Some stories work best when they come at the audience from different angles. By using multiple media, you can surprise people and give characters an added dimension.
The audience can read characters’ thoughts, find out more about their past, discover secrets and even talk to them and shape the story. In short, the audience becomes more involved.
I’ve had the chance to experiment with a huge range of media, from the high-tech to the highly unlikely. My digital radio play, The Parson, was the first to use the scrolling DAB text to show interior monologues from the characters. Xi used a games console as the main way of interacting. Thinking Aloud combined live performance and audio drama. Perplex City used just about every medium imaginable.
When you get an audience involved like this, you can really change the way they see the world. That’s the power of a good story well told.
- Xi, nDreams for Sony
- Thinking Aloud, ICA
- Emergency SubNET, Channel 4
- Bill Hogan, Six to Start & BBC
- Frozen Indigo Angel, Mind Candy & BBC Radio 1
- Perplex City, Mind Candy
- The Parson, BBC7
And I’m working on another project for nDreams right now: a global ARG that will tell a story in eight languages with live events and video and websites and mobile content throughout most of 2010. It’s funded by a large brand and I’m not allowed to say much more. But I promise it will be fun.
