Re: Topic Suggestions

["Todd Gemmell"]

Yikes! looks like Idrama sputtered to life. Ok I'll start by asking Dan
could you have newsboy tag the from field with idrama@fluttery.com so that I
can filter this newsgroup. There is something distasteful about retrieving
these post from my spam folder.




>On Sat, 27 Feb 1999, Morbus Iff wrote:
>> Topic suggestions:
>
>> b) Defined plot device, or random small encounters?
>

Well you can have both as long as the "random small encounters" are not
random. I think this is a basic difference between a story world and a
simulation.  The possible exception is a plot foil where an event is needed
to mislead certain story assumptions being made by the player. Although now
that I think about this.......while this has a random element to it, it
to..... is a calculated plot event.


>If you subscribe to McKee (and, while you're adding books to your list
>several months out, I strongly recommend his "Story"), what makes story
>interesting is that the characters take steps to acheive their goals. And
>every time they take an action towards their goal, the world responds in a
>way they didn't expect.
>

Yes McKee's book is excellent and if you are lucky like Dan, you can go to
his lectures on screen writting and learn some mastery of this art. I would
disagree with the world responding in unexpected ways assumption. I think
people are entertained by very predictable storys. I think the response is
that friction must be created and the protagonist goals must be thwarted in
some fashion. Did you ever think Indian Jones would die in any of his films?



Oh dear GAWD! after reading the rest of this post and seeing the clock I
know that I do not have time to subject you all to my opinion's on all these
important issues. let me sum up.....

#1 flashbacks,  forshadowing, nonlinear time are all HUGE problems with
interactive story telling. I have some ideas and would like to talk about
them more soon but think we might want to hash out some of the basic stuff
first and get everyone with a more comon ontology.

#2 Mood : Again a pretty big subject. One of the things to decide is what
ools are available. Storytellers voice? Books text & pictures? Computer
generated simulation? I am curious about what Morbus was working on with web
pages and how the user would interact nd get feedback form these pages. Or
anyone else that has a different vision of how to tell a story dynamically.

#3 Tricks of the trade. Wow this is a very fun place to go and talk about
what causes what emotion. It would be great to pull a part a film that
everyone has seen at least once. Dan mentioned Casablanca ...has everyone on
the list seen this?? (Todd scans the room  for head nods). Hmm lighting and
line composition for emotion. You'll notice in the middle of Casablanca that
most of the lighting causes dark vertical lines (reminicent of prison bars)
renforcing the idea that they are trapped.

Ack! I really gotta go but I can see more post await. Morbus you put us all
to shame....

-T




>
>The audience is not only looking backwards, but it's taking past events
>and trying to predict forward. If you have lots of random small encounters
>that aren't foreshadowing future gaps there's a lot of noise in the story.
>
>If the coupling between the foreshadowing and the future reactions is too
>tight the story seems obvious (and if it isn't foreshadowed but
>flashbacked, ala "What Dreams May Come", it feels melodramatic and
>manipulative), but if the coupling is too loose there isn't anything to
>distinguish it from real life.
>
>> c) Real-time or "turn based" - meaning, do we wait for the player or let
>> them lose out on things as they look at the "Unofficial Strategy Guide".
>
>My end goal is real- time interaction, because I think that lends an
>urgency that helps make it compelling, however...
>
>
>Todd and Steve and I have been looking at taking some of the concepts
>we've come up with and making a first pass at implementing our concepts
>via a real-time strategy game. One of the things high on Todd's list is
>that the game be multi-player. And eventually he got me to agree with him.
>
>But one of the things that still disturbs me about this is that it is
>extremely difficult to tell a story without temporal breaks. One of my
>coworkers remarked that Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" is a great story, but
>first the hero has to go out and find seven samurai, and there's just no
>way to make that as exciting as American audiences have become accustomed
>to.
>
>The third act happens in real-time. But it's extremely difficult to build
>the setup for that resolution without some cuts, without following the
>cops as they drive to every single interview and follow every single
>dead-end, or watching every mouthfull the couple on a date consumes in a
>restaurant (not that I can't imagine some tremendous possibilities with
>the latter).
>
>
>Here's the another related thing that I've yet to resolve: I'm looking at
>other markets, pursuing the "chick flick". Puzzle based stories don't work
>so well there, but I'm also thinking about soap operas. Soaps are
>traditionally high on dialog because they're designed to be "watched"
>while other things are going on, housework is getting done, etc. But that
>makes them less interactive. If anyone wants to riff on that topic I'd
>love to hear thoughts.
>
>> d) Modern age or Fiction based?
>
>Well, I'm a big fan of modern novels in the classical style, ie: Robertson
>Davies, John Fowles, even Tom Robbins. But in literature at least the
>market for those seems precluded by historical novels in modern style
>(There are very few editors and/or agents these days who appear to
>understand subtlety).
>
>> e) What should we look at for an Atmosphere Machine? (ie. modifying the
>> game based upon a player's reactions - weather, other people, scenery,
>> etc...)
>
>I think Todd's actually had the Pixar lighting and layout classes, I've
>just learned what I know by osmosis, but I'll give it a whirl. And note
>that when I'm talking in visual terms I'm not precluding rendering as
>text, there've been many threads on rec.arts.int-fiction about how to
>describe a scene, give the feeling of clutter without having to define
>the behavior of a bazillion objects.
>
>When you set up a scene, you're looking to set a mood. Is it up-beat or
>down? What are the colors and visual cues that we're goiing to associate
>with that? If we've got a scene that starts down and goes up we might
>start with the lighting in shadow, get a good blue funk going, then move
>the action out into the warm glow of a sunset, get the orange uplifting
>feel.
>
>The lighting needs to be set up in such a way to differentiate the
>important elements of the scene from the background clutter. You'll
>generally backlight the characters a bit to give them a little 'round the
>edges glow to contrast them from the extras.
>
>Different filmmakers have different theories about composition, but often
>you'll associate horrizontal dominants (horizon lines, strung fences, etc)
>with a feeling of serenity, verticals (trees, doorways, and so on)  with
>mystery or unease. (note that you can take serenity and use it for
>despair) And the spear carrying hordes charging over the horizon or the
>road shifting from open meadow to tree-lined are great ways to change from
>one to the other.
>
>Layout wise we may be tying a visual element to a metaphor. It may be as
>simple as (I think it was "Broadcast News") making the background to the
>antagonists flat (always shoot them up against a wall) and the
>protagonists deeper (always shoot them in front of windows, open doorways,
>etc).
>
>Similarly many movies tie water to some sort of feeling, so we'll (and if
>we're smart we'll do this subtly, the hissing teapot in "Henry & June"
>was conducive mainly to laughter) make sure there are full coffee cups on
>the table when we're discussing shark hunting.
>
>Object placement is also important. Going back to Casablanca, note the
>what's in between Ilsa and whatever male she's talking with. Did they put
>a lamp on the table to provide a visual break between them? While we're at
>it, note which side of the screen Rick and Ilsa are on when they're on the
>screen together. Resolve this with which side of the road they drive on in
>Paris.
>
>Similarly, the guideline of the Golden Mean suggests that things placed
>dead-center in an image are just that. Dead. If we want vibrance we put
>them on the 2/5ths (approx) points, and if we want them dull we center
>them. And we need the usual border objects to make sure that channels
>don't funnel our attention out of frame.
>
>Weather obviously mirrors plot, the parody of this in "The Truman Show"
>was one of the parts of that movie that worked for me, but even movies
>which use simile fairly heavy handedly, "Chasing Amy" for instance, get
>away with this (although the hockey game scene is a little over the top).
>
>Yeesh, rereading this it's amazing I still find any movies watchable.
>
>> Talk amongst yourself (in the open). Yup.
>
>Yeah! We got 20 people on this list, after all. This isn't just the Morbus
>and Dan and Todd show (or at least I hope it's not).
>
>And I guess I've got to get that web archiving done this weekend so we can
>attract more.
>
>Dan
>
>