Programme Phase III 1999

The training programme sagas Writing Interactive Fiction will be held in English and will take place in Munich in two modules
(March 12 – 18 1999 and October 8 – 14 1999).

Participants need to apply for each workshop separately.

Module 1

March 12 – 18, 1999

Combined Workshop

with Jay David Bolter, Michael Joyce and Chris Hales
(Application Deadline: January 15 1999)

For this "two in one" interactive workshop package, participants need to apply in advance for either the Chris Hales workshop or the Jay David Bolter/ Michael Joyce workshop. Both workshops use different approaches: Hales is more visually oriented, Bolter/Joyce`s is more scriptwriting oriented. The combination maximizes the benefits of both approaches. There is an initial short plenum session at the first day, several official and informal meeting points during the second, third and fourth days and a common final fifth day for both groups.

Interactive Digital Moviemaking Workshop

held by Chris Hales, Royal College of Arts, London

This practical workshop explores different aspects of creating interactive movies with an emphasis on visual metaphors for interaction, as well as actual desktop production techniques. The workshop explores ways in which interactive movies may be investigated and piloted on a low-budget, desktop system. Even within the short span of the course each student should be able to produce a modest piece of interactive digital video for presentation on the final day.

Participants have the opportunity to produce their own video footage as a practical application of the techniques learned. Video cameras are provided. VCRs are also available in case participants wish to use previously shot footage.

Interactive Fiction Scriptwriting Workshop

held by Jay David Bolter, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta and Michael Joyce, Vassar College, NY

The workshop focuses on interactive space and time.
There will be ample opportunity for participants to interact with participants in Chris Hales' workshop regarding interactive visual techniques.

Working in groups participants will practice the first steps of producing a coherent treatment, scenarios, and storyboards for a proposed production, explore metaphors that might describe an interactive cinema interface for different presentation media and script interactive temporalities (where one story is told in chronological order and the other in reverse chronological order) as well as subjunctive temporalities (where the screen times of different cross-linked story streams are identical). They are also introduced to the notion of remediation as a method of thinking about the relationship between traditional film and new interactive media.

Timetable Module 1

Module 2

October 8 – 14, 1999

Workshop

held by Greg Roach, Hyperbole Studios, Seattle
(Application Deadline: June 15 1999)

In this intensive workshop, participants learn to apply their knowledge of filmmaking in this new arena by developing their own interactive ideas, which are then processed in a group scripting phase.

Topics of discussion are: What is a film? – What is a game? -What is interactivity? – What is the difference between an interactive film and a computer game? – What is the state of the market, and what should you expect, as you begin to create?

Participants are introduced to new syntax and structures:

Temporal Structure: Real-time or Player- driven;
POV: 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person;
Media: The cost/value of using Text, Graphics, 3D, and Video;
Player´s role: Actor, Director, Editor, Writer, Builder;
Activity: What is the player doing?;
Problem: What must they solve?;
Tools: How will they solve or act?;
Verbs: How many things can the user say to the problem?
Where is perception? In the eye or in the brain?

On this basis groups develop short treatments for an interactive film, story, or cinematic game which is then discussed.

Presentations by additional experts show the latest developments in the field of new media (virtual reality, www, CD-ROM...)

Timetable Module 2 | Results 1999