TransMedia Creative Writing Dialogue Script Due In THREE HOURS
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| Instructions:Fill in all blank fields below and replaceblue textwith your group's transmedia story details. (Project Mgr. will submit ONE document per group.) | ||||||
| Public Domain Story: | Dunwich Horror | |||||
| Our Story's Title: | Cult of Cuthlu("Cthulu"?) | |||||
| Group Members: | Brandon Bernaden, Joseph Hall, Jacob Freer, Shakina Morgan, Jeanine Garcia, Paul Guardino, Gianni Flores | |||||
| Project Manager: | Jeanine | |||||
| "Evergreen" or "Live" story? | Evergreen (playable at any time, using automated interactions, like Mime Academy) | < Select one | ||||
| Brief synopsis of our group's story: | A group of friends receives a message from the cult of Cuthlu, which leads them to a remote location where they find that these cultists are luring people into a trap to use them as part of their ritual. One of the friends turns out to be Wilbur Weatley(sp?)and double crosses the rest of the group. After reaching safety, the group seeks help from a descendant of Dr. Armitage to tell them how to stop these madmen. With cunning, and good timing, our heroes are able to stop the ritual by making sure the cultists don't get the last ingrediant for their ritual--themselves.Intriguing premise! | |||||
| Storytelling Medium #1: | Why we chose this medium: | Twitter allows for character interaction, which gives the audience a sense of virisimilitude.If you're creating an "evergreen" story, keep in mind that all Twitter posts are stamped with the exact day and time they're posted. I'm not saying this is necessarily a deal-breaker if you want to use Twitter, but just be aware that if you show this project to people after you graduate, those tweets may look like "old news" by then. | ||||
| Storytelling Medium #2: | Website | Why we chose this medium: | Gives the characters their incentive to go to this remote location. The website is the lure into the story. | |||
| Storytelling Medium #3: | Why we chose this medium: | Photographic evidence of the cultists plans will help the audience visualize the events taking place.Sounds great! You'd be surprised how effective photos can be in making a storyworld and its characters feel "real." | ||||
| MAIN STORY BEATS | DESCRIPTION | STORYTELLING MEDIUM | CONVEYED BY WHOM? | CONNECTION | WRITTEN/CREATED BY | |
| Intro | The audience is introduced to our characters by adding them on Twitter.I wouldn't make the audience's ability to follow the story dependent on them adding the characters on Twitter (which some people may or may not do), as I think you could be limiting your audience. (We shouldn't need to follow them to see their Tweets, anyway, as long as they're public.)This allows them to see the conversation they've had about this awesome website that promises one hell of a party for Spring Break. The website looks a little sketchy, but the best parties always are.Ha! ;)It gives GPS coordinates where to meet and at what time.I appreciate this level of detail and verisimilitude, but in a story like this, I wouldn't list a real address/exact coordinates unless you actually want people to show up there. Granted, the odds of someone seeing this project and actually visiting there are pretty slim, but it's a possibility... one that the owner of that residence/business (or cult?) may not be too happy about! :) | Twitter and Website | John, Sara, Jaden (Wilbur) | The cultist's website will be attached to a Tweet. The character who Tweets it implores his friends and the audience to check it out.In this case I think starting with an intro/landing page, before the story begins, would be helpful in setting up some context for your audience -- that this is an immersive, interactive story that plays out on multiple platforms, etc. Since transmedia storytelling is still pretty new, some folks who look at this project in your writing portfolios might not necessarily get that they're supposed to follow links to multiple websites, call phone numbers, email characters, etc. (Think back to the very beginning of the course, before you played Mime Academy and got an understanding of this kind of storytelling -- this is the mindset that most people are likely to have.) You also could use this intro/landing page as a place to house (or link to) your credits and citations, and possibly a step-by-step walkthrough, in case people get stuck and are unsure what to do next. The intro/landing page and step-by-step walkthrough are not required, but I think in most cases, they can help insure that your audience's initial reaction will be more like, "Cool, let's do it," and not, "What the heck is this? Next!" :) | Joseph | |
| Inciting Incident | The characters arrive on location to find they're the only ones there beside some weird people in a nearby cabin. They peek through the window to see what's going on to see them chanting around a fire. Something definitely isn't right. | John | How do we get from the website to this Instagram page? | Gianni | ||
| Rising Tension - Plot Point #1 | The characters are trapped in their own cabin, wrists and feet bound, with no way to get help except with their cell phones.Nose-typing for the win! ;)They ask the internet (audience) to help them find out what's going on. They heard the cultists talk about "The providence of Cuthulu" whatever that is.Ah, is this why "Cthulu" is spelled differently, perhaps -- to narrow down your Google search results? The Google search is another really clever idea, and a great way to get the audience involved... it can be a little tricky to pull off, though, as the internet is constantly changing, so you just want to make sure that your search term(s) will show up in the top hits, and not get buried on page 10 or wherever. I'd recommend making the search term some weird, one-of-a-kind word(s) you make up, that will result in your website being the ONLY search result, just to be safe. (Also, Google and/or Lovecraft fans are probably going to assume you mean "Cthulu" -- try Googling "providence of Cuthulu" and see just how many results come up...) | Twitter and Website | John, Sara, Jaden (Wilbur) | The audience must make a Google search which will result in them finding information that these cultists are trying to reincarnate Cuthulu via a secret website that requires a password (Providence of Cuthulu).How/where do we get/figure out the password? I think this is a cool idea that can work well in this kind of storytelling, but you just want to be sure the audience has the info they need to be able to figure it out, and that they aren't just looking for a "needle in a haystack".... | Shakina | |
| Rising Tension - Plot Point #2 | Once the audience delivers the information (via Twitter) the characters decide they have to stop them before the ritual is complete. However, time is running out. They have to find out what they need to stop the cultists, but have no means of doing so. They ask the audience to find a specialist who might know what to do.I'd be fairly specific about what it is you want from the audience, exactly how they can help you, etc. I'd avoid open-ended requests like this, which I think may leave people unsure what they're supposed to do (and if they just Google "Dr. Armitage" without any further details or hints to narrow it down, they're going to get A TON of unrelated results.) And I love that the audience is directly involved in the story like this, but again, I wonder if Twitter is the best bet for the audience to communicate with the characters for this part. What if someone else has already tweeted the info to the characters? Also, are the characters supposed to respond to those tweets? (Kind of hard to pull off in an evergreen story.) I don't want to twist your arms and make you guys add another platform, but I wonder if an email autoresponse might work better for something like this.... | Twitter and LinkedIn | John, Sara, Jaden (Wilbur), Dr. Armitage | By looking through LinkedIn, they find Dr. Armitage's contact info. The audience messages him to find out that the cultists need fresh sacrifices to complete the ritual.Clever idea, but I probably wouldn't recommend using LinkedIn for something like this, as I think most people on that site are going to be "all business" -- either looking for a job or to hire someone -- and not necessarily be in the mindset for "fun & games." Granted, I have seen funny, fake LinkedIn profiles for fictional characters like Bruce Wayne, Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, etc... but keep in mind, people instantly recognize those well-known characters' profiles as a gag, and aren't "tricked" into thinking they're real, which I think could be an issue with the way you guys are talking about using LinkedIn here. (Although I suppose diehard Lovecraft fans will recognize the name "Dr. Armitage.") Another issue: people will need to have a LinkedIn account and be logged in to message Dr. A (I assume he'd reply with an automatic response?) which could be a potential barrier to participation. Assuming fictional character profiles don't violate their terms of service (double-check, please!), I don't want to say you guys CAN'T use LinkedIn, if you're really excited about it, but I just wanted you to be aware of some of the potential issues first, so you know what you might be getting into. IF you guys use LinkedIn for this, then I would be sure to give people context somewhere in the profile that this is a fictional character, etc., so they don't feel hoodwinked. | Jacob | |
| Rising Tension - Plot Point #3 | Once the audience relays the information, the characters try to escape, but don't know how they with their hands and feet bound. They describe the knots and ask the audience to tell them how to undo them. | Instagram with caption including name of knot | John | ? | Jeanine | |
| Climax | When the audience tells them how to undo the knot(tells them how?), the characters are able to get free. A chase scene occurs captured by cell phone video and uploaded onto YouTube. | Twitter and Youtube | John, Sara | The characters tell the audience that they saved their lives, and they have proof now that there are people trying to ressurect Cuthulu. At that point they tell the audience(tell them how/where?)to go on their YouTube page to see what happened. | Brandon | |
| Resolution | The character have a Skype session, which is captured with a screen recording talking about how they made it back to civilization, and thank the audience for saving their lives.Neat idea! PLEASE SEE ADD'L NOTES ON NEXT PAGE. | YouTube | Sara | Okay, THIS one you can leave blank. ;) | Paul | uh |
| NOTES:Awesome start, team! I love that you guys have put a lot of thought not just into your story itself, but also your audience'sexperienceof it, and getting them involved and interacting with the characters -- very cool! I think as a group you will want to discuss in more detail some of the mechanics of how it will play out, though, and how your audience will get from one platform to the next. (I noticed a couple of blanks in the "connections" column -- you just want to make sure those connections are there, and the audience doesn't hit any dead ends.) I suggest that everyone in the group go through your entire story, beat by beat, look at it from the perspective of a new audience member with no prior knowledge of this story, and ask yourselves: Would I have enough info/context to know what's going on here? How will I get from this piece of the story to the next--is there a link to click, a clue to figure out, and if so, is it complete and understandable? Like I said, I think some details need to be ironed out a bit, but in general, I think this looks like a great project with a lot of potential, so keep up the good work! :) | ||||||
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| Storytelling Media: |
| Audio - Soundcloud |
| Blog - Blogger |
| Blog - Wordpress |
| Phone - Google Voice |
| Photos - Flickr or Picasa |
| Photos - Instagram |
| Text/SMS Message |
| ThingLink |
| Tumblr |
| Video - Instagram |
| Video - Interlude Treehouse |
| Video - Vimeo |
| Video - Vine |
| Video - YouTube |
| Website - Wix |
| Other: _____ |
| "Evergreen" or "Live": |
| Evergreen(playable at any time, using automated interactions, likeMime Academy) |
| Live(plays out in real/calendar time, likeLizzie Bennet) |
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