Film Courage: Margaret, in world building what do you mean by if
you make it personal you will make it universal?
Margaret Kerrison, Immersive Storyteller, Narrative Director and Writer: I think
it's so important to think about how you can make a story extremely personal and
authentic to your voice for people to understand it in a greater context.
I made the mistake when I first started out as a writer thinking that I would write something that
everyone would love and looking at all my favorite movies and books and everything and trying to find
a story that is pleasing to everyone. Over the years I learned that it's really when you dive
deep into yourself and trying to find the stories that really make you who you are in your own life
and drawing upon those experiences life experiences to make it feel genuine and
personal in any story that you work on later in life. When I work on anything I draw on that
personal experience because anyone, a visitor, reader, a spectator can feel that it's not
authentic or genuine if it's something that's fabricated. The more that you make it personal
I find that this is the whole phrase of write what I didn't understand that until later on in life
but now I understand that that's what it means that you have to make it personal in order for
people to understand and that it goes back to what makes us human the universal human truths that we
all share we all love hate we understand revenge and envy and jealousy and all of these things
but we all experience it in different worlds and contexts with different people in our lives and
different situations but when you make it personal and you draw on something that is extremely felt
in your own way and you're able to express that and manifest that into a story that
is extremely personal to you then I believe it is universal to anyone who experiences it
Margaret what's the three second rule that you refer to in your new book
so the three second rule is if you're creating a world or an immersive experience if your
audience member doesn't understand the world they're in in three seconds or less
then you have not successfully suspended their disbelief and this idea came the first time I
heard it was a story about George Lucas when he was creating his the Star Wars universe is that
when an audience member looks at a Star Wars world and if it doesn't feel and he was creating it if
it doesn't feel like something that belonged in the world he was creating then it does not belong
so it was a really interesting way to look at the world that you're creating to make sure that it's
consistent throughout your whole experience and if you're creating something that is truly immersive
then it should feel immersive from every to every single detail from beginning to end and it should
be it should all speak in the same it should feel like it belongs in the same world World it should
feel like it isn't jarring or that it's out of context or it breaks the pattern of your world
it's a way for the audience to connect the dots and continue that journey and that believability
that they are living in this or stepping into this immersive world so it's a really great way
for you to look at the world that you're creating whether it's in a video game or a or an experience
of physical experience if you have someone walk in and look at a place and in three seconds if
they don't tell you exactly what you're trying to build then you need to get back to work you
need to figure out a way that it can be because our minds work so fast and we easily break the
world all the time as visitors and participants to an experience that you want to ensure that
you never give your audience member or visit an opportunity to break out of your world and so
try the three second rule to create an experience and a story that is truly immersive so three
seconds it's almost like a couple blinks of an eye yeah yeah that's how quickly you absorb the
environment that you're in I mean this is a survival skill right that we as human beings
like we know that we're in a safe place in a dangerous place it's a fight and flight response
fight or flight and so for us to quickly make sense of our environment and our surroundings
is something that we as humans evolved to do so in three seconds or less if where you are and you can
quickly make sense of things then you feel safe and when you have that safety then you're willing
to play then you're willing to engage so you have to create that safety net first and that's
something that is extremely important in world building because if we really want to take it back
what is it Maslow's Hierarchy yeah the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs exactly so security, safety
I'm not sure where they fall on that scale oh yeah that's the most basic thing right that you feel
safe that your life isn't threatened and then from there you're able to enjoy the
luxuries and the pleasures of life so once you create that safety net of knowing that you're
and that's why like when you we create any type of immersive experiences we always start with
the the world the the rules or the Rules of Engagement so you say things like please ensure
that you whatever it is keep to the path don't touch this or whatever so that you have that sense
of safety before you enter the world and that's one thing right to create those parameters those
safety guard rails if you will the pool rules the swimming pool rules and once you enter that
experience how do you create that next step of once you've established that safety that you can
enter a place and feel safe in those three seconds as well and from there unless you have you're
building a horror house which you don't want to feel safe right you want to be terrified and
scared and running for your life but in any other situation where you want people to play and engage
you have to ensure that they feel safe first and foremost to interact with others to play to engage
to discover to explore can they open drawers but having that rule of the the three second rule of
looking around and quickly figuring out okay this is a this is a place that I can quickly
in my mind know that I'm gonna in this world I'm immersed in it I'm safe to do the things that I'm
supposed to do is a really great way for you to win your audience immediately when they start the
experience in your book immersive storytelling I think it was further in page 186 or so you say as
humans we need to have idle time and occasionally be bored and unproductive yes and I love hearing
that because I think a lot of times as creative people we feel like I'm not inspired today yeah
there must be something wrong like why why can't I do something creative yeah I believe in being
bored and unproductive wholeheartedly I think that when we really think back to
at least for me in my time being a kid and not and feeling that boredom and not having anything to do
that's really when I pulled out the blank sheet of paper when I took my the felt and my scissors and
glue and started creating things and making things and really trying to going learning
about that creative process and whether it was good or bad it didn't matter I just wanted to
create and as you get older you start editing yourself and like judging yourself before you
even create the thing and then you quit or you stop because it's not great or you think that
someone else does it better or all these things but I think that being bored and unproductive
is a great way to quiet your mind and to reset and to shut out all the other voices that's telling
you what you should be doing what you should be creating and when you're bored and unproductive
you'll be surprised to hear your inner voice your inner artist about and your inner creative about
what's meaningful to you when you stop hearing other people's opinions and perspective on what
you should be doing in your in your life or what project you should be working on next and all this
and I think that during the pandemic and when we were isolating and in our homes that was something
that I experienced in very in an extreme form like all of us that we are locked into our houses
we couldn't do anything about it we were bored our mind out of our minds and we wanted to do
something again and for me personally it felt like I needed to had have that reset button to realize
what is important to me what's still important to me what's no longer important to me right
and being board and an unproductive helps you to really have that open space in your mind to accept
what comes in and you'll be surprised you'll be surprised by what does enter your mind and your
imagination when you're not constantly inundated with noise and chatter and distractions and so I
recommend everyone be bored and unproductive at least one day out of the week I think that's a
problem for some people because over scheduling is its own form of addiction yeah and so I think they
feel like I'm not being good if I don't have like all these things that I have lined up yeah like
there's something wrong with me oh yeah and it's a constant struggle for me too because especially
living in La is also I remember when I first moved to LA people are like rushing from one thing to
the next and I remember thinking oh I don't have that much to do I actually have time to sit around
here for two hours and have lunch but people were rushing from one thing to the next and it affected
me over the years I'm like oh I have to be busy too I have to be productive I have to work on
five to six projects at a time like everyone else because that way that's how I would want the world
to perceive me as a very productive creative or writer or artist and after a while I realized well
who am I doing this for and if if it is to please others then that is definitely not my priority
because life is short and we need to do the the things that we ultimately are meant to
do in this world and in this lifetime so being bored and unproductive once in a while I'm not
saying all the time right because we all need to do our things to earn money and whatever it
is as we do but it's it's a really great reminder at least to know that you don't always have to be
productive as a human being as an individual that you need time to rest you need time to
fill your well because that's something that as a creative I just need to walk around I need to take
a hike I need to do my yoga I need to maybe walk around in a museum without any goals at all and
wander and get lost and not have a destination and maybe let someone else plan something for
me for a while and just let go of all of those expectations just for a while to have your mind
refresh itself and to really think about what's what the most important things to you will
surprisingly come to mind because oftentimes I think we clutter our minds and our lives
and some people do that in in manifests in actual things like when they when people start cluttering
their houses and things like that right it's the same thing with our mind and the more you let in
the more you perhaps start to lose what makes you you and there's never going to be another
you in this lifetime or in this in in the history of humankind so why not why not just let yourself
be unproductive not do anything so that you can listen to your inner voice to tell you
what it is that you need to do or not do I think it's a really great way to gain
perspective on your life and it's something that you need to occasionally do in your life.