Reminiscent of the choose-your-own-ending mystery books, a TMA project empowers students to determine the finale of a new webisode series.
The New Media Development class is creating a 17-episode season of an interactive series called "The Book of Jer3miah," a story that is full of mysteries for BYU students to contribute to.
The first three webisodes will release this week. Today and Wednesday they will show at the Varsity Theater by Jamba Juice in the WSC at 4 p.m. The webisodes will show at the same time on Thursday in the room directly upstairs from Jamba Juice. Each showing will be about 15 minutes.
"The Book of Jer3miah" will also premier online Tuesday-Thursday at www.jer3miah.com. Each day, one webisode will release at 9 p.m.
"There will be weekly mysteries and puzzles to solve," said Jeff Parkin, TMA associate professor. "Interaction from the viewers will potentially impact the direction of the story."
So far, only three webisodes have been created. The class will develop each future webisode based on student involvement in the story's mysteries.
"We want to push story-telling to an interactive level," said Jared Cardon, a part-time faculty member who is helping to lead the project. "We're trying to find new ways to tell stories using the internet."
For those that just want to watch the Jer3miah episodes, they will show weekly on the Jer3miah Web site.
Parkin said the class is taking Elder Ballard's challenge to use the media as a way to share the gospel. They want to tell stories of LDS people in creative ways.
Cardon explained that one thing they hope students get out of watching or participating in the webisodes is the power they have on the internet.
"You as a viewer have more control over your media than ever before," Cardon said. Before the printing press was invented, Bibles were not available to everyone, he said. It was that way with the internet at one time. But something that used to belong to one powerful group of people is now available equally to everyone.
Copyright Brigham Young University 2 Feb 2009
