Transcending reality

By James Milward 18-06-2015

The future of entertainment, much like its past, will come from great stories. In the next five to 10 years, however, new technologies and platforms will redefine how a viewer connects with a story and what the experience means to them.

These new platforms present exciting possibilities and a complex set of challenges but, if creators get it right, the stories of the future will be more powerful, meaningful and affecting than ever before.

Use technology to tell a great story – this seems straightforward. The problem is, we keep getting in our own way. Technological innovation alone cannot sustain a meaningful connection with an audience. It’s about the story – told in a way that embraces a platform’s unique strengths and possibilities.

If done correctly, the construction of a story fades away, leaving a meaningful narrative experience that transcends the platform itself. Lofty stuff, but nobody walked out of Star Wars talking about how neat the projector was.

So how will stories be told in five to 10 years? At Secret Location we’ve broken this question down into three core structural elements, creating a process for ideation that’s getting us closer than ever to transcendent storytelling experiences.

1. Story: Identity and meaning will influence structure
The emergence of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware is about to shake up the way we consider perspective in storytelling. With creators now able to completely immerse their audience inside the story, they must also grapple with what that immersion means. Is the viewer a character in the story? Are they themselves in the story? Why are they in the story? What does their involvement mean? Failure to consider these questions creates a sort of existential disconnect in the viewer, and breaks their suspension of disbelief. An experience might still be cool, but nobody’s going to lose themselves in it. This will have larger ramifications in traditional media formats as well, as audiences start to expect more immersive formats.

Prediction: There are no hard and fast rules to answer these questions, and more problems will arise before solutions to address. Those who will succeed will be able to answer this challenge in the context of the experience they’re trying to create, along with what they want it to ‘mean’ to the audience. These questions will loom large in the coming years, as virtual reality matures from a new technology into an art form and influences legacy media as a result.

2. Form: Media moves back inside
Whether it was moving from theatre to film, or from radio to TV, every new media channel demands creators respond to its possibilities. Length of viewer engagement has steadily decreased over the past decade, with smaller screens and on-demand content on mobile devices enabling viewers to take their content with them wherever they go.
Emerging immersive platforms like VR and AR are poised to move audiences in the other direction, offering a rich and rewarding experience that demands full attention. For example, technically you could run a VR experience on the bus, but you probably wouldn’t want to – this means media will come back to being a destination experience.

Prediction: The length and structure of narrative content will normalise at roughly 10 to 15 minutes – longer than a web series episode, but shorter than an episode of Friends.

3. Function: Send in the clowns
In the on-demand era, viewers have high expectations of not only when they engage with content, but how they engage with it. Beyond who the viewer is, it is also the creator’s responsibility to decide what impact a viewer has on the overall experience.
In addition to determining the choices viewers can make to affect a story’s outcome (as in a branching narrative), creators must determine how the narrative will adapt to serve viewer engagement and offer a personalised story with the least amount of friction. This can be achieved by linking platforms and formats, leveraging the strengths of each channel. Viewers’ personal data can be used to shape the narrative, while at the same time capturing their behaviour patterns – creating a constantly evolving, cross-platform narrative.
This approach extends narrative across multiple platforms (including those that have yet to be introduced), with stories adapting to viewer engagement on the fly. The result is a deeply personalised narrative, seamlessly stitched into your life. Think David Fincher’s The Game, only with fewer nightmare clowns in your living room.

Prediction: There will be the development and growth of story formats that can integrate into our lives in powerful new ways, creating affecting experiences while underscoring the need for clear boundaries around privacy.