning, middle and end. They must be interesting, and they may 

not be autobiographical. Engage the reader.

My sagas:

The Quake

The quake had stricken the village at high noon. The villagers heard blood curdling screams for help. At dusk, they journey through the rubble to find the one who was missing. When the villagers finally arrived, the screaming had ceased. It was unfortunate, but the villagers were far too late.

Revelation

Johnny was thirteen. He had two mothers. In class he learned about where babies come from. This made him wonder about his strange situation. Which mother was the real mother? Johnny inquired about his recent curiosities only to find out that neither of his two mothers gave birth to him.

Opening 1

For our first opening, we were required to watch a few videos. Some of them I had a significant reaction to. Others I really did not have much to say about. This will vary from person to person simply due to interest. Regardless, there were a few things I had to say.

The first video I viewed was RIP Remix Manifesto. This one really had me thinking about laws regarding copyright. Copyright laws in some cases really do stagger creativity in people. Someone may have some interesting new idea they came up with that involved some form of copyrighted media. The problem with that is that in order to act upon this new idea, this person would likely have to pay thousands of dollars for the proper licensing to use the copyrighted material in their work, or else risk being sued for copyright infringement. Therefore, this person cannot really do anything with their idea. The whole world is now missing out on this potential cool new thing.

While that is all true, I see it from the other side as well. If someone say, took a song I made and, without obtaining proper permission, put it in a film that made a lot of money I would be rather upset. There was potential for me to make a lot of money there, too, and some person basically took that away from me. To put it simple, I have conflicting views on the subject, but I am definitely support opportunities for more creativity, even if they do involve copyrighted material.

For the second video, I really do not know what happened. This video was Whispering in the Leaves: Chris Watson. Something weird happened where I simply had no reaction to this video at all. I watched the whole thing through and, for some reason, it just did not affect me in any way.

In addition to the required material, I watched a few other videos as well. The most significant was the Everything is a Remix series. This series really helped me to see things from the side of the person creating with what has already been made. So many different songs and movies lift elements from other songs or movies. Some of our most beloved pieces take quite heavily from other pieces. Even something as big as Star Wars takes a lot from movies. So much on this world would not exist if everything was completely original.

In the end, copyright laws can really be a hindrance in media. These laws restrict new ideas in creativity. While these do exist to protect the original creators, the laws may be a bit too strict.But, for now, I suppose we should all stick to trying to stay out of trouble.