When you have successfully completed this course, you will be able to:
1. recognise, differentiate and describe the narrative forms and structures discussed in the course, along with the associated concepts and terms;
2. identify and describe the relationship between the narrative forms discussed and certain medium-specific characteristics of media and performance;
3. recognise and describe the relationship between the narrative forms discussed and the manner in which a given form directs the audience in their experience and perceptions;
4. apply the terms and concepts learned during the course in a productive way, in order to analyse a sub-component of a concrete form of storytelling;
5. report the findings of your analysis in a structured fashion;
6. study basic academic texts in a structured fashion;
7. take notes and apply and/or modify them during lectures in a structured fashion;
8. apply the Chicago Manual of Style system when citing any literature references used.
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In this course, you will learn about theatre, film, television and games as storytelling media. We will be paying particular attention to the very different ways in which stories may be structured and constructed, and what that means for how the audience watches, experiences or takes part in the story.
The course will address a number of narrative forms and -structures, such as the Aristotelian tragedy, the classic Hollywood-movie narrative, the television series (serial storytelling) and the narrative game (environmental storytelling). This list seems to suggest that each medium – theatre, film, television and games – has its own form of storytelling, but that suggestion is incorrect. While it is perhaps true that certain narrative forms have developed in a specific medium, and certain narrative forms are more obvious choices for one medium than for another, media forms are also constantly borrowing from one another. In recent years, for instance, there have been numerous theatre performances that were inspired by games and game-based structures. In such performances, the audience does not merely sit in a chair watching a story unfold; rather, they are led along a set trajectory through various spaces as they themselves take an active role in the story being told. At the same time, an increasing number of game designers are creating digital games that are intended not for play on the computer, but rather on the streets and other public spaces.
For that reason, this course will – on the one hand – focus on the specific characteristics of various media and on what these mean for the way in which they are able to convey stories; on the other hand, we will also pause to reflect on the fact that media never exist in isolation. Various media constantly influence one another in their development, meaning they also influence one another in the way they tell stories and the result they hope to achieve through those stories in terms of their audience.
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