Re: IDrama continues

[Raimo Lang]

>Back from SIGGRAPH. Deep breath. Two weeks 'til I head off to Burning
>Man, and way too much to do between now and then.
>
>Raimo Lang commented:
>> Having a filmwriter backround I'm - ironicly enough - still
>> suspicious about the use of the word story in realation of
>> interactivity. In the true sense of a word story. Would be
>> nice to be converted in that.
>
>I'm not convinced that I'm right yet, but here's my argument:
>
>I believe that if you know something more about your audience, you can
>tailor a story more specifically to them. I've seen this with verbal
>storytelling, any of us who've told stories to children have done it to
>some extent, where the storyteller will draw out descriptions and
>compress sections to make the story more compelling to the audience.
>
>Now this only works with smaller audiences, because too large and you've
>got a statistical sample, which is why I think it would be great to be
>able to let an author leverage their skills to the individual members of
>their audience rather than having to tell the same embellishments to a
>hundred thousand at a whack.
>
>To try some real world examples, what if you were showing "Raiders of
>the Lost Ark" to a bunch of herpetologists. Indiana Jones falls into the
>tomb with all the snakes and they all go "ho, hum, what a wimp." What if
>we could tweak the story elements enough to make it spiders, instead?
>
>Or even simpler, if we can model the audience's emotional state we can
>draw out the suspense a bit longer, or maybe shorter.
>
>Dan

Thanks for your response, Dan.

Quick reply:
The alteration of story details according the assumed interests/needs of
audience is a very interesting possibility but difficult to realize with
average delivery in industry (unlike with good old oral situations, which
are more or less intime.
How I see it, one  problem is how to deal with the input.
Program the the thing mechanical - works fine but always the same
alternatives with everybody. Or program in to act according the users
manners - interesting if you are being exposed when you watch and act. But
then it's only individual. You don't know that the story is different for
someone else, because he/she is different. Which could be the Thing.
In this sense stand up comedy is working just nice even with large audience
- comedian takes time to time one individual to give his/her input and then
starts to modify it as a common thing. And noboy says ' I want to hold the
handle now, folks!' A good combination of individual inputs and front of a
large audience. How to transform this do digital format, I don't now yet.
Our 'Aquarium' (in N.Y 3/2000) plays with the risk between social anarhy
and responsibility when the whole TV audience has input device: a voting
possibility every 5-15 minutes to guide the evolution of Ari's personality
from blank burn-out to whatever. So the man is a mirror for it's community
of creators, with his own will. Let's see if it works with TVaudience of
next millenium. It's more a matrix than any more a story.

As I see it, when things are getting more interactive, free matrix-like
systems, they get nearer to game then story. Or maybe: simulations that are
using story items but using them as tools to offer 'free' drive, not to
constitute a dramatic story. The dramatic idea is then that the result
shows you things about yourself as, simulation should react on you, whether
you are alone or as a community.
I respect the interesting stories with web-like hidden structures or
'observing' softwares but to go to the extreme, more open and open
structures seem to emerge.

Raimo Lang