Lisa Wellman: Technology's Impact on the Evolution of Storytelling

Written by: Bill Peay
Photos by: Nick Galante
KALAPAKI BEACH, KAUAI, HAWAII
Thursday, April 26, 1996
2 p.m. H.S.T.
Digital cameras provided by Kodak Digital Science

Lisa Wellman, Director of the Publishing and Media Market Group for Apple Computer, Inc., spoke on Apple's commitment to advanced technology for storytellers at the opening session of the "Storytelling for the New Millennium" conference April 25, 1996. Wellman is responsible for crafting Apple's message for customers, key industry influences and the media; overseeing advertising aimed at this market and developing new areas of opportunity for Apple's professional publishing customers and third party developers.

During her presentation, Wellman pointed out that there are three stages to the evolution of storytelling media. "First, she said, "there is a focus is on technology, such as the printing press, the radio, the television, and now, computers and the Internet." The technology offers the opportunity for change. "Second," according to Ms. Wellman, "and what is so important about this program, 'Storytelling for the New Millennium'; is that a few creative people using the new technology will focus on the unique aspects of the new medium." These individuals begin telling stories in a different way. Finally, Wellman states, "the new form gets a 'name,' like film, hypertext, or virtual reality, and storytelling using this new delivery form becomes accepted by the masses."

An interesting sidebar to this evolution process noted by Lisa Wellman during her presentation is that the time between these stages is shrinking. "Where it took decades for film to evolve from still images, it only took one decade for television to jump from a curiosity to a household appliance," stated Wellman. We can fully expect the transition time from technology inception to accepted storytelling form to be shorter still for interactive CD-ROMs, streaming audio and video over the Internet, and three dimensional storytelling using tools like Apple Computer's "QuickTime Virtual Reality" and "QuickDraw 3D." Apple Computer Inc. is helping to develop the tools, the new technology, to help storytellers tell their stories in a new way.

New technologies introduced by Apple Computer Inc., and available for further technical review at Apple's Web site, were demonstrated by Ralph Rogers, Manager of Apple's Interactive Technology, and Shafath Syed, Apple's Solutions Manager for Electronic Publishing. Rogers discussed Apple's new "QuickTime Virtual Reality," or "QTVR."

"Apple's QuickTime movie playing operating system extension was introduced about four and a half years ago," according to Rogers. "The new QuickTime now delivers the emotional impact of digital music through the incorporation of a MIDI channel and several preprogrammed instruments." What's important about MIDI files is that they are really small. QuickTime has built the basic musical instruments into the software and a storyteller need only develop the notes and identify the instruments to play the notes. According to Rogers, "The QuickTime software presents all the richness of a piano, organ, synthesizer, and more." This makes it extremely easy to send full music files quickly over the Internet, even via slow modems.

The newest evolution of QuickTime, "QuickTime Virtual Reality," or QTVR, introduces three dimentionality to basic QuickTime movies. Rogers points out that "there are two perspectives to QTVR object movies and panoramic movies." Object movies are where a specific object is photographed and rendered in QTVR, then rotated by the viewer to be seen from all perspectives, even from above and below if so desired. Panoramic movies are scenes taken by a still camera where each perspective frame is digitally stitched together into one seamless view. The QTVR player allows the user to scan the scene from left to right, up or down, just as if he or she were standing and looking at the scene. Storytellers now have complete control of the environment they wish to portray.

Shafath Syed discussed Apple's new QuickDraw 3D technology. "QD3D brings three dimensions to the basic Apple Operating System level," he says. "The problem has been learning the specialized software modeling languages required in the past. "QD3D allows you to easily create and store 3D objects in your computer's clipboard," according to Syed. You can exchange data using basic drag and drop technology. In a demonstration Syed created a sphere. Then he dragged a texture of the earth's surface to the sphere and it was instantly mapped on the object. "This is a very easy way to create 3D objects and drag them into 3D space," according to Syed. When you drag a QD3D object, you drag over the full 3D data, not just a PICT image. That gives you complete control."

Using third party software, storytellers can drag and drop animations, too. They simply select the number of frames to animate, draw out a path for the animation to follow, and the story comes alive. Introducing the concepts of time and motion to digital storytelling will open a whole new world for conveying information.

In a follow-up interview with Lisa Wellman, she reemphasized the power of stories. "Those very small stories shown on very small boxes (commercials on TV) are very powerful and we acknowledge the power of them, and fully expect them to change our behavior. They are going to cause us to buy an automobile, to take a cruise, loose 20 pounds, to whatever." She added, "stories do influence us. We need to think about the stories we are going to tell. We have the power of choice to define who we are and who we want to be." Wellman drove this point home: "We need you, the storytellers in the audience to use the tools and technologies to help make us, as a people, if not great, then at least better than we are."