Panelists included screen writers, producers, actors, musicians and multimedia designers, representing creative genres ranging from children’s television to video games to electronic music, multimedia and interactive movies.

The idea was so successful that more than 800 people attended during the three days of Digital World, including actor Alan Alda and musician Frank Zappa.

FINDING THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY FOR THE JOB

Several themes emerged from the discussions:

• Probably the highlight of all the sessions came when an audience member took the panel to task about focusing too much on interactivity by saying: “Let me tell you what I want in interactivity. I want two choices. When I come home from a hard day at work, I want to turn this thing on and watch it. I don’t want to play with it. I don’t want to ‘interact’ with it. I just want to let it wash over me. On the other hand, I want the ability, when I am not tired, to ask this thing questions, to participate in the entertainment or information it is providing. If you are going to force me to always be pushing buttons or asking questions, I’m not going to be interested.”

• The idea of interactive fiction seems like an oxymoron. While hotly debated, the idea of creating successful, intriguing, interactive narratives with multiple storylines and multiple endings may be unobtainable — technologically achievable yet creatively flat.

• While the creative community and the technology community use the same words to describe projects, the definitions of the words are different. This has derailed many a happy relationship. To avoid this, creatives and technologists need to be sure that assumptions are explained clearly and not left “assumed.”

• The computer industry has been slow to invite professional writers and other individuals from the entertainment industry into the creative process of building interactive titles (with notable exceptions such as Brøderbund and Philips): first, because they don’t know how to find each other and second because they don’t understand the value of working together as a team.

• There is no effective business model for rights licensing, royalties, distribution, pricing, music, video and film clip rights, and other reuse issues. Consequently, rights holders take a very conservative approach by not setting a precedent on licensing until they “see how it all shakes out.” No one wants to leave money on the table.

• Games, especially “shoot-em-ups,” are the hot sellers in interactive media and the principal buyers are teen-age boys. Titles for teenage girls, women, minorities or “thirty-somethings and beyond” won’t develop until there is a market, and a market for them won’t develop until there are titles. This conundrum had most participants denouncing the state of the industry, but the upshot is that while solutions are eminently desirable, no one has any clear ideas on how to achieve them.

• There is a lot more to interactivity than simply CD-ROM. Other venues are interactive: online games, theme parks, audio, informational kiosks, robots, magazines, television/cable and research.

Finally, the Creative Cafe was about networking. Meeting people who are wrestling with the same issues in creating this new form of communication. As one of the participants said: “The difficult I do right away. The impossible takes a phone call to a friend.”

(For information on the Writers Guild of America, west, contact Richard Kulberg at [310] 550-1000.)

Larry Jordan