Motif: Supporting Novice Creativity through Expert Patterns

Creating personal narratives helps people build meaning around their experiences. However, novices lack the knowledge and experience to create stories with strong narrative structure. Current storytelling tools often structure novice work through templates, enforcing a linear creative process that asks novices for materials they may not have. In this paper, we propose scaffolding creative work using storytelling patterns extracted from stories created by experts. Patterns are modular sets of related camera shots that expert videographers commonly use to achieve a specific narrative function. After identifying a set of patterns from high-quality storytelling videos, we created Motif, a mobile video storytelling application that allows users to construct video stories by combining these patterns. By making existing solutions used by experts available to novices, we encourage capturing shots with story structure and narrative goals in mind. In a controlled study where we asked participants to create travel video stories, videos created with patterns conveyed stronger narrative structure and were considered higher quality by expert evaluators than videos created without patterns.

Presented at CHI 2015

Transcript

1. Motif Supporting Novice Creativity through Expert Patterns Joy Kim, Mira Dontcheva, Wilmot Li, Michael Bernstein, Daniela Steinsapir {jojo0808, msb}@cs.stanford.edu, {mirad, wilmotli, steinsap}@adobe.com 1
2. “Storyteller” by bankofengland / CC BY-ND People love stories 2
3. “Sunday at St. Peter’s” by Yourdon / CC BY-NC-SA Digital tools have made it easier to document our lives 3
4. But experts can anticipate what they need to capture… …unlike the rest of us “Storyboard exercise” by humanrights / CC BY-NC-ND Photo by Eric Smith / Instagram 4
5.     5
6.       6
7.        7
8.  that’s better!  my story 8
9. TEMPLATES (but they’re not very flexible) PRESENTATION (but not story-oriented) PLANNING AHEAD (but this is hard for novices) 9
10. Can we guide novices while preserving their creative freedom? 10
11. Supporting novice creative work using patterns extracted from expert practice 11
12. Experts think about story construction and story capture at the same time 12
13. Video editing Barry, B. A. Mindful Documentary. PhD thesis, Cambridge, MA, USA, 2005. Video capture  13
14. Pattern languages are a simplified guide to best practice 14
15. Activities to occupy people Both private & open seating Within earshot of some signal Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., and Silverstein, M. Pattern languages. Center for Environmental Structure 2 (1977). A PLACE TO WAIT 15
16. TALK OUTLINE • Extracting storytelling patterns from expert work • Supporting the link between story capture and construction through Motif • Looking at whether patterns help novices create better stories 16
17. GENERATING STORYTELLING PATTERNS Corpus of 17 examples of short and long video stories from the NY Times, Rick Steves, and home videos 17
18. GENERATING STORYTELLING PATTERNS 18
19. GENERATING STORYTELLING PATTERNS 19
20. In the Action How to Make How to Make (slideshow) Setting Out Set the Location The Next Step The Next Step (narrated) Describe Travel Plans Travel Break The Next Stop: Intro The Next Stop: Describe The Next Stop: Tips The Next Stop: Mini- review Key Moment This is Perfect For Guest/Friends Appearing Guest/Friends Interview Guest/Friends Leaving Time Lapse Reflections Serve Serve (narrated) Group Shot Highlight Reel 20
21. PATTERNS ACT AS RECIPES Set the Location Record yourself briefly describing the place this video is about Give a short outline of the trip to come A short shot showing the first part of the trip A short shot showing the second part of the trip A short shot showing another part of the trip (optional).  Audio only 21
22. PATTERNS ACT AS RECIPES Record yourself briefly describing the place… Give a short outline of the trip to come A short shot showing the first part… A short shot showing the second part… A short shot showing another part… Set the Location 22
23. Motif 23
24. BEGINNING BLOCK MIDDLE BLOCK END BLOCK 24
25. BEGINNING BLOCK MIDDLE BLOCK END BLOCK MIDDLE BLOCK MIDDLE BLOCK MIDDLE BLOCK 25
26. setting out A shot of scenery passing by as you travel to the event. Narrate: where are you going, and with who? The title of the event. 26
27. setting out A shot of scenery passing by as you travel to the event. Narrate: where are you going, and with who? The title of the event. Set Clip Set from Camera Set from Gallery 27
28. setting out A shot of scenery passing by as you travel to the event. Narrate: whe 28
29. setting out A shot of scenery passing by as you travel to the event. REC 29
31. Do patterns actually help novices create better stories? 31
32. • 13 participants • Task: create a video about a popular tourist spot • Stanford University (Palo Alto), Pike Place Market (Seattle) • Lasted 1.5 hours EVALUATION Story blocks and prompts Motif Control No story blocks and prompts CONDITIONS TASK • Semi-structured interview about their creation process • Videos were rated by two researchers and an external expert according to a rubric • Based on beginner’s guidelines to creating home videos METHOD 32
33. RESULTS • 7 control videos, 6 Motif videos • Average length of video stories was 4.8 minutes (SD = 3.9) • Visited similar locations, but story ideas varied widely • Acted like real tourists 33
34. Story blocks helped participants use expert examples 34
35. Story blocks helped participants use expert examples I definitely recorded different things than I normally would have… I liked those, and normally if it were on my own, I would have done just one video [clip] and that would be it. Participant 8, Motif condition   35
36. Participant 1, Motif condition 36
37. Travel Break Participant 1, Motif condition 37
38. Participant 1, Motif condition 38
39. Story blocks helped participants use expert examples Maybe I would put more historic facts… Or maybe I would start in the center [of the garden] and move out... I didn’t have a plan... Starting was awkward and finishing was awkward. Participant 10, control condition   39
40. Participant 10, control condition 40
41. Story blocks reduced cognitive load during capture 41
42. Story blocks reduced cognitive load during capture The suggestions… actually helped provide a guide for the goal that I had selected… it was kind of a reminder, like, “What am I supposed to be doing here? Oh, right.” Participant 5, Motif condition   42
43. Story blocks reduced cognitive load during capture I wanted to label stuff so... they’re kind of like tags that help me remember what I took videos of… doing it after the fact takes more time because you have to rewatch the video. Participant 13, control condition   43
44. Do patterns actually help novices create better stories? 44
45. Yes! Videos created with patterns received higher rankings from the expert evaluator according to a Mann-Whitney U test (U = 38, p< 0.05). 45
47. Focus not just on quality but on enabling a creative process Patterns can help novices understand and use expert examples Access to expert examples extend our power to create and learn    47
48. Questions? http://motifstory.stanford.edu Joy Kim, Mira Dontcheva, Wilmot Li, Michael S. Bernstein, Daniela Steinsapir {jojo0808, msb}@cs.stanford.edu, {mirad, wilmotli, steinsap}@adobe.com 48