Sarah Davies

These are my notes from the TEDxSeattle panel “The Evolution of Storytelling” by Elan Lee.

As storytelling evolves, those who cling on to what’s comfortable and force their audiences to consume stories in ways that are outdated will always fail.

In 2001, Elan was working at Microsoft on the xbox. He met with Steven Spielberg about making a videogame related to the movie A.I. It’s a movie about a little robotic boy who wants to be real. It was a very depressing movie, and they were worried that people wouldn’t leave the movie wanting to play the videogame. They set up a convoluted game spanning thousands of webpages and phone number and email addresses to make an interactive game. They used the phrase “this is not a game” repeatedly. Turns out it was a bad idea.

Elan’s dad owns an antique store called “Aunt Teeks.” He had a first edition print of Robinson Crusoe. It was the first bound distributed book in the English Language. On the first page, it says that the book is fact, not fiction. The reason is because at the time, there was no fiction. Stories were for kids. This idea evenutally morphed into the phrase “once upon a time.”

This has happened before. Movies are opened and closed by curtains just like theater. That was intended to differentiate the art that they thought movies should be from the short films at fairs.

When we take the next step into internet storytelling, why do we shrink movies down to the size of a postage stamp and put them online? Why don’t we tell stories in a whole new way?

Elan worked on a project called Cathy’s Book. They wanted to explore what was possible through online storytelling. It was an interactive diary, with real phone numbers and email addresses that you could interact with. The fictional Cathy has a Facebook page. People actually wished her happy birthday on her birthday. This character has entered the world of the readers.

The Watchmen has a website where Rorschach can call your phone, and how you an inkblot on the screen and you can have a conversation with him where the inkblot morphs into what you say and you can unlock new movie content.

These things take time. We’re not done playing with the internet and figuring out how to tell stories.

To all those companies out there who refuse to evolve, who sue their users, you are going to fail. You can’t define when and where we can watch your show. You can’t define what media is to the audience anymore. Media is a collaboration.

Sarah’s commentary
Great talk! Very salient points.

Posted by Sarah Davies, filed under TEDxSeattle. Date: April 16, 2010, 9:37 am | View Comments