Storytelling

Storytelling

To begin this blog I have decided to start with a short definition of what storytelling is.

Storytelling

Is the conveying of events in words, images, and sounds often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture and in every land as a means of entertainment, education, preservation of culture and in order to instil moral values. Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot and characters, as well as the narrative point of view.

http://www.answers.com/topic/storytelling

I have researched into Stories and the art of which they are written. During my research I came across a man called Joseph Campbell, who wrote a book called ‘The Hero with a Thousand faces’.

It is from this book that many great Poets, Artists, Film makers and musicians have been inspired, such as Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and George Lucas to name but a few. Most notably was George Lucas’s work on his series of ‘Star Wars’ films. Within these films the characters that build up the story are particular to the writings of Campbell’s ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’, for instance you have Luke Skywalker who is the archetypal hero, Obi-Wan who is the ‘wise old man’ and Darth Vader who is the Villain or the Devil. There are several others in the film and other films follow suit in the same way such as ‘Lord of the Rings’, here you can clearly see the trickster at work in the form of ‘Gollum’.

I feel that a strong story is something that can capture the imagination and people’s desire therefore I do think that storytelling is important within its specific genre, whether that be games or films, definitely films. However sometimes within games there is no need for a story line at all. This is usually the case when it comes to sports games, however to contradict myself, there is still certain characters within even sports games, Heroes and Villains, can come in many forms and stories don’t necessarily need any words or oral dialogue to be deemed a story at all. A story can be so through many different forms including images, dance, music and imagination provoked through a convergence of media. A simple football game has my team of heroes, of course, the opposition team of villains and the referee who is the wise old man, yeah right! Campbell’s model can be applied to lots of situations and makes the basis for a perfect story. Having said all of this I feel that within games it isn’t always obvious, so therefore not always that necessary, but it does give the game a lot more depth. I think the bottom line is it depends upon the type and genre of game that it is.

There are some story lines that, without them, the game or film just would have been pretty poor or cheesy. The game ‘Max Payne’ has a superb revenge story line as it tells the story of a man hell bent on finding out who murdered his wife and new born baby. Similarly to this is the film ‘The Crow’, with its story line following the chance given to a murdered man to come back from the grave to avenge his murder and his fiancée’s murder. These types of story lines really immerse you into the film or game. They make you want to jump into the main character’s role and they really play upon your emotions. These stories give a sense of meaning to the characters that are portraying them.

There are many excellent films out there that have some truly captivating story lines and I would like to maybe pursue creating stories through games design later on in my career. There are also so many good films out there that could have been used to create equally good games from, as many have been, some good some bad.

They say ideas are cheap but a bad idea can cost alot of money!