Transmedia Story Update: The End
EMP

Transmedia Story Update: The End

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Graphics Session: Movie Posters

Movie posters were generated in the fourth session of EMP, but for the story, they work best if presented first, just as you would see them before a film.

OER Session Script: Finding Images

    

Visual Practice Session Script: Chapter 1

The Comic Book app was used to create the first Chapter in the story.  These storyboards were the rough draft of the comic app, which has:

Storyboard 1:

  1. a baby in the van
  2. van stops for coffee (at a diner)
  3. argument
  4. baby (…something?)

Storyboard 2:

  1. Blank stares (lack of communication)
  2. In comes coffee
  3. drinking coffee
  4. Everyone can focus and communicate

So, roughly put into prose, Zlatan and the old man (later named Winston) take the baby in their VW van on a road trip of sorts. Zlatan and Winston are arguing incessantly, and having a difficult time understanding each other.  They stop for coffee outside a roadside diner, a coffee which they have made from their strange brewing machinery (later called a Lifestar) in the back of their van. Their coffee, called Finepour, has mysterious properties that heighten the senses, and it allows them to overcome their communication difficulties, at least to an extent to allow them to function together. After sharing a coffee together, they get focused: they talk to each other more clearly (albeit with some saltiness), their reaction times for driving improves and their mission about Joy become clear to them.

   

Audio Session Script: Chapter 2

GROUP 1 AUDIO SCRIPT

Lighting shatters in the distance.  The old man,Winston,races the VW out of Chaplin, Saskatchewan, with winds scuttling up the paneled sides of the vintage van. The speedometer was punching up to 140 kilometers an hour, causing the 1960s-era mini-bus to shimmy back and forth across the double lanes of Highway 1, narrowly missing concrete,cars, downed power lines and trees from storm.

“Watch where you’re going, Benjamin Button!” Zlatan yells at the elderly driver.  “This isn’t a game!”

The newborn baby in the baby seat in the back cries out at Zlatan’s screams.

“Bah!  See?” Winston scoffs. “You loudmouth. Yell too much. Wake up baby. Anger Winston.”

Zlatan looks back at baby Joy, lying in her fuzzy purple onesie in her carseat in the back.

“Joy, sweetie, go back to sleep, okay?” Zlatan says in a soothing voice as he tucks her back in and tries to rock her in her seat. “We’re almost there, okay? And then all of your dreams will come true. We’ll all be happy and peaceful.”

A bolt of lightning strikes a tree and splits it in half and starts a fire.

Zlatan looks at the burning tree while he holds his big strained smile, then he looks back at Joy, who smiles back. “As long as the thunderstormfrom hell doesn’t kill us, hey little pumpkin?” he says in a high-pitched voice.

Joy squeals in delight at Zlatan’s goofy doomsday gloom.

“More coffee, more faster,” Winstonsays as he guzzles another cup of coffee and presses the gas pedal harder.  The biodiesel van roars to 150 klicks, topping out the speed and blasting past over cars that seemed to sit still in comparison.  It seems to almost skimming the pavement, alternately bouncing, hurtling and what felt like flying slightly over the highway.

“Hell’s Bells, what did I sign up for?” Zlatan says back to the old man.

GROUP 2 AUDIO SCRIPT

Somehow, Joy manages to go back to sleep, while the other two pound back a sick and strange elixir of seemingly mystical, life-regenerating coffee called Finepourconcocted through unknown machinery called a Lifestar in the trunk, with a percolating drip engineered with a spout in the console beside the radio dial.

Although he scolded his old chauffeur for his driving, Zlatan didn’t seem overly concerned that he handed the keys over to the centegenerian at a diner called The Greasy Spoon, in a small town in southeast Alberta called Olds,  almost one and a half hours ago.  That route should take more than three hours at the speed limit, but hey, when you’ve got a van pumping out an endless supply of Finepourinto a one-hundred year old man who’s charging forth into a thunderstorm,who’s gonna complain?

Zlatan checks his iPhone weather app. A dire notification pops up:  WARNING: MASSIVE DEADLY THUNDERSTORM TO STRIKE REGINA.  SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. The locals have ironically named the super-thunderstorm Joy, but it’s brought plenty of misery and destruction and little actual joy.  His eyes glance at the time: 5:59pm. He started doing the mental math.

“Almost 6 o’clock.  Regina is 90 minutes away, we need to get there by 7,” Zlatan says.

“50 minutes,” Winstonsays. “We be there in 50.  We be there for Joy.”

“50?” Zlatan asks. “Not 51, not 55?”

“50.”

Zlatan pauses, then shouts the obvious: “We’re going to drive into a massive thunderstorm,Winston! We won’t survive!” Zlatan pleads as an all-enveloping thundercrack rumbles overtop, nearly drowning out Zlatan’s exhortation and shaking the whole van.  Joy cries out again as the VW veers past another concrete divider.

“We do it for Joy,” Winston says, smiling back at the awakened baby girl.  “You know why we have to get her there. You know why.”

Zlatan looks back at Joy and then at Winston with a grave look, resigned but determined.  “I know. I know…go for it, Winston.  50 minutes.”

Winston slurps his Finepour, shifts gears and presses the gas.  “Only God can help us,” the old man says as they barrel towards the storm.Smartphone

Smartphone Video Session Script: Chapter 3

GROUP 1 VIDEO SCRIPT

“We have ten minutes left!”  Zlatan yelled.

The van rushes into the crackling thunderstorm.

“Nine minutes,”  Winston corrects Zlatan as he drives through the torrential rain and lightning.

A sign that says “Welcome to Regina in 2030” is struck by lightning as the VW zooms past, the sign burning from the electric bolt.

“That’s a bad, uh…sign,” says Zlatan, who states the obvious.

“Eight minutes,” Winston says as he drives deeper into Regina. “You know what happens in eight minutes?  Diner closes.”

Joy coos and giggles in the back seat as the VW races through the storm.

GROUP 2 VIDEO SCRIPT

Winston chugs back another adrenalized Finepour. Seven minutes to go.

Winston darts and swerves like a possessed NASCAR driver through the stormy streets of Regina.

“Where is the diner?” Zlatan says, looking around the streets feverishly with six minutes left.

“It here somewhere, building can’t move,” Winston says.

Three minutes left. They slow down to look for a certain diner, their vision obscured by the rain and lightning.

Two minutes. Rain. Lightning. Thunder.

One minute to go. Finally, Zlatan spots it. “There it is!  The diner!”

 

Reflections Session Script: Chapter 4

REFLECTIONS SCRIPT 

7pm.  A waitress leaves (1)_____________________________, she locks the front door beneath the canopy overhanging the sidewalk.

The VW screeches to a halt in front of the diner, startling the young woman.

Zlatan jumps out of the van in the pouring rain and holds his hand out towards her.  “Are you  (2)_____________________________?” he asks, huffing like he’s out of breath.

“Yes, that’s me – how do you know my name?” She asks, holding out her umbrella for protection.

“I’ll explain later, don’t be afraid,” Zlatan says, trying to calm her.  “But we have your baby.”

“What?”  She says as Zlatan slides open the side door to reveal a smiley baby in the back seat, the Lifestar coffee machine churning behind her.

(2)_____________________________ walks forward and looks in the van, her mouth open, puzzled and surprised.

“But I don’t have a baby,” she says.

 

Legend

(1)_____________________________ (name of Regina diner)

(2)_____________________________ (waitress’s name)

 

The Wrap-up: How do we end this thing?

Several questions are still unanswered, and the ending should tie in elements that have been prominent throughout the story.  Some questions include:

  1. So who is Joy?  Is she really not the waitress’s baby?  How did they know the waitress’s name?
  2. Why did they have the baby?  Where did they get Joy from?
  3. Who is going to be the King of the Solar System, the only element that hasn’t been mentioned yet?
  4. What does Finepour and the weird coffee machine have to do with it?
  5. What caused the massive storm?  Is it natural?

What happens next to end the story?