Interactive Storytelling

Rome

Taken from http://www.ro.me/film

This website was created to promote Rome album of Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi. It is a multiplatform interactive narrative experience inspired by the music in Rome album.

At the beginning, I was really annoyed because the site required me using Google Chrome to access. Unfortunately, I use Safari and it did not load so I have to download Chrome to explore Rome. Then, I really like this interactive site because I not only listen to the song as usual, but also interact with the film, the story world. I was put in the character’s point of view so it seemed like everything happened in front of me. I expected more interactions from site but I only could move my mouse to change film’s angles. The song’s length was nearly 4 minutes so it made me feel really boring. When the song finished, the site would ask us to explore that song in different ways and I did try to see something more. However, there was no difference.

Besides, they had different tabs to explore. I tried the Album tab and it contained pretty enough information such as photos, YouTube videos, news, ITunes etc. They also linked their site to their social networking pages in terms of Facebook and Twitter. I think those things are very useful because I am quite like the songs and want to explore more about Rome album as well as main singers. The other highlight point of this site probably was the colorful animation and beautiful music lyrics that contribute to blur the boring interaction.

In general, I have learnt from Rome that using interactive storytelling is not always good if we cannot make it enough for audiences to experience. Simplicity is great if we really know how to apply it in storytelling, otherwise it would not be able to create a wow effect for our story.

Bear 71

They used the introductory clip to take me into the story world of a female grizzly bear in Canada’s Banff National Park. The story was narrated from the bear’s perspective. Although it was typical for documentary, it provided me the general ideal of what I was watching about. I wished that they could use the sound effects to make the narrator’s voice sound like the bear’s voice. It would be more real and interesting.

Then, they presented the interactive map that allowed me to track for the bear’s activities after she had a tag called 71 on her ears. With over 1 million photos take by motion-triggered cameras that encompass the park, audiences like me can witness those activities when we click to camera points on the grid. All the animals and us were presented on the interactive grid by small points that had specific numbers. I really love the interactive map that brought people closer to natural environment of living animals like Bear 71 but it was quite messy when I started exploring it. I did not know which way I should go or which footage I should come to visit first. Besides, sometimes the Internet connection seems very slow so it effected on my exploration. I think it would be better if they provided audiences the highlight points to look at or guideline for using the map to avoid confusion.

Moreover, users are even turned into animals if we allow the site to use our webcams and post our images to the surveillance wall. However, I denied trying this function because I did not want my images appear on public sites. I believe with current online privacy issue, producers should consider that some of users like me do not want to interact with content if our private information would be accessed. In addition, the audio of Bear 71 worked really well in providing people what happened to the natural habitat and how animals like Bear 71 get used to the huge change from manmade things such as high way, cars or the use of Facebook.

Overall, I think I would not apply this kind of interaction for my digital project because it was quite complicated and created some confusion for users. However, I would like to learn the way they used audio in order to make Bear 71’s narrative flow naturally.

Take this lollipop

Taken from http://www.takethislollipop.com

The first thing I noticed when opening this website was the huge number of likes on Facebook page, over 15 millions. However, think I was the result of asking audiences to connect with their Facebook accounts if they wanted to interact with the story inside. The lollipop with one razor blade inside and the text “I dare you” helped me guess the general theme of the story. That could be horrible and scary thing.

Then, I realized my thought was true when entering story world. The lacking light and narrow way that leaded to the dark room appeared. Besides, it worked very well with the scary music and made me felt like I was playing horror web game. However, the scariest thing was my Facebook contents appeared on one strange man’s computer and he looked completely weird. This guy tried to stalk my images and his acting really made me as interactive user feel scared and unsafe. I think this is the success of this interactive site. At the end, the bloody lollipop appeared to announce the next victim and also provided the share button.

Overall, I think this is one of simple but effective interactive website in telling digital story that I can learn from to support my digital project. With the music effects, images and contents that all relates to horror genre, it really hooks the audiences attention. I believe that success is contributed by the unity of all visual design, effects, music and genre. However, I do not like the way they use my Facebook information as well as others as a scary part of their story. Those things are private and most of us really do not want to be stalked by weird people like that horrible guy.