Summary of Research: Scripting of Multimedia Events

Slides gathered from here.

"About making multimedia more effective by incorporating techniques from traditional media, such as television and journalism, to enhance the presentation."

"Those who design programs for multimedia presentation and those who are users of multimedia presentations contribute equally to formulating criteria for determining guidelines or more formal requirements for multimedia."

"There are two possible approaches:

• Slide-driven - the slides are presented in sequences, and the speaker talks to the slide.

   

• Talk-driven - the talk is given, with the occasional slide to illustrate a point.

In the first approach the presentation opens with a slide giving the title for the talk. This is the initial state - state 0; we could say that the presentation is in the title state. The next slide is presented which may show the main points of the talk. This is state 1 - the talk is in the introductory state. The act of putting up a slide has by rule changed the talk from its title state to its introductory state. The speaker may now repeat the text shown on the slide and comment on it. This is an elaboration on state 1, and is represented as a loop off state 1. The last comment by the speaker accompanies putting up the next slide, and the talk changes to its next state."

"Here is a model of the formal structure of a newscast. The model as presented so far has described events occurring in sequence at one level only; but it is useful to capture generalizations and talk about these generalizations at different levels. Generalizations are related in a hierarchy - the most abstract down to particular events - the actual events that occur in the real world. A tree structure describes these relations.

The formal approach can be applied at any level in the hierarchy; the formalisms will apply at each level. For example, level 3 in the diagram may be described by the following:

State 0 is the initial state, the title of the news program. Note that the actual title as it appears in Level 4 can be different each time. Level 3 is concerned with the idea of a title, an abstract title. The title may also include sound.

A transition to state 1 results in a video of a news reader. A final statement from the reader initializes state 2. As with the title, the idea of a formal statement will be there on each occasion, although the statement itself - its instantiation - will vary. State 2 is a video of the event reported in state 1; a transition to state 3 of a still, accompanied by voiceover, initializes state 4.

The transition to expert opinion on the event in state 3 may be accompanied by another opinion or comment. This is a loop off of state 4. A transition to state 5 brings a reader back to screen and a new news item.

A final statement by the reader initializes state 6; a still, and a voiceover initialize state 7, the exit or 'outro' of the program. This itself can introduce another program, such as weather, or ads, which will itself be initially in state 0.

The description here is of a level in the program, not the state sequence of the reader, the video or the cameras. Each of these may have their own state model equivalent to the appropriate scripts as written for media productions."

Genre

When considering media, several types of program are defined, called genres. There are about six major categories of genre: news, documentary, soap opera, quiz, drama, and some types of program that fall into two categories, e.g. 'docudrama'. Various descriptive terms can be assigned to define the genres: such as repetition, circularity, openendedness, etc. Restated in formal terms, these descriptions are seen as metarules - general conditions which define genre in the same way metarules define flora and fauna in biology.

Descriptive terms

There are a number of these terms; the following are a selection which can be used informally for defining useful genre types for multimedia.

Repetition The elements that define a particular show are repeated and reinforced during the time the show is running. Formats are repetitive; for example, a newscast covers what is happening in the world at the moment, a police drama always covers crime.

Novelty Accomapnies repetition, otherwise the viewer becomes bored. A new problem must be presented each time; e.g. in news, there must be new events or disasters, human interest, etc.

Opnendedness Unresolved problems with future solutions.

Immediacy Gives the audience the sense of being in the action, of finding a resolution to problem presented earlier.

Segmentation Multiple events, multiple stories which weave together as in a drama. Also refers to different types of media objects - video clips, stills, talking heads, etc.

Metarules

The above relatively informal descriptions of the occurrence of particular parameters can be reformulated as rules for defining particular genres (Level 1 in slide 10):

• If news, then immediacy AND opendedness AND repetition AND segmentation AND novelty.

   

• If drama, then immediacy AND repetition AND segmentation AND (optionally) repetition.

   

• If documentary, then segmentaiton AND (optionally) openendedness AND (optionally) repetition.

Subrules

• if immediacy, then include alphabet objects to enable audience involvement;
• if openendedness, then final state to include (at least one) unresolved issue;
• if repetition, then a 'feature' to re-occur (e.g. format, transmission time, etc.).
• if segmentation, then 'story' to be multi-stranded;
• if novelty, then unexpected elements to be included.

Result of defining genre by applications of the rules:

 

description / genre	news	drama	documentary
immediacy	yes	yes	no - only some are about current issues
openended	yes	not usually - unless series	can be- if about current issues and ongoing problems
repetition	yes - predictable format - short items, news flashes, main items, weather and sport	characters have goals, change, and learn; types have costumes	some are - formats different, although can expect resolution to problems or statement about future
segmentation	yes - studio, stills, video clips, expert opinions	usually more than one story	yes clips, narrator - all feeding into main theme - expert opinion
novelty	yes - after time	yes - new twist on old themes	can be - underwater photography, unusual topics and investigators