Participants' production diary conclusions / Sami Haartemo /

Conclusion

It is now over. Although it is still running. I think that in a way Candira was success. I know that we didn't have that big audience. But our add campaign was also quit small one so I don't think that lack of big audience was a failure.

As I earlier wrote my main focus was on story. Mainly in structure. Because Candira was divided in five parts (stages) we did have more control of time. One thing about time that we didn't realize was time of actual performance (story). People did not know how long Candira was online (did the story last one month? Is it updated daily or weekly?). So next time I think we have to make agreement with audience what is the actual TIME OF OUR STORY!

We did good job in PLACEs also. I think that Candira worked in every field (www-pages changed, Candira sent and received email, people left messages in Mirror etc.). In that way I learnt that story is possible to tell in New Media. Dramas rules apply in new media as they apply in "old media". Hard part is that story has to be told in so many places. That is the biggest difference compared to "old media".

I also found one very interesting thing along this process. That was fictions "believability". I learn that it is possible to deepen fictions believability by couple of things. One is that Candira (fiction) had real links to the real world. And because we had also created fictional company Capture, people had problems to know what´s real and what`s fake. And by creating uncertainness we could enhance our fictions believability. I think from Capture I learned a lot.

Other think how we tried to enhance our fictions believability was by creating audiovisual effects of what Candira had experienced. Unfortunately we only had time to do two short "home-video"-clips for Candiras diary. I think that this was very interesting point to learn. Although people know that Candira is a fictional story still it is much easier to believe that she is living and thinking creature when you can see some kind of proof from her life.

I know that this might sound little obscure but it is true. People pretend to believe that audiovisual material that seems like documentary or home-made is more "truth" than well made fictional (story-telling). For example cinema uses these method in it visuals (dogma-movies, Blair Witch Project, Natural Born Killers). And this was very interesting realization to me. Web-drama needs audiovisual material to enhance its believability. And I think it don't have to be same kind as we used in Candira.

By creating fictional "truth" we can enhance fictions believability!


References:
Screenplay, Field Syd. Dell Publishing, 1984
Four Screenplays, Field Syd. Dell Publishing, 1988
The Writers Journey, Vogler Christopher.
Werewolf: The Apocalyse. White Wolf Studios, 1997