Kathryn Corrick discusses how digital media can be used to tell stories in creative and engaging ways. She provides examples such as The Blair Witch Project film marketing campaign, which created an online mythology to promote the movie. Corrick also discusses using platforms like Twitter, Flickr, and location-based apps to augment reality and tell interactive tales. The presentation encourages experimenting with different digital formats and keeping stories simple so they are accessible to audiences.

1. MA in Creative Entrepreneurship – telling tales using digital media University of East Anglia 16 November 2010 © Emreteers 2007 ©kathryn corrick

4. Once upon a time… Telling tales using digital media

5. Are you sitting comfortably? Then let me take you back to 1999

6. In the summer of 1999 I was living in New York

7. This was the view from the apartment roof.

8. It was a great part of town, and most days I walked past the Angelika – an independent cinema. So one evening I decided to go and see a film, and for reasons that are too far back to remember, but I’d like to think it’s because I’d picked up along the way that it was worth seeing, I went to watch…

9. The Blair Witch Project

10. Until almost half way through the film (other than jumping out of my seat every now and then) I kept wondering… ‘when will this flip out of hand-held cam-corder mode?’ Of course it didn’t, that was the point…

11. I then had to walk home…

12. The film was as much about the story it created around itself to get distributed… ‘ A buzz was created on and off line to promote the film via the creation of a myth that the creators had found actual footage of an unexplainable phenomenon left by a missing group of campers. The creators themselves seeded this myth by appearing on Pierson show "Split Screen" with 8 minutes of footage they claimed was found in the woods. Pierson encouraged indie aficionados to debate the truth of the Blair Witch on his web site. When The Blair Witch Project website went live they further spread the disinformation. The film was introduced as Sundance during midnight screening, where industry and Hollywood elite were treated with same guerrila/fandom strategy, "flyering" Sundance with "missing" leaflets .’ http ://tbwp.freeservers.com/webring.html http://www.blairwitch.com/mythology.htm

14. This technique has been used to promote a number of films since. Dan Hon’s take on this form of storytelling (augmented reality) is worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhqWyhMGRLg

15. This concept was translated from film marketing to advertising Video - http://www.campfirenyc.com/archive/2006/10/10/audi-the-art-of-the-heist/

16. It’s also been translated to TV For example Heroes and Lost

17. Story - Conspiracy for Good http://www.conspiracyforgood.com/about

19. Books http://www.thedeathofbunnymunro.com/index.html

21. But what excites me? The simpler ways to tell stories…

22. The Diary of Samuel Pepys – retelling history http://www.pepysdiary.com/ http://twitter.com/#!/samuelpepys

23. Aleks Krotoski’s retelling the first 370 words of Orwell’s 1984 through photography. One word per day. http://www.flickr.com/photos/toastkid/sets/72157623154565238 /

24. Using Flickr Galleries Placing photographs from different photographers in a different order to tell a visual story. http://www.flickr.com/photos/98389526@N00/galleries/72157623481905092/

25. The Archers’ use of Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/eddie_grundy

26. Twitter tales - @Konnolsky http://twitter.com/#!/Konnolsky http://www.disqus.com/konnolsky/ ‘ Smolensk butcher. I run shop with assistant Yuri. Married to Irina (3 sons). Pic: Smolensk Nuclear Power Station’

27. Alice & Kev – homeless in Sims 3 Telling a story within a game. http://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Alice-and-Kev/220786325643 http://twitter.com/#!/aliceandkev

28. Comics 2.0 Adding your own words to pictures. http://www.nevermindthebullets.com/strip.html#1-1 Create your own - http://www.nevermindthebullets.com/createNemesis.html

29. The potential for location and augmenting reality through mobile phone apps – adding layers of information to our surroundings Museum of London: street view, iPhone app Virtual Graffiti – spray walls, passers by with the app can see your scribbles Also consider: FourSquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places

30. Bus Tops – using new spaces http://bus-tops.com/

31. Thinking about sound in 3D Papa Sangre – video game without video http://www.papasangre.com/ - iPhone 4, out soon You are lost, deep in the darkness of the land of the dead. Your eyes are useless to you here — but your ears are filled with sound. And what is it you can hear … ?