TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
Group Leader
DESCRIPTION
In this project, I served as the project leader, overseeing the overall planning and execution, while also taking responsibility for storyboarding, scriptwriting, and editing. In today's world, the internet has fostered the merging and cross-pollination of new cultures and media, creating an interconnected and mutually enhancing environment. Drawing from the early 2000s cultural movement "New Weird" and the recent Chinese internet subculture "Rule Weird," I developed a cross-media narrative project. By combining both text and video, this project tells a horror story through two distinct yet complementary mediums.
YEAR
2022
TOOLS
Minecraft, Adobe Premiere Pro
TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
Showcase
01-Tourist guide
Dear tourists, welcome to our amusement park. The park has four areas: ice and snows, rocks, oceans and volcanoes. Each area has a variety of interesting large-scale amusement facilities. You can play at will. Please observe the following rules to ensure personal safety. We will not be responsible for any accident caused by non-compliance.
1. There is a large temperature difference in the four areas of the park. Please prepare appropriate clothes to prevent colds.
2. There are only four areas in the park. If any staff recommend you to visit the forest area, please refuse them. There is no forest area in the park.
3. There are many animals in the Rock Park. Please do not feed the animals. Our staff will be responsible for the diet of the animals.
4. Animals are generally placed in places inaccessible to tourists, and only exist in rock areas, and will not appear on roads or facilities that can walk and play. If you see animals on the road, please stay away from them and report to the nearby staff.
5. Our staff wear blue overalls, and those who wear overalls of other colors are not our staff. Please do not report or seek help from them in case of problems.
6. The ocean park is very safe. We have excellent rescue facilities and teams. We don't have to worry about falling into the water during playing or sightseeing.
7. At 8 p.m., the ocean park has a very dazzling lighting exhibition. You can watch it from the ferris wheel in the ocean park or the ice park. Please stay in the ocean park or ice and snow park as far as possible due to lighting facilities.
8. the temperature in the volcanic park will be hot. Sweating and fever are normal. But if you feel unbearable heat or even burning, please find the staff immediately, and they will take you to the ice park to cool down.
9. The volcanoes and magma in the volcanic park are fake. Don't worry about scalding, but please don't touch them.
10. There is a fire dragon carefully designed by us in the volcanic Park, which is just a landscape for viewing. If you see the fire dragon staring at you, or hear the roar of the Dragon accidentally, it is just your illusion. Please finish your tour of the volcano scenic area and leave as soon as possible.
11. Maybe the fire dragon attracts your attention, but please remember not to stare at the fire dragon's eyes and do not look at it for a long time.
12. There will be no other animals in the volcanic Park, but only in the Rock Park. If an animal comes to you, please stay away from it immediately and report to the nearest staff, who will deal with it.
13. The ice and snow park should be cold. If you feel hot and dry after visiting the volcanic Park, it may be your psychological role.
14. Each park has a place for selling food. But we don't sell hot drinks, even in ice and snow parks. If you see a hot drink, please do not buy it and report it to the sales staff.
15. The opening time of the amusement park is 9 a.m. The closing time is 10 p.m. Please be sure to leave before the park is closed.
16. If you are still in the park after the park is closed, please go to the hotel in the ice and snow park immediately. You can stay here for one night for free. Our staff will wake you up at 8 o'clock the next morning. Do not leave the hotel before the staff wake you up.
As long as you follow the above rules, you can have an unforgettable and happy journey in the park. Have a good time!
03-Notice posted at the corner of train relay station in Volcano Park
If you can see this notice, please don't tell others. Others' suspicions will make it difficult for you to move forward. As you can see, this amusement park is not like an ordinary amusement park. It is unsafe or even weird. Our identity is the special investigation department of the police department. As long as we follow the rules, you can ensure your safety and leave the amusement park. Note that this is the only way you can leave here. Please strictly abide by the following rules.
1. After confirming that there are no other people and staff in blue uniforms around, please cross the curtain behind the relay station, pick up the white uniforms in the box in the corner and put them on. This is the only identification mark we place. When you are in the park, our staff will notice your uniform. The staff in blue uniforms won't trouble you. Don't worry.
2. The amusement park actually has five parks, and the more parks are forest parks, in which many animals live. It is real, not false. You can move in the forest park, but it is better not to spend the night in the cabin in the park if it is not necessary.
3. It is normal to feel hot and dry after wearing white uniforms for a period of time. Our white uniforms provide heating and heat preservation, and can maintain the temperature even in cold areas. You'll get used to it in a while.
4. Do not go to the ocean park. Do not go to the ocean park to watch the lighting exhibition. Make sure you can't see any part of the lighting exhibition.
5. Do not trust any regulations in the tourist guide. If a tourist asks you or asks for help, you can give appropriate help. But don't follow them to the ice and snow park and the ocean park.
6. Make sure that the objects you can touch are hot, and the hot objects can bring you safety.
7. It is normal to hear the roar of a dragon. When you hear the roar, look at the fire dragon in the volcanic park to ensure that its eyes do not glow. If you find that its eyes are glowing, please follow the next rule.
8. After the park is closed, please go to the volcanic park for the night, not to the hotel in the ice park.
9. If you don't hear the roar of dragons during the opening time of the park that day, you must go to the forest cabin in the forest park after the closing time in the evening, drink the liquid in the kettle in the cabin, pour the rest out of the window, and then rest in the house until 6 a.m. the next day, and then leave the cabin. Keep in mind that animals are not allowed in the house at any time, and do not contact animals when going to and leaving the cabin. If you hear a dragon roar during the opening time of the day, please follow the previous rule.
10. The next day, if you still feel hot after leaving the forest park, please go to the ocean park immediately and jump into the water from the diving platform. Remember to go before the Dragon roars. If your body is no longer hot and there is a path on the right side of the forest park, please follow the path to the gate of the park and leave.
02-Staff rules
The park is the largest amusement park in the region. Our group will provide staff with extremely high staff benefits. Including but not limited to the salary five times higher than the local average salary, a large number of holidays, and we have also purchased a full set of personal safety insurance for our staff. We hope you can keep in mind and strictly abide by the staff rules and devote yourself to your work to ensure your own safety. There is only one life. I hope you can protect your own safety, which is also for you and your family. Please observe the following rules.
1. There are only four parks in the park, namely ice and snow, rocks, volcanoes and oceans. In particular, there is no boundary between the volcanic area and the rocks area. If you find a forest area that doesn't exist on the map during your inspection, please bypass it. It's just your illusion.
2. As the volcanic area is hot and there are many shifts, you and other staff need to change shifts every two hours. Please make sure that the staff who change shifts with you wear the same blue uniforms as you. If he wears a white uniform, refuse his request and close the volcanic area for 2 hours until the next shift staff takes over.
3. If you feel hot in the volcanic area, you can take ice drinks from the staff site and drink them. If you still feel very hot, you can contact other staff and change your shift in advance. Remember, do not take off the blue staff uniform under any circumstances. This is your proof as our staff.
4. The fire dragon in the volcanic park is a sculpture that our park spent a lot of money to build. However, please do not stare at the fire dragon for a long time. If you hear the sound from the direction of the fire dragon or see the eyes of the fire dragon lit up, it is your illusion. You can go to the staff site of the ice and snow park to rest and let the next staff replace you.
5. If a tourist reports to you that he feels hot, please take him to the ice and snow area. After a period of time, if tourists still feel unwell, they can take out ice drinks from the staff site for tourists to drink, and recommend them to go to the ocean area to relax.
6. if a tourist reports to you that he has met an animal on the road, please persuade the tourist to leave first, lure the animal to the ocean park and introduce it into the water. Then your task is over and you can return to your original position.
7. The staff site is also a store selling goods to tourists. Please check whether there are hot drinks on the shelves twice a day. If you find hot drinks, please recycle them to the storage box in the store. Other staff will come to recycle them. Do not take them away and sell them to customers.
8. The marine park will hold a lighting exhibition at 8 o'clock every night until 9 o'clock. If you see the lighting exhibition being held in the ocean park at other times, please take the tourists away from the ocean area and tell them that this is only technical maintenance, so that they don't have to panic.
9. The business hours of the park are from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. If any tourist fails to leave before the park closing time, please lead him to the hotel in the ice and snow area, arrange his accommodation, and check that the stove in the hotel is closed before leaving. Don't forget to wake him up at 8 a.m. the next day to remind him to leave the park. You can appropriately delay waking up tourists, but don't wake them up early. Be sure to clear the hotel before 9 o'clock.
10. Finally, remember that you are our staff, wearing blue uniforms, and refuse and ignore the requests of staff in other colors. They are not our staff.
A note found in the hotel bedside table
Memorandum from the park director
1. Accept any staff, regardless of whether the staff is wearing a blue uniform or a white uniform. Even if the amusement park only provides blue uniforms to regular staff, the staff in white uniforms will also be treated as normal staff.
2. At least three bottles of cold drinks are always available in the office. If they are not enough, contact the staff in blue uniforms to add them.
3. It's normal to hear roars in the amusement park. Don't pay attention to it and pretend not to hear it.
4. Strictly abide by the time regulations, and ensure that the opening and closing times of the park are on time, not early or late.
5. Check the normal operation of various facilities in the park every day to ensure that the lighting show in the ocean park can be carried out on time. Light show is the way to suppress "it".
6. The ocean park can free them from hopelessness. They are innocent. Please pray for them.
7. "it" can't accurately distinguish animals from people, and it can keep cold from being discovered by him.
8. The forest park exists, but it cannot be known by staff and tourists because it is too dangerous.
9. Keep yourself sober, which is the key to ensure the stable operation of the amusement park.
10. Always remember that protecting the safety of all tourists and staff is more important than anything else.
Project Rationale
Inspiration:
Under the influence of the new weird movement, we plan to tell a story related to the new strange talk literature. We intend to use this story to show the unique charm of new grotesque literature. Because new weird is a European and American literary school that rose in the 1990s, the popularity of new weird literature in China is very low, even though many people may have read relevant representative works. It happened that in the second half of 2021, an original rule strange weird in the anonymous version of “A Island” was widely spread on the Chinese Internet, and a lot of secondary creation and doujin work emerged at once, which showed that the public was interested in this emerging theme and model. But many people may not know it well, so we plan to join the new strange talk literature movement in this way, so that the public can better understand this kind of literature.
After reading a new strange story, people first feel strange or twisted. The essence of this "description that can bring wonderful feelings" is also the particularity of new weird literature: "it uses very normal and logical words to describe, but it describes emotionally strange and abnormal things". The detailed definition in literature is: follow rationality and logic, make the objective reality more huge, complex and strange, and surpass the perceptual cognition. This inspired us to tell such a new weird story.
Critical Analysis:
The concepts and contents related to: Transmedia storytelling and Multimedia storytelling are used in the project of our group.
The most important point of our group's project is that the medium that gave us inspiration at the beginning was short stories based on text media. We decided to use video as a medium to express the charm of this new weird of rules from words. Of course, because the text of the rules of the new weird needs a lot of space to show the story, and our video is time limited, so we use a single story line to reflect a part of the rule set, to tell a story that can be fully described in the space. Similarly, this will bring us some restrictions, so we have also improved the rules of a pure text version. Watching the two together can bring you the best experience of the wonders of new strange talk.
Our group used video media and text media to jointly express a story. At the same time, the story is not fixed and restricted. In the video, we use a character to experience the story formed by these rules. In the text media, we use different rules to connect together to build a complete worldview of Wonderland amusement park. We use more than these media, including the design of posters and other visual pictures, and the design of music also serve the storytelling, which is what I think of as multimedia storytelling. Similarly, this world view can be recreated. We publish it on social media. People with ideas can build the world together by adding their own creation rules to it, and everyone can create it again and with others. I think this is a major feature of transmedia storytelling, about the flow and continuation of stories between different media. It is no longer confined to a fixed framework, and the story shuttles through the world like a river. Different River tributaries can also be merged or the same river can be separated into new tributaries, in which the story is carried, and finally merged into a vast ocean of stories. This enables different media and medium, different methods and forms, different cultures and the world to communicate together, forming an open world story. I also hope that this can be a better future for the world, breaking through various restrictions and achieving the ultimate liberation of storytelling.
Similar Media:
SCP foundation website.
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The game "Control" of Remedy Studio, "LobotomyCorporation" and "Library Of Ruina".
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The works of China·Miéville and Jeff Vandermeerthe: the novel "Perdido Street Station" ,"The Southern Reach" and "The New Weird"
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The film "Annihilation" .
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(all belong to the New Weird).
