Digital Media Productions
Gyo
Week 1
Immersive Storytelling
2024 MOD007299 TRI1-2 F01CAM
Introduction to immersive storytelling
Immersive Storytelling
Immersive storytelling is a way of telling stories that makes people feel like they are part of the story. It uses things like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and interactive features to make the experience more real and exciting. The goal is for the audience to not just watch or read, but to feel like they are living the story
What is immersion:
Immersion is when you get so involved in something that you forget about everything else. It makes you feel like you're really part of the experience, like in a game or movie
What is storytelling:
Storytelling is an important tool for humans to explain and make sense of the world. The traditional way of telling stories in a straight line has been changed by digital media, where the audience's interaction can influence the story's outcome and direction, allowing them to explore characters, settings, or the motivations of the main story.
What is a story:
A story is a sequence of events that occur over time (whether real or imagined) and are described in such a way that the audience can imagine them as real.
Todays lesson:
In today's lesson we discussed and learned about immersive storytelling, what exactly storytelling and immersion is and how we can use these tools to help us in the future, specifically our future project.
We also experimented with Twine which is a free app that lets you create interactive stories, like "choose your own adventure" books. You can write different story paths, and the reader can choose what happens next. It's easy to use with a simple visual interface, and you don't need to know coding to get started, though you can add more complex features if you want. You can also share your stories online by exporting them as web pages. It's popular with writers and game developers who want to tell stories that let readers make decisions.
Our task for this week was to make a prompt/story in Twine but using inspiration from the graphic novel "Here by Richard McGuireLinks" . We were told that the experience should last circa 60 seconds and working in teams is encouraged. Unfortunately I wasn't able to work in teams so I have decided to take it upon myself and start learning and using this app
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Quite frankly the video tutorial and other tutorial videos on Youtube really helped me understand and figure out the app
My start was simple by starting with a "Start" to build the story off of. I have then added a past and future, so now when reading you can click and select wether you want to go back to the past or into the future.
From there I have just kept going creating different scenarios in both the future and the past. This meant whichever route you took at some point you will also be transfered back into the present at the "start" point again to sort of restart the story line.
After that I have added a couple more extra options in both the past and future wether is looking at an object or picture. These extend the story and also had more immersion into both parts of the story.
Now when it came time to test the story I have noticed the default book like story reading page, I did not enjoy it or found it appealing, unfortunately everytime I tried changing the color or anything it would give me a error, even after following tutorials on doing it perfectly (it might just be an error on my side) but here is my immersive story created in Twine.(embedded link)
I personally didn’t find Twine to be that amazing. While it's a decent app, it requires a good understanding of coding and how it functions, something I unfortunately lack at the moment. Right now, I don't think it would be helpful for me to dive into learning how to use it, but I do plan on making that a goal for the summer. Despite the learning curve, I think the outcome of the story I created was pretty good. The story is engaging and captures the viewer's attention by posing a question, which I find to be an intriguing idea.
Overall, I really enjoyed this experience. It's always valuable to try new things, especially in workshops or other learning environments. Exploring unfamiliar tools and concepts can be a great way to expand your skills and creativity. Although Twine was a bit challenging at first, I appreciated the opportunity to experiment with it. It reminded me of the importance of stepping out of my comfort zone and tackling new challenges, even if they seem daunting at first. I’m excited to further develop my understanding of Twine and see where it takes me in the future.