1. Collective Film Script Writing:
Experiences in Using Mobile Creative Writing Tools
Pekka Ollikainen
pekka.j.ollikainen@nokia.com
Juha Kaario
juha.kaario@nokia.com
Jouka Mattila
jouka.mattila@nokia.com
Mobile social media
First, we should accept the fact that all writing is by
Social media plays an integral part in the convergence
nature collaborative. Just as journal publishing is always
culture.1 The discussion forums and media sharing
a colalborative process, creative writing process should
sites have boosted the amateur and independent film
also be similarly understood as a communication chain
making. The long tail2 distribution model has even made
consisting of individual’s responses to others’ texts,
amateur films into commercial products, e.g. Star Wreck
intertextual tactics, competing utterances, etc...
(http://www.starwreck.com). The citizen journalism
phenomenon is linking audiences with news creation.3
An intriguing future possibility is storytelling enhanced Mobile collaborative writing
with context sensitivity.4 experiences
In our study, over 10 enthusiastic amateur film makers
Mobile communication is very tightly linked with social
apent 12 months writing 1-3 short film scripts. We use d
media.4 The new mobile phone technologies can be used
online collaborative writing tools, mobile technologies
in advanced ways to sense complex social systems.5
and face to face discussions. The group knew each other
Mobile tools have been used in several interesting social
through workplace, but they had not done artistic work
media services, such as micro blogging (http://www.
together previously. The multi-discipline group consisted
jaiku.com/) and location based photo sharing (http://
of engineers, UI specialists, graphic artists and media
www.locr.com).
scientists. Each of the group members had some previous
experience on short film making. We started to work on
In 2007 Nokia and Reuters explored the use of mobile
simple web form, where initial ideas for the script were
phones in citizen journalism (http://reutersmojo.
collected based on simple provocative assignments.
com). The project aimed to enhance the link between
Over 100 responses were collected at first phase. The
professional editors and amateur journalists. The context
responses were synthesised within the group by using
sensitivity enables automatic creation of metadata and
FreeMind and building the affinity wall of the possible
annotations, but a news story needs human capability to
script elements. The more important themes/premises
make intelligent observations. These creative elements
were selected by voting for further development.
in the mobile writing gave the initial motivation for the
“Collective Writer’s Club.”
Next the writers needed to write either characters or
scenes. They could also add images, and recorded audio.
Collaborative writing The hypertext based writing process and the written
Our goal was to study collaborative writing of the short script elements introduced in our web forum were linked
film scripts. We did not limit the creativity only to texts, together via free-word tagging. The tool could be used
but allowed also the use of other media, such as pictures both with PCs anb mobile phones.
and audio.
The actual script development, however, did not happen
Collaborative writing as a practice is not a new area online but in informal ad-hoc discussions. Over time,
as such; sophisticated early forms of the collaborative creating new ideas and script elements became easier
text creation can be traced e.g. in various artistic text within the group, while notating and linking the items
experimentations made among Dada, and Surrealist together grew more difficult.
writers at nineteenth and twentieth centuries.7
14TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ELECTRONIC ART 357

2. For our purposes, Bakhtin’s
conceptual work on areas of
communication chain and speech
genres provides solid background
on how to understand and
structure collaborative work flow
taking place in collective film
script writing process.9
Every text phase (synopsis/
treatment) is a product of the
various writers’ output, script’s
“collective speech genre” is Figure 1: Collective Writers’ Club contribution process (10 authors, 4 writers/6 commentators).
developing over the assignments,
writers are responding into group
assignments by choosing the text she wants to develop
further. Each and every script element has ownership A bigger unsolved question is how the current creative
during the different phases of the writing; texts are writing process, collective approach and new tools will
further developed and discussed mostly offline, at face fit together? In our research we had mainly amateur
to face discussions. During the different phases of the writers and we have just started to involve professional
writing, the group is voting between the texts (figure 1). writers into the process.
Future work Speech genres should be studied in real life situations,
In the first version of our tools the semantic information the categorization started by Bakhtin should be
(keywords, tags) comes from the users. Enhancing the developed further, and the results need to be carefully
system with artificial intelligence and context sensitivity analyzed. After the first experimental parts of speech
could provide automatic annotation10 and associative system is developed based on initial artistic speech
suggestions to support the creative process.11 However, genres, the system should be evaluated by professional
automatic sensing does not apply to all cases, e.g. writers in order to develop meaningful data of how
sensory evaluation of food quality bases on using human the system works, and how it could fruit creative work
senses. Thus, one possible use case for the current tool flow, and not limit it. Optimum system should also have
could be community based ecosystem monitoring.12 scriptable program language, and it should support
For example, how a river’s closed ecosystem sensory multiple modalities, copyright schemas in order to make
evaluation (smell, sight) is linked to a large geographic collective writing process economically reasonable,
area. effective and pleasant to use.
1 Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: NYU Press, p. 308.
2 Anderson, Chris. 2004. “The Long Tail.” In Wired magazine 12. 10 October 2004. San Francisco, pp. 170-177.
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Sons, pp. 300-321.
4 Turpeinen, Marko & Kuikkaniemi, Kai (eds.). 2007. Mobile Content Communities. Helsinki: HIIT Publications, p. 235.
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| Pentland, pp. 255-268.
6 Bowman, S. and Willis, C. 2003. “We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information.” In The Media
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7 Atkins, Robert. 1993. Art Spoke. A Guide to Modern Ideas, Movements, and Buzzwords 1848-1944. New York: Abbeville Press, p.
203.
8 Thralls, Charlotte. 1992. “Bakhtin, Collaborative Partners, and Published Discourse.” In New Visions of Collaborative Writing by Janis
Forman. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Heinemann, p. 64.
9 Bakhtin, M. M. 1986. “The Problem of Speech Genres.” In Speech Genres and Other Late Essays M.M. Bakhtin, edited by Caryl
Emerson and Michael. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 87-94.
10 Shermis, Mark D. and Burstein, Jill C. (editors). 2003. Automated Essay Scoring: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective. Mahwah, New
Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 87-112.
11 Barry, Barbara. 2005. Mindful Documentary. Thesis (Ph. D.). Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p. 101.
12 Ellswortha, James P.; Hildebranda; Lawrence P. and Glover, Anne E. 1997. “Canada’s Atlantic Coastal Action Program: A Community-
Based Approach to Collective Governance.” In Ocean & Coastal Management 36 (1-3). Elsevier, pp. 121-14.
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