My presentation

Content and slides


Once I knew what topic I was going to be discussing for my presentation I immediately starting working on my the visual presentation that I would be showing and the script that will run along side it. I was told by my tutor Sharon that my slides needed to have limited text and that it had to remain neat and professional throughout. Bearing this in mind I made sure I kept my slides mainly visual and that I included a large amount of images so that the viewers of my presentation would have a lot to look at as I was talking, instead of having slides filled with text which made muddle people between reading the information and listening to my script. I kept the colour scheme plain and in-between dark and light to make sure that the information I had included would be visible on each slide and that it didn't class with any of the images used.    

Along side my visual presentation I have written a script that contains a lot of information that correlate with all the images I have included on my slides. When I timed myself it lasted around 9 minutes so hopefully that will give me a little room to breath when I am talking. Below are my finalised slides.  

Bibliography

Below is a list of all the references I have used for research and presentation.  They are mixture of Novels, films, game and webpages.

• Henry Jenkins. Confessions of a Aca-fan. The official web blog of Henry Jenkins. [Internet] available at http://henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html. Accessed November 2014

• Spark Notes. (2014) Alice’s adventures in wonderland. [Internet} available at http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/alice/themes.html. Accessed November 2014

• Fan-based. Alice Wikipedia. [Internet] available at http://alice.wikia.com/wiki/Alice_Wiki. Accessed November 2014

• Comparative media studies [2007] Transmedia Storytelling: Business, Aesthetics and Production at the Jim Henson Company. [Internet] available at http://cmsw.mit.edu/transmedia-storytelling-jim-henson-company/ Accessed November 2014

• Geoffrey Long. Journal. [Internet] available at http://www.geoffreylong.com/wordpress/archives/category/transmedia Accessed November 2014

• Carroll, L., (1865) Alice’s adventures in wonderland. London: Macmillian. 

• McGee, A., (2011) The art of Alice madness returns. Milwaukie: Dark Horse books.

• Miller, V., (2011) Understanding digital culture. London: SAGE publications Ltd

• Jenkins, H., (2006) Convergence culture. Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University.

• Alice in wonderland, (1951) Directed by Walt Disney animation studios. The United Kingdom and The United States of America

• Alice in wonderland, (2010) Directed by Tim burton and Walt Disney animation studios. The United States of America.

• American McGee and Spicy Horse. (2011) Alice madness returns. PC. China. Electronic Arts. 

Research into my chosen franchise

Alice in wonderland 


After our contextual studies lecture on Transmedia storytelling and world building I had a think about which franchise I could focus on for my presentation. I was originally planning to focus on the Batman franchise as it has a wide range of different transmedia products but we had already heard a lot about this franchise due to examples of it being used in one of our lectures by our Tutor Sharon. I thought it would be best to steer clear from this franchise due to the amount we had already been taught about it so I had a look into other options.   

Instead I decided to go with a different a example of transmedia storytelling that I knew a lot of different products have come from. Due to my knowledge on this topic I also knew I would be able to get a lot of interesting points from it. The franchise I chose was the well known literary tale of Alice in wonderland which started off as a novel by the British author Lewis Carroll. I knew that I would be able to show a strong example of world building if I focused on the 1951 Disney cartoon production of the story and also the Alice madness returns video game produced in 2011 as they are both strong adaptations of the story.  

After this I decided to do a large amount of research into the franchise, focusing on a different transmedia products to make sure I had variety in my writing. I also wanted to look into possible hidden meanings of the story to give my presentation to find areas of the story that I had looked into before and to get deeper analysis instead of skimming the surface with descriptions. 

The notes I made about areas of the franchise and the world building aspects are below.

In what way has the story of Alice In Wonderland’ been expanded and altered using transmedia storytelling and world building?  

•   Introduce the story of Alice in wonderland and how you will be looking further into the story  and  it’s different media coverage
•  Mentioning what transmedia storytelling is
• Talking about henry Jenkins and his theories
• Find plenty of quotes
•  Link back to the story and then focus on the soft Disney version. Focus on art style
•  Move onto the Tim burton movie and discuss that
• Then finally talk about Alice in wonderland
•  Mention the jump in style, theming, mood, and designs from cartoon to game and how this effects the world of Alice in wonderland.
•  The jump in target audience from child to young adult
• Evolution of characters – card soldiers and Alice herself
• Mention how the story is so well known and has had many different re telling that perhaps spicy horse thought it was about time so see Alice in a new light.
• Possibly focusing on, instead of Alice ‘dreaming’ the whole event, she was having some sort of  break down in her mind.
•  Could also be focusing on the darker side of Victorian England.
• Spicy horse’s Alice could be an example of looking at Alice in a new light or, through a looking glass as It were.
• How Alice in wonderland is popular in japan and influenced some of the Animes they produce
•  John Tenniel completed the original illustrations

Evolution of Alice

• 1951 -  Disney
•  1972 – mill creek entertainment
• 1985  -  Columbia pictures
• 1988 – Burbank films Australia
• 1995 -  good times entertainment  (Japanese origin)
• 1999 – Hallmark entertainment  
• 2000 -  American McGee’s Alice (features Alice in wonderland and through the looking glass)
•  2010 – Tim burton and Disney (a mixture of Alice in wonderland and through the looking glass)
• 2011 -  American McGee and spicy horse

Animes that have been influenced by the story (ALL SERIES BELOW WERE PRODUCED IN 2006)

• Ouran high school host club
• Black butler
• Pandora hearts is heavily inspired by Alice in wonderland and many of the characters are based on ones from the novel.

Music video

Gwen Stefani whatcha waiting for?

• Alice talks about her wonderland being a place of nonsense
• Her experience is all a dream
• Even though the 1951 film was directed at children, it still had some dark moments. For example when the walrus eats the innocent oysters or when the cards at the palace get beheaded by the queens order.
• A large amount of Alice in wonderland productions contains musical numbers that were written just for the story.
• Soft pastel colours are used in a large amount of the environments until she reaches ‘tulgey wood’ where the colour palette becomes far darker to give a creepier mood to the scene.

A hidden meaning in Alice in wonderland could be about Alice maturing and her fears about growing up.

Examples of this are (mainly from the 1951 Disney production):

• Changing size could represent puberty and her body growing
• The cruelty of the flowers and creatures could be a presentation of bullying or how people may treat her in the future.
• The ‘drink me’ potions could be representations of alcohol
• The story of the oysters could be Alice’s fear and learning about death.
• Caterpillar could represent smoking and drug use
•  Her constant sharp temper could be a sign of maturing and entering her teenage years
•  The journey through tulgey wood could represent her feeling lost and confused about herself as she loses sight of the path but soon ends up finding it again, only for it to be erased in front of her.
• Painting the red roses red could represent the tainting of her innocence in later life.
• The queen of hearts could be a representation of how a teenage girl may see her mother is she is being ‘unfair’
• Looking after the duchess’s child could be a representation of introducing Alice to the worry about motherhood or childhood.

Pasted from wiki:

The manuscript was illustrated by Dodgson himself who added 37 illustrations—printed in a facsimile edition in 1887. John Tenniel provided 42 wood engraved illustrations for the published version of the book. The first print run was destroyed (or sold to America) at Carroll's request because he was dissatisfied with the quality. The book was reprinted and published in 1866.

John Tenniel's illustrations of Alice do not portray the real Alice Liddell, who had dark hair and a short fringe.

My chosen topic for my presentation

Transmedia storytelling and world building 

For my presentation I decided to Transmedia storytelling and world building due to the fact that I know I will be able to get a large amount of information out of this topic as I know a variety of franchises I could talk about. After re reading the presentation and notes that Sharon had presented during our lectures on both of these topic, I decided to do a little research into what each of these areas were again to see if I could find any more useful information about the topics.

A large amount of what I found were quotations about the topic that gave detailed descriptions of the subject. The most useful ones I found I have listed below. 

Quotes by Henry Jenkins

"Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story."

"A media conglomerate has an incentive to spread its brand or expand its franchises across as many different media platforms as possible."

"We are drawn to master what can be known about a world which always expands beyond our grasp. This is a very different pleasure than we associate with the closure found in most classically constructed narratives, where we expect to leave the theatre knowing everything that is required to make sense of a particular story"

"Transmedia storytelling practices may expand the potential market for a property by creating different points of entry for different audience segments. Similarly, the strategy may work to draw viewers who are comfortable in a particular medium to experiment with alternative media platform"

"The encyclopedic ambitions of transmedia texts often results in what might be seen as gaps or excesses in the unfolding of the story: that is, they introduce potential plots which cannot be fully told or extra details which hint at more than can be revealed. Readers, thus, have a strong incentive to continue to elaborate on these story elements, working them over through their speculations, until they take on a life of their own. Fan fiction can be seen as an unauthorized expansion of these media franchises into new directions which reflect the reader’s desire to “fill in the gaps” they have discovered in the commercially produced material."

"Contradictions, confusions and multiple perspectives should be anticipated at a moment of transition when one media paradigm is dying and another is being born."

Other quotes by different people

“Retelling a story in a different media type is adaptation,

while using multiple media types to craft a single story is transmediation.”
Geoffrey Long 2007 (Technical Director and a Research Fellow for the Annenberg Innovation Lab)

‘media objects consist of separate elements arranged on an ad – hoc basic with no predetermined authorship or a structured sequence of events which move towards an ending

Lev manovich 2001 (professor in Computer Science program at City University of New York)

Focusing on coherent worlds

M.C.Escher 

For one of our more recent contextual studies classes, we were taught about and looked into the concept of coherent worlds in classic pieces of art and how it has worked it's way into video games. We looked into many different small aspects of this topic but the main piece was focused on was the Dutch artist, M.C.Escher (1898 - 1972) and how his curious and intriguing artistic pieces have been inspirational and fairly influential so much so that there is museum dedicated to his work in Hague. Escher's pieces started off as mathematical masterpieces, focusing mainly on the use of patterns and tessellations to make the viewer see different shapes within his art. These pieces were neat and mostly completed in colour to really help capture the viewer's attentions (example: the first image seen below)

Later on in his artistic career, Escher begin to expand his use of creative and mathematically influenced thinking and started to begin working on something a little different, pieces that had never been produced or seen before. The pieces began to focus on architecture, specifically pieces of architecture that would physically impossible in the real world. The most famous one of his drawings with this concept is called 'Relativity' (The first image below) and it depicts a room with stairs and entrances dotted around the structure as well as people exploring the building. But, the mind boggling thing about this is, the structure and where the people are walking doesn't make any sense

because, for the first time, Escher has moved away from his pieces of mathematical perfection and and completely ignore the rules that gravity inflicts upon us which manages to make this piece bizarre and captivating all at once. This piece snowballed into a large collection of designs created by Escher where he delved into and explored the 'Infinity theory', drawing images that shows a impossible situation or structure, similar to that found in Relativity (for example, the second image shown below.)

Monument Valley

Earlier I spoke about Escher's work how it had influenced later design pieces and concepts and one of these is can be clearly seen in the newly released game called 'Monument Valley' which was released in 2014 and developed by a small group of people called 'Ustwo'. Monument valley follows the story of the young princess Ida who travels from kingdom to kingdom as she seems be to be on a quest for knowledge but her intentions are unknown to the player. Ida must make her way around through isometric tower structures which use the art of optical illusion, giving the game a creative depth. Each level is laid out as a puzzle which the player can interact with as moving pieces of the buildings will allow new paths and options to become available to the player. Below are a few screen shots of the game, each level is cleverly thought out and visually stunning to look at.

As well as being inspired by Japanese print work and minimalist sculptures, it is clear to see that the developed of this game took a strong influence from Escher's infinity theory. The game is made up of strong structures that use optical illusions and sometimes a complete lack of rational thinking or gravity to allow the player to change the way they see the level and reach the end goal. Ida can walk along walls and pathways that SHOULD be impossible to do but using the infinity theory has a allowed and new and different way of discovering the palace she is exploring.

Below is an example of one of the levels from Monument valley, which was obviously based on and heavily influenced by Escher's piece called 'waterfall' which is the second image seen below.

Learning about Signifiers within games

Creating my own sign

In our third contextual studies lecture we were taught about what a signifier was within a game and what exactly it represented and does. I quickly learnt that a 'signifier' in a game is basically some sort of sign, something that makes itself present to the player and catches their attention, notifying them that they have either completed a action or still need to do so. So for example, imagine a big green button which is giving out a steady glowing light. The appearance of the button in a game environment would signify that it needs to be pressed as it is capturing the players attention with its bright glow and noticeable presence.  Then, let's imagine that the button has been pressed, all light drains from it and it remains a dismal and bleak green colour, this appearance would signify that the action is complete and the button is no longer in use.

After learning out signifiers and what they stand for, we were set a task to draw or create a sign that will exist in our game and then present our design to the rest of the class. This task got my thinking about the different objects and creatures that would be appearing in my game, how exactly were they going to make themselves apparent and show the player that they could be interacted with. After thinking about all my different in game objects, I decided to focus on the different Orbs of Light that would be scattered throughout the levels as they have variety and will be the most common object for the player to come across and interact with. Below is the image I created representing the different signs within my game.

The different orbs of light 

Throughout my games levels their will be different types of orbs scattered around in the darkness which light must collect in order to restore daylight to the level once completed.

Small orbs:  Small orbs act as point system so in order to get a 100% pass of the level when you finish it, you must make sure to collect all of these small orbs.

Cluster orbs:  cluster orbs act as a check point so, if light was to faint from being 'hit' to many times, you will be directed back to the nearest cluster orb you collected. And, when you do interact with a cluster orb, it releases a large flash of light that completely re lights the level for around 10 seconds, before fading back into black. This will allow the player to briefly have a rest period and plan out where they have to go next.

Large orbs:  The character light, is only giving off a small warm glow throughout the game that gives you a limited view of the level but this can be affected by picking up a large orb. Large orbs act as a big boost of power, which light can use to increase the amount of glow they produce, increasing the lit area that the player is able to see but this will only last around 10 seconds and then it will eventually fade, leaving you with what you started off with.

I believe that the Orbs would be able to stand out to the player and show clearly that they are important to investigate as they are one of the few parts of the level that will be clearly visible in the darkness the entire time, due to their pale white glow. They will essentially help guide the player throughout the game as, if you follow the orbs, you are going to find the end of the level far more easily.

Looking at maps in games

Image research and written notes

Below are the notes I made during the two contextual studies lectures we had based around Mazes, Labyrinths and Maps. These give me enough basic enough I could use if I wanted to do my presentation on this topic.

• Pieter Bruegel - Childrens games (1560)
• Max Ernst - They eye of the silence 
• The name of the rose - umberto eco 
• The maze can allow a player to explore and discover 
• in the 80's maze's became increasingly popular 
• Maze wars games 1985 
• Labyrinth game - Ravensburger 
• Labyrinth film - Jim henson 
• Boardgames can successfully be transferred into digital games 
• Assassins creed three puzzle game 
• Miander - long eventful path 
• the maze - multi branch series of paths that lead to centre 
• Maze's and labyrinths are different, Labyrinth's lead to centre but mazes do not 
• Symbolism of mazes - the human mind 
• The Minotaur and the labyrinth - look into it 
• Important to get connections from present to past 
• curiosity drives game play 
• making a mental map feels personal to the player 
• Hansel and Gretel - Laying bread crumbs to find there way back 
• The design of everyday things - Donald Norman (?) 

Below are some examples of maps that are found in several games that I have played: