Course syllabus

(Version 1.0 October 31st 2024) 

This is the course PM for the course "Interactive and linear storytelling with digital media". Make sure that you read it through carefully since most essential information is written down here.

Examiner: Thommy Eriksson (e-mail: thommy@chalmers.se )

Co-teachers: Negin Hashmati, Natasha Bianca Mangan, and Staffan Björk

The course will give a holistic view on interactive and linear storytelling, including movie making, focusing on the actual process of converting an idea into a script and then a final product, and the digital tools. The course will cover the following aspects, especially looking at innovative forms of productions:

• Analyzing and discussing existing stories (both from ethical viewpoints but also to learn from what others have already done)
• Crafting the story, the world and the characters
• Producing a mockup, prototype or final product
• What technological and creative advances can we anticipate in the near future?

The course is given in English (if all attending students understand Swedish, we will switch to Swedish).

Hybrid mode and flipped classroom

The course has been a hybrid mode course before the covid-19 pandemic. This is to provide flexibility for all students to attend whatever way suits you, and to encourage avoiding unnecessary traveling (to decrease our carbon footprint). What this means is that most of the learning activities (guest lecture, seminars, workshops and tutoring) can be attended either on campus or online. See the schedule for details.

The course will use a flipped classroom approach. Simply put, this means that you first watch the recorded lectures online, and then you take part in the seminars with the teacher. The advantage with flipped education is that it gives more time for interaction between students and teacher. Watching recorded lectures might seem unfamiliar at first, but the purpose is to let you take part in the lectures at your own pace and then spend the time when we actually meet on good discussions and questions.

For every seminar video and recorded lecture at Canvas there is commentary field. It is important that you make a comment, brief or extensively. The comments will then be brought up and discussed during the subsequent seminars. The comments fields also offer a time of reflections for you, and good input for the course examiner. It is also connected to the Gradebook in Canvas, so that when you have left a comment that item is checked.

A few important advice

Remember… that even if there are no live lectures in this course, it is nevertheless mandatory to watch the lectures.

Remember… to comment on the lectures and seminar videos you have seen; this is important input to the seminar discussions.

Remember… have lots of fun and ask loads of questions!

Summary of what is expected from you in this course

In short, this is what is expected of you as a student.

• Attending the course introduction
• Watching and commenting all recorded lectures
  
• Watching the recorded software workshops and try out some of the different software tools
• Preparing for seminars and workshops, including commenting on the seminar videos and handing in the workshop assignment
• Participating in seminars and workshops (see exact requirements under Grades)
• Book supervision with the examiner and/or other co-teachers
  
• Completing the media project, including hand-ins and presentations (see exact requirements under Grades)
• Fill out the course evaluation

Note that the media project is expected to take half or more of the course time, so prepare to spend about 10-15 workdays completing the media production. Also note that in the course room at Canvas there is a tool called Grades that helps you keep track of your progress.

Literature

There are no course books to buy!

We will have a number of seminars during the first weeks of the course, and the “literature” for these seminars will be the recorded lectures and the seminar movies that are published on Canvas, as well as a couple of texts. These are organized in the weekly folders in the course event on Canvas. The seminar movies take a couple of hours to watch before each seminar.

Introduction lecture

The course starts with introduction and two introduction lectures on storytelling. The course introduction and guest lecture will be held on campus.

Recorded lectures and software workshops

There are a few hours of recorded lectures on movie making and also a few hours of recorded software workshops. All of them are available on Canvas. The PowerPoint presentations that are used in the lectures are also available on Canvas. It is mandatory to watch the recorded lectures.

Seminars and workshops

During the first weeks of the course we will meet repeatedly, in seminars to talk about movies we have seen and in workshops to talk about your own story ideas.

Seminars become what we make of it together. In a seminar we first have an input (reading literature, watching movies, listening to presentations), then we discuss that and give our own personal reflections, our own output. We together, teachers and students, take on the responsibility to create an interesting discussion.

Seminars will give you the chance to discuss interactive storytelling and movie making within a specific context, with a starting point from the seminar movies published at Canvas, as well as the recorded lectures. Participation in the seminars is mandatory, see the Grades heading further down. It is important that you watch the related lectures and movies before each seminar. Don’t forget to respond to the questions related to each lecture and movie. These questions do not evaluate your knowledge or skills, they are intended to be a starting ground for the seminar discussions. In the weekly Modules on Canvas you can see which movies that you need to see before each seminar.

The online versions of the seminars are arranged as virtual conferences. We will use Zoom for this. Note that for supervision we will use Mozilla Hubs.

For every topic the seminar brings up, we also have a workshop assignment where you three times will write a story outline or treatment, and discuss this with your peers at the workshop.

Supervision

When you work with your media project, you should book supervision with the examiner and/or co-teachers. We strongly advise you to book supervision a few times during your project work. The supervision is there to lift your project and your skills. It is not a judgment or evaluation. The “judgment” will come when you have completed your project and hand it in. Think about it – it is usually the good storytellers that asks a lot of questions! The supervision can be about details or general questions, about creative issues or technical problems.

If you need more ad hoc help – technically or creatively – on other times, then use e-mail to the examiner. I check my mail several times a day, not weekends though.

Media project

The media project is described in a separate document; The Media Project.

Equipment and resources for the media project – VR headsets, cameras, audio recorder, editing software and so on

You are free to use any resources you find convenient; professional HD cameras, consumer cameras, smartphone cameras, web cameras… high-end editing software, cheap software, online cloud-based tools…

Primarily, you use your own equipment. However, you also have the option to borrow equipment from the Kuggen Studio and the Kuggen Medialab. You have access to cameras (including 360 and depth cameras), tripods, microphones, lighting equipment and so on to borrow, via the examiner Thommy Eriksson.

All bookings of resources are on a first-come basis. If you haven’t booked, there is no guarantee that you will have access to the equipment.

We will have a few computers for editing or other production work in the Studio on the second floor in Kuggen. You can also get access to Kuggen Medialab on the third floor in Kuggen. For this to be arranged you need to talk to the course examiner, and do that well in time since your access can take a week or so to process.

Grades

The course grade is Fail / Pass. This is what you must do in order pass the course.

• Complete the media project, including hand-ins and participation on at least four of the five presentations (3 Pitch workshops, Half-Time and Final).
• Participation on at least 2 of the 3 seminars.
  
• The media project is assessed from three perspectives: interesting content, creative form, and technical quality.

Guests

During the course you will meet the following guests.

Gorki Glaser-Müller

Gorki is a film director that have been exploring virtual reality, volumetric video, and other interesting technology for storytelling the last few years. He works for Visual Arena and also have his own production company.