Schedule « Digital Storytelling

Non Fiction Storytelling on the Web

We begin with storytelling generating from online news agencies, like The New York Times, CNN, and others. These are true stories that utilize the affordances of the web to immerse and involve readers. Several of them also experiment with structure in order to provide multiple perspectives when the facts of the story are not entirely known. We will being with NYT’s Pulitzer and Peabody prize-winning Snow Fall, published December 20, 2012, considered one of the first and most breathtaking examples of this genre. The other stories selected for this section include some of the most compelling non-fiction stories produced in the last decade.

Week 1:

Monday, January 13, 2020: Introduction to born digital storytelling
Homework due on Wednesday:

Snowfall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, by John Branch: http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/index.html#/?part=tunnel-creek
The Whale Hunt, by Jonathan Harris: http://thewhalehunt.org

Wednesday, January 15, 2020: Genres, terms, structure; discuss readings
Homework due next Wednesday (Next Monday is Martin Luther King Day):

Dyatlov Group Journal: The Last Page, https://dyatlov.ruptly.tv/en/
Borneo Is Burning, by Rebecca Wright, Ivan Watson, and Masrur Jamaluddin et al: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/11/asia/borneo-climate-bomb-intl-hnk/

Week 2:
Monday, January 20, 2020: Martin Luther King’s Day; no class

Wednesday, January 22, 2020: Finish discussion of essays; begin work on Assignment 1: Group project: Research an incident or activity and create a web-based story about it

Week 3
Monday, January 27, 2020: Continue working on Assignment 1
Wednesday, January 29, 2020: Continue working on Assignment 1

Week 4
Monday, February 3, 2020: Continue working on Assignment 1
Wednesday, February 5, 2020: Continue Working on Assignment 1

The Interactive Narrative, 1986-2018

When Netflix’s Bandersnatch premiered in the series Black Mirror on December 28, 2018, it was lauded as a new, innovative way to tell a story. Those of us working in the field of born digital literature were appalled by the ignorance of critics because they seemed completely unaware of the fact that digital interactive narratives had been around since the mainstreaming of computers and the rise in popularity of video games in the 1980s. This section of our course takes a historical perspective of the genre by beginning with one example of Electronic Arts’ brief foray into interactive media before moving to more recent popular environments.

Week 5

Monday, February 10, 2020: Presentations of Project 1; Special In-Class playthrough of Amnesia, by Thomas Disch; discussion of how to write a treatment and prepare a storyboard
Homework for Wednesday: Experience Stanley Parable

Wednesday, February 12, 2020: Discuss Stanley Parable; begin work on Assignment 2––create a treatment and storyboard for an interactive narrative––treatment is due at the beginning of the next Wednesday’s class as a .doc(x)

Week 6
Monday, February 17, 2020: President’s Day, no class; Treatment is due via email to professor by 5 p.m.

Wednesday, February 19, 2020: Special In-Class playthrough of Bandersnatch, by Charlie Booker and David Slade

Week 7
Monday, February 24, 2020: Continue working on Assignment 2

Wednesday, February 26, 2020: Continue working on Assignment 2 (The detailed storyboard is due at the beginning of the next class)

Mobile Stories

The idea of portable stories is not new. Books have made it possible for us to carry stories conveniently around for hundreds of years. However, stories produced for mobile phones possess features that cannot exist in the print medium. We will spend the next two weeks exploring stories created for smart phones and tablets as both native and web-based apps in order to suss out the unique ways stories can be told in these environments.

Week 8
Monday, March 2, 2020: Introduce mobile narratives and media; special In-Class viewing of The Secret Language of Desire, by Megan Heyward
Homework is to begin reading all 3 mobile narratives:

A Modern Ghost, by Alt Salt. Free: https://www.altsalt.com/a-modern-ghost/
Lifeline, by 3-Minute Games. $1.99 Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lifeline/id982354972; Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.threeminutegames.lifeline.google&hl=en_US

Upgrade Soul, by Erik Loyer. Chapter 1, Free; Chapters 2-6: $3.99. Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/upgrade-soul/id549051057; No Android version.
The Forever Club, by Alan Bigelow, Episodes 1-6; Free: https://webyarns.com/forever/missing/missing.html

Wednesday, March 4, 2020: Discuss mobile narratives: content and production; workshop on prototyping and Adobe XD
Homework: Begin work on Assignment 3: Create a prototype for a mobile story

Week 9
Monday, March 9, 2020: Guest visit by author Alan Bigelow
Wednesday, March 11, 2020: In-Class discussion about mobile storytelling

Week 10 Spring Break

Monday, March 16, 2020
Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Twine Stories

Twine has become one of the most common platforms for digital storytelling, whether it is presented as a hypertext web environment like Porpentine’s “With Those We Love Alive” or used for planning commercial interactive media works like Netflix’s Bandersnatch. Many of you already know how to make a Twine story, so this activity is aimed at giving you the opportunity to expand your skills by producing a more expansive one, perhaps, that serves as your capstone project. See the Formal Assignmentspage for exact details of this project. To highlight your work on this project, I am creating an online gallery that will feature each of you and your project.

To prepare for Twine:

Go to http://twinery.org
Download Twine 2.3.5 (if you do not yet have a copy of it). You can see this version available at the top right hand side of the site. Hint: It’s on the Yellow Sticky Note.
Locate the very useful guide on the Twinery site: http://twinery.org/wiki/twine2:guide
Have Twine downloaded and the guide ready for the workshop.

Week 11
Monday, March 23, 2020: Assignment 3 due at the beginning of class. Introduction to Twine Story project; Group viewing of Crows, Crows, Crows’ “The Temple of No;” workshop on Twine.

To meet via Zoom: Go to https://share.zoom.us and enter Meeting ID: 579 854 8227; If calling by Phone (long distance)
+1 669 900 9128
+16699009128,,5798548227# US (One Tap Mobile Call)

Wednesday, March 25, 2020: Group viewing of John Ayliff’s “Seedship;” and “Staring at a Cave Wall”. Students must declare teams & roles/individual work for their Twine Story

To meet via Zoom: Go to https://share.zoom.us and enter Meeting ID: 579 854 8227; If calling by Phone (long distance)
+1 669 900 9128
+16699009128,,5798548227# US (One Tap Mobile Call)

Week 12
Monday, March 30, 2020: Work on projects. Dene will be online via Zoom for assistance during our regular class time. If students need further help with Twine or media for it, Dene will be available.