by Craig Motlong, Jorge Fernandez, Mike Brazil
Analysis
Difficulties
Our group found it difficult to derive a cohesive interactive narrative structure from the source play, “The History of Fairfax According to a Sandwich.” Since the source play was episodic in nature, and only loosely made sense as a dramatic unit, we found it was easiest to break up the structure and assign it to different places in the Farmer’s Market and the Grove, segmenting it by geography and time.
Much time was spent in discussion about a theme, something that brought users together for a collective experience. Themes that were discussed and thrown out included: The Spirit of Los Angeles (the statue at the center of the Grove), the Gilmore Lion (acting as the “white rabbit” leading users through the Grove and Farmer’s Market), multiculturalism, the accumulation of memories in time and space, and food. Ultimately, we found our answers where generations of Los Angelenos have: in crass commercialism. By “driving traffic” to the stores and restaurants, we were able to create a reason for being and a scavenger hunt sensibility, with the reward at the end being a screening of the viewer’s own contribution to the history of the area.
We did not write additional scenes or characters, despite a desire by one of our members to plumb the depths of the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, the Grove, the Farmer’s Market, and every store within walking distance. We chose to center our experience on the Grove and Farmer’s Market because of three factors: 1) ease of access and venue control, 2) reasonably sized control environment for actors and filmers, and 3) because the caliber of shops in the Grove are higher than the surrounding areas, and would be more likely to participate.
Although it is tempting to say we would have preferred a blank slate, we think the starter content helped to focus our energies on content delivery, rather than content itself. The problems of adapting these stories would have increased exponentially if the content itself was prone to shift and change. That said, we would love to take a whack at our own interpretation.
Goals
Our approach and strategy served our goals moderately well. We wanted to give viewers a sense of traveling through time, of seeing beyond the false walls of the Grove to peer into the authenticity beyond. In this, we were probably most successful in the Apple Store, where technology helped focus attention on something other than the immediate environment. But to remain in an iPod world defeats the interactive purpose of our journey, by hermetically sealing the viewer in his or her own world. We wanted to use actors, visuals, and props to launch user’s imaginations into the past, rather than showing it to them. In this, we were only partially successful, because of the physical realities of the space.
One goal we would like to revisit is that of multiculturalism, the sense of many cultures contributing to the same geographic space. Beyond actors and accents, we did not successfully crack that nut.
Other Materials and Genres
Our experience was that a sprawling historical epic did not lend itself to an interactive treatment. Having to continually reboot attention from one historical period to another served to disjoint the experience and make it feel like discrete units.
To truly maximize an interactive mobile experience, we feel that a more focused and narratively unified story would help immerse the user in the experience. We looked for a thread that the user could follow in this exercise,, such as the lion, but they all felt inorganic and subtracted from the experience. To that end, we feel that mysteries and thrillers lend themselves more readily to a mobile environment.
Lessons
The challenges we faced in adapting the stage play to a mobile environment forced us to confront our assumptions about the use of narrative story in a distributed geographic location.
• Strong, unified narratives with clear episodic links work better than disjointed pods with nothing but geography in common.
• Distribution by itself is not enough: there must be a reason for it. And the easiest answer to that question is to make money for someone. Hence, our mission to increase retail traffic.
Download Brochure