Hyper-Narrative Interactive Cinema: Problems and Solutions. [Paperback]

Nitzan Ben Shaul (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 29, 2008

Hyper narrative interactive cinema refers to the possibility for users or "interactors" to shift at different points in an evolving film narrative to other film narrative trajectories. Such works have resulted so far in interactor distraction rather than sustained engagement. Contrary to post-modern textual and cognitive presumptions, film immersion and computer game theories, this study uses dual coding theory, cognitive load theory, and constructivist narrative film theory to claim that interactive hyper-narrative distraction results from cognitive and behavioral multi-tasking, which lead to split attention problems that cannot be cognitively handled. Focus is upon split attention resulting from the non-critical use of de-centered and non-cohering hyper-narrative and audio-visual formations, and from interaction. For hyper-narrative interactive cinema to sustain deep engagement, multi-tasking split attention problems inhering in such computer-based works have to be managed, and - most importantly - made to enhance rather than reduce engagement. This book outlines some viable solutions to construct deep cognitive-emotional engagement of interactors with hyper-narrative interactive cinema.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Rodopi (August 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9042024615
• ISBN-13: 978-9042024618
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,722,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nitzan Ben Shaul is Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies and former head of the Film and Television Department at Tel Aviv University. He received his PhD from the Cinema Studies Dept. at New York University. He has authored several scholarly books among them Mythical Expressions of Siege in Israeli Films (Edwin Mellen, 1997), A Violent World: TV News Images of Middle Eastern Terror and War (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), Film: The Key Concepts (Berg, 2007), and Hyper-narrative Interactive Cinema: Problems and Solutions (Rodopi, 2008). He has also written many academic papers on film, television and new media published in leading journals such as Film Quarterly, Framework, Journal of the International Digital Media and Art Association, Third Text, New Cinemas Journal and the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. Lately he received two major grants to carry out research projects related to the effects of computerization on film and television, including the production of Turbulence, a hyper-narrative interactive movie based on a novel and revolutionary model he developed.