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Notes from the creator: designing a world for transmedia expression & engagement

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Notes from the creator: designing a world for transmedia expression & engagement

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Content
Notes from the Creator:
Designing a World for Transmedia Expression & Engagement

By
Stephanie J. Henderson

Master of Fine Arts
Interactive Media & Games Division
School of Cinematic Arts
University of Southern California
August, 2018

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………… 3
Introduction………………………………………………………………………….… 4
Development…………………………………………………………………………… 6
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………. 10

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ABSTRACT

Moss Haven is a creatively adaptive multi-media project that experiments with collaborative
development as play in tandem with the refinement of the creator’s artistic voice and
narrative fluencies. Moss Haven’s heavily craft-based worldbuilding (a full town of
miniatures inhabited by living costumed snails as the townsfolk) takes as its interactive
premise the breaking of the 4th wall for its transmedia storytelling, and hopes to cultivate a
small community by eliciting curiosity, surprise, and delight, and encouraging psychological
and sociological reflection and compassion.

This paper and it’s coverage of the project development (including images and media links)
will be transcribed and expanded upon at:
http://scalar.usc.edu/works/notes-from-the-creator/index

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INTRODUCTION

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts
of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived…” - Henry David Thoreau

I “went to” the program because Sheryl Sandberg told me to lean-in, to front my
place in the emerging media landscape, and see if I could not find traction enough to fulfill
her command, so that one day I could die, and know rather than complaining about the
state of the industry, I’d tried. I wanted to make things that mattered to ME, not because I
was a thirty-something woman, or an arts & letters type, or a mom, but because nothing
much good was fucking being made for thirty-something women, or arts & letters types, or
moms.
Is it egocentric or self-important to want to join an industry just to make certain
things you like are being produced? Theses are often structured around points of progress in
research or application, or contributing to the greater field of knowledge… all very noble
but this thesis is different. This thesis sets out to create a bespoke creative laboratory for a
creator looking to break ground in developing original interactive transmedia IPs.
The unfortunate lacking of interactive projects I found interesting propelled me to
create some myself. Where once I may have been satisfied if a property only checked off a
few boxes of interest, I now had the opportunity to tailor-make a project that is in every

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way created from the interests and values I hold dear. Very exciting! Less exciting was the
prospect of designing a project within the capacity of my rudimentary coding skills. My first
year in the program was incredibly difficult; having no prior experience in coding and
having so many projects require the use of Unity my creative drive was stymied and I felt
like I never had a strong enough grasp on the technology to exemplify my artistic ideals
effectively.
So that first summer, out of sheer frustration, I set out to produce something I would
have complete control over. Taking inventory of my skills and resources, I knew I would
need to create something with analog visuals. But I did not want to work with actors,
knowing the production heavy aspects that come into play with each human added to the
mix… I wanted to be creatively nimble. I’d considered toys, but I didn’t have the patience
for stop-motion and didn’t want to deal with IP issues. Then it occured to me: all those
snails I’d been railing against in the front yard! If you can’t beat them, turn them into your
slow moving actors. I produced a series of test videos with the snails and some miniatures I
picked up from the local Michaels. (See fig. 1) The combination of weird and slimy with
cute and delicate was too good to deny; Moss Haven’s first glimmers brought forth.

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Fig.1 An image from the first set of Moss Haven test shoots; property of writer, 2015.

DEVELOPMENT

Once I knew I would be using filmed and photographed snails as my base for the
project I next turned to thinking about how interactivity could be developed. I thought
about the types of interactivity I’d loved most as a kid. More than “games” was the “play” of
interactivity. Rather than engaging structured rules of games I much preferred to play with
Barbies - much more akin to improv theater - and I wondered why there wasn’t anything
like this being made, something collaborative where intentionally meaningful narrative
decisions can be made in a variety of contexts… In play participants get to contribute to
direction and growth. Also, my definition of play includes ephemerality; there’s a
participatory intimacy to play that I feel is lost in our society as we move through

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developmental phases. I believe this is the basic reason I had such a long break from games as
I aged, the lack of intimacy and depth as compared to film and television stories left games
feeling lackluster to me, a series of actions that could be repeated continuously until the
desired result was achieved. So I decided with the snails as actors I’d like to see if I could get
something similar to the improvised feeling of playing dolls. Now I just needed to decide on
format.
Originally I had thought I would use Eko Studio’s Interlude development tool,
which allows for uninterrupted interactive video. But during development research as I was
typing in aspects of what I wanted the engagement with the audience to feel like I came
across Henry Jenkins’ website Confessions of an ACA Fan in which he systematically breaks
down transmedia storytelling. (Jenkins) THIS WAS MY ANSWER. Transmedia would
allow me to break down narrative into multiple facets… instead of focusing on one
branching story I could flesh out aspects of the whole town - the worldbuilding potential
reminded me of the types of creative work I’d done as a kid. It also allowed the intricate
nature of the miniatures to take center stage. So I continued forward with the snails and a
transmedia delivery.
Everything within the world of Moss Haven was built with potential for narrative
depth. The town set was designed with three neighborhoods, rural, urban, and suburban.
(See figs. 2, 3 & 4) Everything building has their own snail with a personality designed
through a combination of archetypes, no one character is all good or bad. (See fig. 5) I
created a website for the town where “they” (the residents) can post news articles or place
advertisements. (See fig. 6) The town council can post the minutes of their meetings. I

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thought for a long time about how I would be able to diegetically involve the audience in
the town and its character’s growth. In the end I’ve decided to have the audience act as sort
of “spirits” to the world, with differing levels of access and points of entry. For example, they
can become a Patron Saint through the church, or a “higher power” through the Blue
Butterfly collective, giving direction to the townsfolk through intermediaries, council votes,
or direct contact.
But just as important as the interaction was my desire to create a playground type
laboratory for myself to figure out what types of interactions work best with the types of
stories I want to tell. With a few notable exceptions, most games don’t allow you to
participate in a story as their main interactive device, instead tacking (an often good) story
onto competitive or fighting-based mechanics. To be honest, I just don’t find fighting
games engaging, I simply don’t care about “winning” them. One of the aspects of the
transmedia approach that appealed to me so much was the idea of being able to continually
add to the world, giving it layers of depth, but also because it would allow me to be creative
in whatever form I wanted, the creative constraints are so limited. I could make
commercials, books of lore, letters between residents, news articles, Cleric’s sermons, etc.
Which also meant a ton of different facets for Moss Haven fans to poke around. As I honed
the landscape I would be working in I began to coalesce around a set of core goals :
1. Moss Haven would be a genre hybrid through its transmedia storytelling
websites, prose, advertising, interactive video, and exhibitions.
2. Moss Haven would be grounded in intricate worldbuilding, with dynamic
systems, complex characters, multiple locations, and built in lore.

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3. Moss Haven would, whenever possible, consist of analog visuals, hand-crafted
and richly textured.
4. Moss Haven’s narrative voice would sway between comedy and pathos.
5. The interactivity of Moss Haven would be simple enough that anyone could
be involved, but deep enough to support reflection.
6. The Moss Haven experience would be a one-off, forward moving, ephemeral
entity.

Production of the first interactive episode was shelved when a director of
photography proved unreliable. Luckily this did not halt progress, since there are so many
facets the project was simply pivoted to focus on building out the transmedia facets. More
work was put into the town’s website as well as the creation of an interactive town map.
A Facebook development page was started to begin engaging people with the ideas
and gauge interest. I discovered people were most interested in engaging posts when a
specific question was asked of them, like when I asked which grass color looked better for
the hilly area of town. Or when I asked people to help brainstorm what snails do with the
shells of their departed. I also experimented with posting to niche sites, dollhouse miniaturist
groups, fairy garden groups, etc. This was a real boon. The people in these groups are so
encouraging and invested in each other’s growth and helping creatively problem solve I
knew I found my sweet spot for playtesters.
The Thesis Exhibition took up the remaining work hours of the semester, both in
setting up the town and displays, getting the explanatory posters written, creating a “Which

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Moss Haven Neighborhood Do You Belong In” quiz, and preparing a voting event.
Reaction at the event was incredibly encouraging. The spectacle and largess of the set in
addition to it being such a different project for a games event brought a lot of people over
with questions and helped me narrow down the most efficient ways to explain the design
process and motivations behind Moss Haven.

CONCLUSION

Moving forward, there is much to be done before beta launch. I have signed up to
present a short talk on Moss Haven at a “Different Games” conference which has “Craft” as
one of its tracks. I believe getting creative interest in the project could lead to funding which
would mean I could focus on Moss Haven instead of pursue it in the off hours of another
paid job’s schedule, though Moss Haven was conceived with the idea that adding to
transmedia facets would be possible in such a situation. Outside of getting awareness out and
funding I am in the middle of deciding what I want the first set of media to be. The way I
am devising it, the always frazzled and behind in his responsibilities Moss Haven Hare (a
weird sort of intermediary between the town and human audience) is transferring Moss
Haven information to the web in installments. Each new installment will deliver multiple
bits of overlapping information and contexts, providing different perspectives on what’s
going on in the town and character’s lives. It’s a slow moving process, but one that I want to
be sure I get right, by that meaning that I am happy with the direction. Since I intend Moss
Haven to be an ephemeral experience, and since it may be the only project of its magnitude

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I have complete creative control over, I feel no desire to rush it, but rather to playfully use it
to further my exploration of interactive boundaries and possibilities.

For more on Moss Haven’s ongoing development please visit:
● Moss Haven Visual Overview (photos of Exhibition, Production, and Design Doc)
● Explanatory List of Henry Jenkins’ Transmedia 101 as applied to Moss Haven
● Moss Haven Design Document
● Moss Haven on Facebook

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WORKS CITED

Jenkins, Henry. 2007. Transmedia Storytelling 101. Electronic document,
http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html, accessed April
2018.

Thoreau, Henry David. 1854. Walden. Electronic document,
http://www.literaturepage.com/read/walden.html, accessed June 2018.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Henderson, Stephanie J. (author)

Core Title Notes from the creator: designing a world for transmedia expression & engagement

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 08/16/2018

Defense Date 08/15/2018

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,Snails,worldbuilding

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Wixon, Dennis (committee chair), Lemarchand, Richard (committee member), Watson, Jeff (committee member)

Creator Email kermielovesyou@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-72201

Unique identifier UC11672490

Identifier etd-HendersonS-6769.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-72201 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-HendersonS-6769.pdf

Dmrecord 72201

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Henderson, Stephanie J.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA