This is the second post in a series of posts about new cross-media researchers. Introducing…
Andrew McKenzie, PhD candidate, Creative Media, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Here is his description, from a listserv conversation:
My research is into areas of narrative structure and content creation. For my PHD I’m going to be devising theories surrounding the way that narrative and content must adapt for 3g Mobile Video technology. I’m using my thesis screenplay from my MA in Creative Writing as a foundation and template to producing content for Mobile Video.
As a case study I intend to examine Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series in various forms including radio plays, novel, computer games, stage play, television series, and feature film and devise theories surrounding the relationship of character to narrative and exposition.
Andrew will be changing his website to be a blog soon. I look forward to catching up with him when he’s in Melbourne, and discussing narrative & cross-media. Yay!
I am currently completing the script for my episodic drama for the mobile phone and the small screen poses so many challenges and constraints, but that is what makes it so interesting. Experimentation with conventional aesthetic visual codes and media forms arguably creates hybrid narratives that are specific to the parameters of the small screen.
Micro-narratives seem to fuse multiple narrative forms, thus creating a looking glass theatre that acknowledges the role that handheld portable media devices play in our everyday lives.
Perhaps these hybrid narrative forms really need interactivity to drive the story experience and to fully utilise the potential of mobile media.