Storytelling Evolution

Over the last 100 years, the motion picture has changed our world, and our storytelling frameworks from what had preceded it for thousands of years. Stories used be told either verbally by local story tellers or by the presentation of plays.

The more I watch the films we produce any more, the more convinced I become that in another 100 years, or perhaps sooner, we'll look back at passive films as a quaint storytelling medium.

I don't think that all storytelling become active gameplaying experiences, but I do think there will be a medium of exploration and of shared discovery that will lead us to create new forms of storytelling. These new forms will grow from the mediums that become possible.

As the last 100 years we've been restricted to the visual storytelling of those that had access to celluloid. Then to television, and now to digital cameras. A progression of the art, to be sure - and there is more progression to come.

What will it be?

It's up to any and all of us who dream of telling great stories, to stretch our imaginations beyond the story arcs, beyond the character development, beyond the visual styles we use to communicate our ideas and themes and our innermost hopes and fears of the human experience, and find news ways of weaving these into the mediums now evolving.

And for those of the new generation that understand the possibilities now blooming before us, and the opportunities to create things utterly new - there's a new wild wild west of storytelling laid before us.

Got yer spurs?