Knowing your audience
In interactive storytelling, knowing your audience is as critical as identifying what your story is. You need to consider this early. Think about not only who your audience is – but where they are at a given time of day. What devices they are prone to using? How experimental are they in terms of the technology they access? Is your goal to reach a wide audience, or a particular niche? What are the expectations of your audience around the participatory vs. passive nature of storytelling? Let these things inform your choices around platform, voice, and interactive mechanism.
EG’s:
This is an interactive comic book app for iPad – designed for kids & teens – bringing Canadian history to a platform they are already occupying.
Claude Jutra’s 1966 classic early skateboard film is re-interpreted by several filmmakers who work in the contemporary skate-film scene. The larger project weaves all these narratives together, and is targeted at an international audience, so features voices from numerous countries. At the same time, the individual short films are freely shared via Youtube in order to increase portability and share-ability, targeting the needs and expectations of today’s young skateboard audience.
