Through narrative we enter the world of others. Through narrative we piece together, filtered by our individual perspectives, a series of events.

We encounter narratives in a variety of fashions—from spoken word, to novel, to television, to interactive media. Narratives reflect the perspective of one person, or the imagined perspectives of many. Fictions of martian worlds and ancient histories collide with first-hand accounts of sporting events or disasters. Either way, the text or picture show, whether of a person’s life or of intergalactic events on Sidius 7, is only an artful approximation, a narrative, through which we glean a series of events.

Importantly, narratives exist outside the rules of the universe they mimic. They dictate the order, viewpoint(s), and emphasis by which we uncover a series of events, AND are free to bend the rules of time and space to do so.

As such, many of our most conventional narrative forms employ startling breaks with linear order. Imagine how different one’s experience of reading Sherlock Holmes would be if we found out from the get go who did it! How would a detective story work if not for the artful skill by which the author has constructed the narrative, so as to heighten interest by revealing the actual series of events in a selective way, often out of linear order. For example, in the movie Citizen Kane, Kane’s death is the first event of the movie--the rest of the picture is spent retracing his life. In Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon the whole mid-section of the movie is a flashback to events long preceding the main action of the story. Films like Pulp Fiction and Memento, following on the heels of authors like William S. Burroughs—exploit this fascinating gap between narrative order and that of everyday life. To this extent, they provide compelling stories that catch us off guard and in doing so broaden our understanding of the world.

So let your creativity go. Freak out. Tell us this story with your video in less than 5 minutes, however you want to tell it.

What a day!

Lead character wakes up. Sees something funny. Gets ready for work. Arrives late to work. Has a strange conversation by the water cooler. Later, makes an incredible discovery. Lead character celebrates. Lead character falls asleep.

See the degree to which one’s perspective and the way one chooses to tell a story affects our perception of events, places, and people.