A different kind of approach towards creating stories is the concept of world building. Stories are not stale representations of ideas on paper. Evidently, this is not enough anymore since so many scripts and stories have been written, rewritten and adopted by others as inspiration. There is no virgin birth in writing. However, a story that goes in parallel with the visual construction of the world that surrounds the story. From maps and backstories to sketching the sets, forming languages and dialects, the creative department should cooperate with the director and the writers into formulating a story that is organic and is tested long before it can be considered finished. In this way, the script goes through various changes since the different parties influence the course of the narrative by adding or removing things in the initial idea. A strong visual environment, a historical account of the place but also a universe around the main characters that enriches the story and makes it plausible and interesting help the audience immerse deeper in the storyworld. The audience has to decipher the messages and dive into the multiple layers of the narrative, either by retrieving information on the main characters or on other aspects of the universe.
The workshop that was offered to us( the Media Lab interns) by our mentor Joris and his collaborator Romke Faber which was focused on storytelling and world building was extremely useful. These two aspects of narrative construction have been closely related since creating a huge universe around a story implies multiple opportunities for spin-offs, character building, story development through games, comic books but also films and series. Thus, the wider the world, the higher the chances of giving life to a plant-like organism that can expand and offer new creative way outs.
The whole workshop was interesting since it was really satisfying to witness that coincidentally our Virtual Cinema team followed a similar plan of work. Our story evolved through creating the actual spaces in order to see what works and what’s not. Thus, the idea of world building is valid and highly inspiring for constructing fictional universes in the contemporary world.