5B Transcoding Storytelling/2
Session 5 – July 3, 11:00 – 13:00
Developing an Artistic Research Methodology to Evaluate Writing Format Possibilities for Cinematic Virtual Reality Scenarios
While traditional film and television is viewed on a screen, 360-degree productions have no edge (Dooley, 2017). This is a technical challenge for teams used to typical film shoots, due to the lack of places where to hide lights and other crew.
Additionally, most of the screenwriting language depends on the existence of the screen edge.
To write for the immersive format, is to write for a three-dimensional world that is an intensive experience prone to user saturation. VR could be considered an artistic form on its
own right, like film or theater (Aylett and Louchart, 2003).
The proposal of a writing format for VR has generated discussion akin to the one for the definition of what was a theatrical text in the 16th century. The points of this discussion relate to the type of dramas that are favoured, intended readers, and artistic control (Ross, 2018).
In this paper I propose a methodology to involve film and game writers in the development of a standard screenwriting format for Virtual Reality. This with the intention to identify the features that a VR screenplay could include so it is understandable to all areas involved in the production of Cinematic Virtual Reality works.
Bio
Ana Falcon is a Mexican junior researcher with experience in film and digital media.
She won twice the Nuevo Leon Short Film Script Contest (Mexico, 2011/ 2014), and was awarded 3rd place and Honorable Mention in Atzavares Short Story Contest (Spain, 2009).
In 2019, she was a screenwriting finalist in the Watersprite International Student Film Festival hosted by the University of Cambridge.
She was selected for the 2008 Fusion Arts Exchange in Screenwriting and Film Production hosted by the University of Southern California and the US State Department. In 2017, she
was distinguished with a Young Creators FONCA grant from the Mexican Culture Ministry.
In 2016 she received an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to participate in the Kino Eyes European Cinema Master programme. Her graduation thesis “Digital Marketing Strategies for Next Generation Cinema” was published in the International Journal of Film and Media Studies. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater, where she is researching screenwriting formats for Cinematic Virtual Reality.