A study of the use of Augmented Reality in storytelling

Abstract

This dissertation is meant to function as a technical report as well as an academic thesis. As a thesis, its core existence is to examine how the technology of Augmented Reality (AR) can be used to enhance storytelling in sequential narratives. As a technical report, it analyses the design process and design decisions that went into creating a proof of concept (herein referred to as Awakening (Musoke, Awakening, 2020)) that sits as the cornerstone of this research; exemplifiying the theory as a phyiscal Comic that uses an Augmented Reality (AR) smartphone application to enhance the storytelling experience throught a unique combination of digital and traditional art media. This research culminated in a proof of concept called Awakening, an 8 page Comic created for this research with the purpose of exploring exposition, pace, rhythm and other key factors of visual storytelling while introducing interactivity and movement as possible areas of augmentation to enhance the story. Special note was taken to maintain relevance in the use of augmentation and explore different types of augmented reality applications within each page of the proof of concept (Awakening). The aim of the AR add on to the visual narrative was not to be a fancy visual gimmick but a relevant aspect that would enhance the story, or introduce information that would create an altered expereince to the traditional visual storytelling experience explored so far. Initially, prototpyes were made to be examined critically and used to develop a final proof of concept to answer the major research question of how can augmented reality be used to enhance the experience of storytelling? The prototypes aimed to explore various methods of storytelling and experiment with different uses of AR to enhance this storytelling Participants gave an overall positive review of the experience, with over 80% of participants agreeing that the AR technology enhanced the storytelling experience. Some compatibility issues were noted amongst participants, with some participants struggling to get the AR application working on their smartphone and instead. Despite this all participants managed to use the AR app on a device provided for by the assistant researcher as a backup in case compatibility issues like this arose. The entire video of Awakening Comic shall accompany this MA dissertation on the CD accompanying this paper as well as an online video on this YouTube link: Augmented Reality (AR) Masters Comic 2019/20 -YouTube