Taking off from WRITERS AND THEIR ON-GOING EVOLUTION!
Ah! How unfair of me to have you seated next to me so passively, while I’m steering you to the destination I’ve already planned!
I, of course, know you love being led as long as the drive’s exciting. But, I also know you’ve got a devilishly inquisitive mind that craves to go on a wild spree, deflect off course, get into those crampy bylanes and check out stuff. Naturally.
Okay. Let me make an offer you cannot refuse.
You lookin’ at the road ahead and you suddenly wish to swerve to the left instead of heading straight. Then, what happens?
Simple. I’ll command the car to instantly read your mind and change course accordingly.
What about me then? Me… I’ll just take good care of traffic and people on the road.
Sounds like a plan? Okay… here we go!
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This figment of imagination is no imagination actually.
It’s very much a reality… just that it belongs to the realm of Virtual Reality… a no-holds-barred and crazily exciting possibility that happily throws itself at writers who are ontologically game to scripting in the fenceless space… a space where they see all possible ways audience desires can spring up and weave experiences that would cater to their desires.
But, yes… this bizarrely ridiculous proposition – that’s still in its nascent stages – does sound spooky at the outset. Steven Spielberg says, “I think we’re moving into a dangerous medium with virtual reality. The only reason I say it is dangerous is because it gives the viewer a lot of latitude not to take direction from the storytellers but make their own choices of where to look. I just hope it doesn’t forget the story when it starts enveloping us in a world that we can see all around us and make our own choices to look at.”
Spielberg’s apprehension is definitely spiking up the bete-noire perspective attached to the VR experience. Credibly so!
But, the very idea of the writers willingly losing themselves and metamorphosing into the viewers’ alter ego to build worlds that would invite their participation, allowing them to “create” the story for themselves sounds unquestionably irresistible.
Okay… Just how do we embark on this rather esoteric journey? Where do we start?
Let me document my understanding of the basic tenets in my next post.
So long…
SAINT MAVERICK 