How to write multilayered conversations with added inner thoughts in Dialogus

Dialogus, an interactive scenario tool created by Keez Duyves (PIPS:lab), connects a time-bound written text to audio files. Dialogus enables scenarists to write multilayered conversations and immediately listen to their creations. In order to test Dialogus, we held three workshops for the students of the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam. The aim of the workshops was to receive students’ feedback on uses of Dialogus in actual scenario practice and also user-friendliness. This blogs presents the findings of the workshops.

Workshop #1

The first workshop took place on the 7th of September 2018 at the Film Academy. Four scenario students of the Film Academy took part in the three-hour workshop. The workshop had two parts. In the first part, we introduced and demonstrated Dialogus (at this time at its first phase) and students received a specific assignment to work on; namely, to write a dialogue between a man and a woman and added inner thoughts of one character. One of the most important aims was to receive feedback on the tool so we could develop Dialogus further as a professional tool. We also focused on thoughts: students brainstormed on what a thought is and the different modes of thinking. We then provided scientific information on thoughts and the ‘stream of consciousness’, and illustrated our points via examples in film and literature. The focus of the second part was Paperol. Paperol is the first interactive scenario tool invented by Keez Duyves.

Part 1- DIALOGUS

Schedule

15.00–15.10: Inventorization

We asked students three questions as a starter: Why are you interested in the VR and scenario workshop? What is VR according to you? What is a VR cliché?

15.10–15.30: Introduction Anyways (PIPS:lab)

We showed students the trailer of Anyways and explained its context.

15.30: 15.40: Brainstorm what is a thought?

We were curious to find out students’ opinions on: What is a thought? What types of thoughts are there? In which forms do we think?

15.40–16.00: Presentation Stream of Consciousness

We provided students information on research about thoughts and stream of consciousness. We then watched the film Strange Interlude (Leonard,1932) as an example.

16.00–16.15: Introduction Dialogus

We introduced and demonstrated Dialogus. Students downloaded the new Dialogus and computer-voices to their laptops.

16.15–16.45: Assignment

Students were asked to write a dialogue between a man and a woman with added inner thoughts in Dialogus. We restricted the length of the dialogue to 3 min max.

16.45–17.00 Feedback and reflection

We held a plenary feedback session and asked students the following questions: What was the added value of working with Dialogus? What did you miss in Dialogus? Were there any differences in the writing process compared to when you write in non-interactive scenario tools?

Part 2- PAPEROL

Schedule

17.00–17.10: Introduction Paperol

Here we introduced Paperol. Paperol offers a broader use-case than Dialogus; we preferred to let students jam with the tool and discover its potentialities before providing them information.

17.10–17.40: Free-jam session

Students were asked to play around in Paperol with their texts. They were given no restrictions or frameworks.

17.40–17.55: Feedback and reflection

By means of a plenary feedback session, we asked students the following: What was the added value of working with Paperol? What did you miss in Paperol? Were there any differences in the writing process compared to when you write in non-interactive scenario tools?

17.55–18.00: Planning workshop session nr. 2 and 3

18.00 End of workshop

Findings

• Interface should not get in the way when writing a story. It breaks the workflow
• Students need a list of shortcuts in order to work efficiently. Final draft, a common scenario tool used by students, offers some effective options that support the intuitive workflow.
• Final Draft has a similar time-line function to Dialogus but one cannot use this feature in Final Draft to write stories.
• Inner thoughts come close to what is called a ‘subtext’ in scenario writing but it also differs from subtext in certain ways.
• There are various types of thoughts: situation-based thoughts, non-situation based thoughts, aural thoughts, visual thoughts, thoughts that make no sense, thoughts that give information about the character, thoughts that oppose what is being said by the character.
• Students found it in particular interesting to create inner thoughts that do not correspond to the situation depicted in the narrative. However, it really depends on what kind of story you would like to tell and what type and form of thoughts could work best to achieve that.
• Students need more practice to balance inner thoughts and conversation.
• Students noted that timing plays a more important role in the scenario than a scenario with no inner thoughts.
• For the students, testing two tools in a single workshop of three hours led to information overload. They would have preferred more time to work on the Dialogus assignment for example.

Conclusions

• It was helpful to have scenario students test the first version of Dialogus. We received valuable feedback concerning how the system can further be developed to fulfill the needs of scenarists during the work process and enable an ideal workflow.
• On the basis of the feedback of the students, we decided to extend the import functions of Dialogus. The extended version enables scenarists to write the main text input in their prefered program and, then, export it to Dialogus and manipulate the texts’ timings. The current import (and export) options are: Text (.txt) and final draft (.fdx).
• In hindsight, it was ambitious to introduce two tools in a single workshop. On the basis of students’ feedback, we decided to restrict the following workshops to Dialogus, and to test Paperol via two different use-cases (link use-cases?).
• We decided to explore the question ‘if sub-text becomes text in the form of inner thoughts’ in the following workshop.
• Plenary feedback was not efficient in receiving thorough feedback from students. We decided to hold individual feedback sessions in the following workshops.
• Showing Anyways’ trailer and informing on its context was useful, but not fully effective. We decided to let students experience Anyways in the third workshop.

Workshop #2

Brainstorming at PIPS:lab’s studio

The second workshop took place on the 28th of September 2018, in PIPS:lab’s studio in Amsterdam. For this workshop, we invited a single student in order to receive thorough feedback.

The aim of this workshop was to provide the student with new input on inner thoughts and to observe how this information would influence the writing process. Based on our conclusions from the previous workshop, the questions we chose to explore in this session was “if sub-text becomes main text audible in the form of inner thoughts, what can be its function in the narrative and which forms can it take?” We mapped out possible functions and forms of inner thoughts in collaboration with the student. We came up with four different ways in which a sub-text can become a part of the text as inner thoughts:

• Creating a contrast between what a character says and thinks.
• Providing background information on the character, for example to create empathy.
• Non-situational thoughts (thoughts that do not derive from the situation).
• Telling two (or more) different perceptions of the same story.

We then asked the student to write a short scene between two characters by choosing one of the four options as framework for the inner thoughts.

Schedule

10.00–10.15: We informed the student on the results from our audience research so far. At this point, we had held part of our audience research, so we informed the student on the results. The student found the answers concerning the experience of the balance between the character’s conversation and inner thoughts particularly interesting. Hearing most respondents could not follow all storylines due to too many layers of information presented simultaneously led the student to be more attentive to the interplay between the spoken text and inner thoughts. We discussed whether not being able to follow all storylines was a problem from the student’s perspective.

10.15–10.30: We discussed the consequences of the subtext becoming a part of the main text with the student. The student chose to write a scenario where the inner thoughts do not emerge from the situation depicted in the story or the dialogue. In film this is rarely used because it would contain information irrelevant to the story being told. The question was if in VR non-situated inner thoughts would be experienced differently, and if so, why. The student’s gut feeling said that in VR non-situated inner thoughts could work and she decided to explore this direction in her scenario.

10.30–12.00: The student recieved time to work on the assignment. She requested to work with three or four characters instead of two as requested by the assignment.

Findings

• The possible functions of inner thoughts are not an exclusive list. There are for sure other functions to be discovered.
• Unfortunately, the student was not able to finish the story on time; therefore, we could not hear the end result.

Conclusions

• On the basis of the students request, Keez agreed to further program Dialogus to enable the ability of working with up to four characters for the next workshop.
• We decided to let the student continue to work on the assignment until the following workshop.
• We decided to assign the same task to all other partaking students in the following workshop. We asked these students to finish the scenario prior to the workshop to make sure that we have time to import and hear the results in Dialogus.
• We shared the four functions of inner thoughts with all students as options to choose from. We underlined that they were free to come up with other possible functions as frameworks of inner thoughts in their scenario.

Workshop # 3

Keez introducing Dialogus

The third workshop took place on the 12th of October 2018 at the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam. Four scenario students of the Film Academy and one alumnus took part in the three-hour workshop. We asked the students to write a scenario for either two of four characters with added inner thoughts prior to the workshop. Students were given the option to write the script in Final Draft or Word. In addition, we provided students certain input concerning the purpose of inner thoughts in the story. Students could opt for one of these options or, create a new category of their own, depending on the needs of their story.

Students viewing Anyways

The workshop began with experiencing Anyways. We then introduced the updated version of Dialogus and explained the new possibilities developed by Keez on the basis of the feedback from previous workshops. We showed students how to import their texts into Dialogus. Students received an hour to import their text, create the audio-track in Dialogus (via computer-generated voices or by recording their own voice), and play with the timing of the spoken text and the inner thoughts. We then listened to each assignments now enabled by Dialogus. The workshop ended by individual feedback sessions on the basis of a question list.

Schedule

9.30–10.30: Students experienced Anyways. We then informed students on new functions in Dialogus. Keez explained students the workflow with headset and speakers.

10:30- 11.30: Students imported their scenario to Dialogus. Working with headset and speakers, they converted their text into an audio-track in Dialogus. They took time to play and manipulate the timing of their texts.

11.30–12.30: We listened to the finished assignments and gave short feedback.

12.30–12.45: We held separate interviews with students concerning their feedback on Dialogus and the writing process.

12.45–13.00: We held separate interviews with students concerning their feedback on Dialogus and the writing process.

Feedback question list:

• How did you experience writing a scenario with added inner thoughts in comparison to writing a scenario without thoughts? What was difficult? And what did you find interesting?
• How did you deal with finding a balance between the general conversation and inner thoughts in terms of providing too much or too little text?
• How did you experience importing your text into an audio-track in Dialogus?
• Do you normally speak your own text out loud when writing a scenario?
• What is your opinion on the fact that you can manipulate the timing of the text as a scenarist?
• Would you deliver your text to a director in this way meaning with a manipulated timing via Dialogus? Or would you rather deliver traditional text on paper?

Students at work

Findings

• The ability to import texts written in other tools to Dialogus works well and offers students more flexibility.
• Dialogus’s operating system and interface, although much advanced now, needs further development for an ideal workflow, according to all participants. Distractions caused by misperformance of the system, or interface breaks the workflow.
• Three students were of the opinion that the option to describe the environment and the actions taking place is necessary for any scenario- with or without inner thoughts, audio or written text. According to them, a scenario should entail these visual cues alongside the conversation. Dialogus currently does not offer this option.
• All students agreed that computer-generated voices are not realistic and challenge the believability of the scenario or creating empathy with a character.
• According to one student, a different sonic quality could help distinguish the inner thoughts from the spoken text.
• All students prefer using actor’s voices to their own voice when recording their text. They find it challenging to hear their own voice in Dialogus.
• According to one student, working in Dialogus adds a spatial dimension to the text. Written text become spatialized sound in space, which creates a physical experience of the scenario. A second student agreed but added that Dialogus currently restricts the conversation to a static position in space. This is a pity, according to this student, because characters may change positions, which should then be audibly represented in Dialogus.
• Two students underlined that texts that include inner thoughts lead to increased importance of timing of a particular text. One student suggested adding a timecode in Dialogus. For this student, the length of a text is crucial to determine the overlaps between spoken words and thoughts and, therefore, a timecode would be handy to achieve this.
• For most students working with inner thoughts is not new; they have experience in writing interior monologues. But the prominence of thoughts together with the interplay between thoughts and conversation was challenging. They needed to think about how and when to make audible what someone is thinking, rather than how to show visually what someone is thinking.
• Inner thoughts enable a second layer of meaning, which the students found interesting.
• Students integrated different forms of inner thoughts, depending on the context and needs of their stories. One student chose contrast between what is said and what is thought; another chose to portray the character’s memories to provide information about the character’s past; a third student used thoughts to depict the inner conflict of the character.
• Most students preferred a small dose of inner thoughts in their scenario’s to achieve a balance between the conversation and the thoughts.
• All students agreed that it is not common practice to deliver a manipulated text to a director, at least in current practices of film and television. However, they could imagine a benefit from delivering a temporally manipulated text within the context of VR and animation film.
• Two new functions of inner thoughts emerged: ‘meta-thoughts’, meaning channeling the viewer’s attention to the act of thinking itself, and ‘thoughts that do not make sense’.

Conclusions

It was a privilege to work with the scenario students of the Film Academy. Their feedback helped understand technical working points to enable an efficient workflow that fulfill scenarists’ needs. Their experiences in using Dialogus in their writing practice provided valuable insights, pointing to untapped potential and future directions the tool can take.

This blog forms part of the Scenario and VR research trajectory, a collaboration between the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam (AHK), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA), and PIPS:lab, an Amsterdam-based collective creating multimedia installations, performances, and inventions. The research sprouts from the 360° VR movie Anyways (PIPS:lab, 2016) and includes audience research, design and development of two interactive scenario writing tools Dialogus and Paperol, two use cases regarding Paperol, and three workshops with scenario students of the Film Academy to test Dialogus. The blog series documents this research trajectory. The research is supported by RAAK.