Updated Quick Reference

This now includes the links for assignment 4 and 5 as well as the extended due date for Pass Three.

Download TSC Quick Reference v. 3

Jeff Wirth Guest Lecture on 7/2

I have arranged for a special guest lecture from Jeff Wirth for next week’s Monday night class. Jeff will be joining us on July 2nd to talk about interactive narrative and to help us brainstorm ideas for Pass Four. If you have any questions or concerns in regard to Pass Four, please plan to attend!

Download Facade

For anyone interested in the Facade software mentioned in Part I of the text, you can download a copy here: http://www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/mainpages/new/july06/facade.html#.  If you have any trouble using the BitTorrent protocol or with accessing the installer let me know and I can bring a burned loaner copy to class on CD.

Assignment 5: Community Building

Thanks to Marissa’s suggestion in class last night, I’ve decided to give you some incentive to read your classmates’ postings and provide some feedback to them on their stories thus far. So, for assignment 5, you will need to read and respond to at least four different pass one or pass two stories posted on the student blogs. You should post comments that help these individuals to better prepare their stories for passes three and four. While you can be (and should be) kind and you may even be blown away by the amazing narrative expression of a particular student, it is likely much more helpful to them if you are somewhat critical and look at the piece with an eye for suggestion and improvement rather than just praising their efforts. Feel free to let them know you enjoyed the piece, though, and remember that everyone has worked extremely hard on their stories so please be diplomatic and respectful with any comments or ideas you post. Also, please be mindful of the number of responses each story has; if there is a story with five comments and others don’t have any, please post to the stories with fewer comments so that everyone has the potential opportunity to receive feedback from their peers.

To simplify grading, you should also copy and paste each of your comments into a Word file and upload that file to WebCT by the due date. Please indicate next to each comment whose blog the comment was posted to. So, the document you upload to WebCT should contain a listing of all of your comments as well as annotations showing where each of these comments was posted.

You may also find it helpful to read the story proposal for any selected blog so that you have an idea as to the original purpose and target audience the author is aiming for.

Example of an acceptable comment (this is not based on anyone’s story, but shows what I am looking for in terms of depth/analysis): “This was a great read and I appreciate you sharing it. I liked the way that Bob the milkman seemed to be villainous but actually turned out to be the hero in the end. I have a couple ideas you might think about for your later passes. First, how might you better show the relationship between Bob and Mary? Also, I wonder if the picture of the milk truck was more distracting than helpful to the narrative? Good luck on your future passes!”

Example of a poor comment: “This was a nice story and I enjoyed reading it. Your characters were realistic and I liked the plot. The pictures were also pretty. Good stuff.”

In other words, I’d like to see concrete, specific, and authentic reactions to the stories and detailed advice for revision. Of course you are not expected to follow all advice or implement every suggested change, but you should at least carefully consider all ideas and implement those you feel will improve the quality of your work.

Four comments is the minimum you need for full credit. Feel free to comment as many times as you like, though, and also feel free to reply to any comments posted to your own blog. The more interaction and participation we can create for this assignment, the better your final stories are likely to be!

Rubric (out of ten points):
__ / 8: Four helpful, substantial postings are made to student blogs
__ / 2: Correct process is followed to upload posting summary to WebCT

This assignment is due to WebCT by Sunday, July 8, by 11:55PM.

A Fair(y) Use Tale

Thanks to Damon for pointing out this clever video on Fair Use and Copyright: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/documentary-film-program/film/a-fair-y-use-tale.  The fast cuts become a little repetitive and grating after a while, but it’s very informative and in an interesting format considering our class and our discussion last night on Disney

Please be careful about using copyrighted images in your stories.  You can find a large collection of public domain resources here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources.  You should also include a list of sources for any images used (though you won’t be penalized if this is missing from Pass 2, please go back and add them in if you haven’t already done so).

WikiMedia Commons is also a great resource and is available here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.  You can find additional sources using a Google search for  “public domain images” or “public domain music” or “public domain videos” etc.

Assignment 4: First Person Flickr!

First Person Flikr! (aka A Flickr is Worth a Thousand Words)

Hi Everyone,

In honor of our transition into the First Person text, we will be composing miniature first-person stories for our minor assignment this week. For assignment four, you will be experimenting further with image and text as you create a layered image that tells a first-person perspective story about some event in your life that has been significant or meaningful to you. Remember that a first-person perspective is told from your personal perspective and is characterized by pronouns such as “I, me, my” etc. Using the note tool available in Flickr, you will need to annotate the image to provide information about the story your particular image is telling (remember that the critical elements of story are character, conflict, and environment). Choose a photograph of suitable size and complexity and add at least four layered notes with textual information that frames or situates the reader within your story. Feel free to be creative –it is not necessary to use a photograph with people in it to complete this assignment (though there is nothing wrong with this if you prefer to use this method). You could tell an equally complete and engaging story using a photograph of old farm equipment, stars in the sky, a musical instrument, or a picture of your first automobile. It is up to you to choose visual content that you feel frames a defining moment or important instance from your past.

Detailed Instructions:
1. Create an account at http://www.flickr.com/.
2. Login, then upload a photograph to your gallery (direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/upload/).
3. Write a single paragraph that explains your selection of photograph and discusses the source of conflict in the photograph.
4. Click on the photograph to bring up the editing pane.
5. Using the “Add Note” tool, add four different notes to various parts of your picture, annotating the image. You may choose to add text that explains the story you believe the photograph is telling, to give the subjects within the photograph dialogue, or to extend or define the narrative in any other creative fashion. Feel free to experiment with notes until you find an overall effect you like.
6. Add any tags to your image that you feel are relevant. Include one tag named “fil5810.”
7. When finished with your editing and tagging, copy the hyperlink from the URL address bar of your browser and embed that link (using Insert, Hyperlink, or CTRL+k) into a Word file. Below the link, paste the paragraph you wrote in step three.
8. Post your paragraph and a link to your Flickr image to your personal blog. Feel free to comment on others’ pictures!

Learning objectives: By completing this assignment, you will learn to:
1. Use the online image sharing and manipulation tool Flickr
2. Select and evaluate visual media for narrative appropriateness and complexity
3. Annotate visual narratives with textual information to focus the experience of your reader(s)

Rubric (out of ten points):
__ / 7: Document (text+image) communicates in a narrative fashion, conveying a definite sense of conflict, character, and environment
__ / 2: Document is linked from personal blog and a paragraph description and hyperlink (in a Word file) are uploaded to WebCT
__ / 1: Image is tagged with fil5810 and any other appropriate tags

This assignment is due to be posted to your personal blog and uploaded to WebCT by Sunday, June 24, at 11:55pm.

Here is an example of something that would be appropriate for this assignment: rodeo days. Remember that you also need to provide a brief paragraph explaining your selection and discussing the source of conflict. Have fun with this assignment, and let me know if you have any questions!

Pass 2 Due Tomorrow

Don’t forget that your major project Pass 2 is due tomorrow (image + text).  All grades for your proposals and Pass 1 stories are available in WebCT, and detailed feedback is provided as an attached Word file.  Let me know if you have any trouble accessing my comments.

Updated TSC Quick Reference

There was a minor typo on the last quick reference sheet (thanks to Matt Walsh for pointing it out).  The link to Assignment 3 was linking to Assignment 2.  This has been corrected in this version. TSQ Quick Reference v. 2

AIIIDE ‘07 Conference

There are a few interesting papers on interactive storytelling on the Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIIDE) Conference Web site: http://aigamedev.com/coverage/aiide-2007-papers. These may be more useful for the second portion of the course, but those of you working with the modeling and simulation of narrative may find them interesting for your story development. I wasn’t able to access the first PDF file, but the paper from Heather Barber opened up for me and looks to be interesting.

TSC Quick Reference

Hi Everyone — due to the distributed nature of our course this semester, I think some students remain confused about certain elements of the class (primarily the various weekly assignments).  I’ve noticed in particular that everyone seems to be using different naming conventions for the various assignments.  So, I’ve created the following quick reference guide to help you easily see when assignments will be due, what their official names are, and how you should be submitting them.  I have also added all due dates to the WebCT calendar as reminders.  I’m hoping this will help to make things easier for you all in terms of figuring out when assignments are due and how they should be turned in.  I will also post this document to our course Wiki along with our other files.  Let me know if I can do anything else to help make these mechanisms more transparent.
Download the FIL5810 Quick Reference Sheet