FAQ

• When you say "interactive narrative experience" how is the audience going to interact with it?

  The story is divided into three perspectives, which are divided into chapters. As you watch the chapters, you will unlock chapters in the other perspectives; at which point you can watch the show in the order you please. You can jump around between characters, or follow one of them all the way through first.

  After those initial chapters, there will be a call to action within the story that applies to the audience as well. The audience will be able to establish their own identity in the world of the story, and enter a community populated by fellow audience members and fictional characters (and the ability to distinguish between the two won't always be easy).

  Fictional and non-fictional resources will be available to scour through, and the integration with technology will be tight. Audience will be able to interact with the larger narrative using their tablet or cell phone -- and there will be times where the story talks back.

  Last updated: Thursday Feb 14, 8:19pm EST
• How does this project differ from movies, TV, video games, etc?

  This project is different than a movie, a television show, or a video game in a few ways. The biggest way is format. It's broken up into pieces, and all the pieces are online at one time. It's up to the audience member to pursue. It's also shorter form. All-together, if you just watch the initial 3 POVs, your experience will run about 90 minutes. But, if you want to keep digging, the storyworld of this show will be substantial.

  Last updated: Thursday Feb 14, 8:19pm EST
• What platforms do you plan to utilize?

  We want the show to be accessible on computers, tablets, and smart phones, but we'll also be including social media elements, building a community of audience/character interaction, and connecting directly to the viewer using texts, phone messages, and emails.

  Last updated: Thursday Feb 14, 8:19pm EST
• How will you unlock POVs and clues?

  To unlock the POVs, you just gotta watch an episode. And keep watching to unlock more. That won't come until the full project is made, however.

  The clues will be there the whole time. The trick will be learning to recognize them.

  Last updated: Thursday Feb 14, 8:19pm EST
• Can I have more details and specifics on how it's all going to work, please?

  We've definitely concepted the project, but the design is still in progress. We're still leading a development class (Writers, User Experience, Marketing) that's helping us strategize how to make this show compelling and fresh. One of the reasons that we're building a prototype, though, is that we need to test these concepts. We need to see how the story works and how the bigger user experience works before we're ready to produce the whole she-bang. So the reason there aren't more details on how we're going to accomplish our goals is partly because we're still exploring and figuring that out. It's a large undertaking, and there is a lot of incredible work that's come before that we are learning from – and though we have a lot of slick ideas, we aren't at the stage where we'd want to commit ourselves to some of the directions we're exploring (at least not publicly). We're still students, and we are reserving some privilege for that learning process. 

  The other reason is as hinted above. We're doing something new. We're being careful with our level of disclosure. We want to control the release of information, and there are some details that wouldn't be appropriate to reveal at this time.

  Last updated: Thursday Feb 14, 8:19pm EST