1. STORYALITY THEORY : Consilience, Evolutionary Epistemology & Holonic Memetics JT Velikovsky Doctoral candidate: (Film/Screenwriting/Transmedia) School of Humanities and Communication Arts University of Western Sydney

2. Outline of this Paper: 1. Consilience 2. Movies 3. Knowledge 4. Systems Theory 5. Memetics (Holons) 6. The StoryAlity Theory 3. INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE - JT Velikovsky 91-94 Newcastle Uni (B.A. Comms - Screenwriting) 95-96 Screenwriting & Filmmaking - AFTRS, 2 years 98 Story Analyst (Fox, Polygram, Screen NSW, etc) 2000 - Inform P/L National Games Market Analyst 2000-2002 - Game Writer/Designer @ Ratbag Games 2004-5 - Director/Game Designer, A-Rage/UniSA 2005-7 - Game Designer/Writer Red Tribe Games 2008 Transmedia Consulting, Film, TV, Comix, ARGS Writing Feature Film Scripts (30) 2010-2013 XCOM (Game) 2K Games - screenwriter CAUGHT INSIDE (2011) film screenwriter THE JUNGLE (2013) script editor, crew roles Script Assessor & Judge - Australian Writers Guild 4. Top 20 Most-Viral Movies: Biggest `cost-benefit ratio movies, for Artists & Audiences See: On The Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, Fiction (Boyd 2009) 5. Feature Film: Domain & Field 1906 The Story of The Kelly Gang (Tait, 1906; 70 mins ) Currently = 500,000 movies (!) Vogel, HL (2011), Entertainment Industry Economics - A Guide For Financial Analysis, 8th Edn, Cambridge University Press, New York. 6. Feature Film: Domain & Field Film = Theatre + Photography + Literature (Csikszentmihalyi 1995) 7. Why..? Because: Evolution. 8. Feature Film Field (People) (Domains within Domains) 9. Real-World Problem: 70% of movies lose money (Vogel 2011) 10. The `< 1% Problem in Movies StoryAlity #1 About My Doctoral Research on Film / Screenwriting / Transmedia http://storyality.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/hello-world/ (Velikovsky 2012) 11. Why..? Because: Evolution. 12. StoryAlity Research Study: 13. Consilience See: E O Wilson `Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998) 14. 14 Consilience: or `vertical integration Physics, Chemistry, Life, Psychology, Sociology, Culturology c.f. EO Wilson in `Creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 1996, pp. 318-9) 15. Why..? Because: Evolution. 16. 1a. Consilience? BEFORE: Wilson, EO (1998), Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, 1st edn, Knopf: Distributed by Random House, New York. 17. 1b. Consilience-! AFTER! 18. 1c. History of Consilience William Whewell (1883 - scientist) C.P. Snow (1959 - `The Two Cultures) Karl Popper & Ernst Gombrich Arthur Koestler (1964, 1967, 1978) E.O. Wilson (1975, 1998) Csikszentmihalyi (1988, 1996) DK Simonton (1999-2011) 19. `Great Flicks (2011) Simonton, DK (2011), Great Flicks: Scientific Studies of Cinematic Creativity and Aesthetics, Oxford University Press, New York; Oxford. Distinguished Professor Dean Keith Simonton Department of Psychology University of California, Davis 20. CRITICAL vs RoI SUCCESS There is little overlap in critical and commercial success (virality) Writer-Directors are over-represented Simonton, Great Flicks (2011) 21. 1d. History of Consilience (2) `EVOCRITICISM / `BIOPOETICS / `BIOAESTHETICS / `LITERARY DARWINISM (1995-) Joseph Carroll (1995-) Cooke & Turner (1999) Ellen Dissanayake (1995) Dennis Dutton (2010) Jonathan Gottschall (2008, 2012) Michelle Scalise Sugiyama (2010) Brian Boyd (2009) For more, see: StoryAlity #71 On Consilience & Creativity http://storyality.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/storyality-71- Consilience-is-coming-Read-all-about-it/ 22. THESIS TITLE STORYALITY THEORY - UNDERSTANDING AND EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN: CREATIVITY; THEORIES OF NARRATOLOGY; SCREENWRITING; AND NARRATIVE FICTION FEATURE FILM-MAKING PRACTICES. 23. THINGS THAT DONT CAUSE A MOVIE TO GO VIRAL in CULTURE: 1. Star power (i.e. Casting of `A-list actors) The top 20 RoI films didnt have `Stars in them 2. Timing (e.g. with regards to holidays) A bad film story is a bad film story - even on a holiday 3. Number of screens that the Film opened on Wide-opening films still bomb if the story is bad 4. Opening Weekend box office figures Word of mouth spreads : That film is lousy, dont bother 5. Oscars (i.e. nominations, and/or wins) Only 2 of the top 20 RoI films have Oscar wins 6. Reviews Reviews dont make a significant difference to virality 7. Marketing Marketing does not improve the odds (De Vany 2004) 24. THINGS THAT DO CAUSE A MOVIE TO GO VIRAL in CULTURE: 1. The film Story. (That is all.) `It would have been hard to imagine at the outset that by applying high-brow mathematical and statistical science we would end up proving [William] Goldmans fundamental truth that, in the movies Nobody knows anything. None of our results is more surprising than finding that hard- headed science puts the creative process at the very center of the motion picture universe. There is no formula. Outcomes cannot be predicted. There is no reason for management to get in the way of the creative process. Character, creativity and good storytelling trump everything else. (De Vany 2004, Hollywood Economics, p. 6) 25. FINDING #3 (ON: THEMES) Top 20 RoI Films - all have the same Themes: (1) Survival, (2) Family/Community, (3) Justice (Revenge) Evocriticism / Ev Psych (Joseph Carroll, 1995, 2004, 2011) Consilience (EO Wilson, 1998) 26. Why are films successful..? Because: Human Nature. Q: What is `Human Nature ? A: See: Evolutionary Psychology. 27. How..? Q: How to make a successful movie? A: Make a movie many people like. Q: What do people like? A: See Evolutionary Psychology. 28. Ev Psych: `Human Nature Carroll, J (2012), 'The Truth About Fiction: Biological Reality And Imaginary Lives', Style, vol. 46, no. 2. (pp.33-5) 29. Ev Psych: Human Nature Carroll, J (2012), 'The Truth About Fiction: Biological Reality And Imaginary Lives', Style, vol. 46, no. 2. 30. Ev Psych: Human Nature Carroll, J (2012), 'The Truth About Fiction: Biological Reality And Imaginary Lives', PowerPoint slides. https://umsl.academia.edu/JosephCarroll 31. StoryAlity Research Study: 32. Primary Dataset: (n = 20) & in the Creative: Person, Process, Product (Film) & Place Product: Common elements in the: Story; Screenplay; Film 33. FINDINGS #1-10 In the Top 20 RoI Films: STORY / SCREENPLAY / FILM 1. These are `Villain Triumphant stories 2. These films have no `character arcs (for the protagonist) 3. All have the same Themes: 1 Survival, 2 Family/Community, 3 Justice 4. 2 parts: Before the `tragedy strikes - and, After 5. None are adaptations all are `original screen stories 6. 18 x set Present Day (except: Mad Max, American Graffiti) 7. Temporally linear (no `alternate structures Primer) 8. 90 screenplay pages / (90 mins screen time) 9. Settings: US, Australia, Ireland, UK, Mexico 10.19/20 are spoken-English-language (one is in Spanish) 34. FINDINGS #11-17 PRODUCTION: 11. 17 / 20 are independent films 12. Budget Range: $7k - $11m (Avg. Budget = $1.9m) 13. None have `stars (A-list actors) 14. None have big Marketing budgets 15. 13/20 had sequels THE CREATIVE INDIVIDUALS: 16. All Writer-hyphenates (Writer- Director/Producer/Actor) 17. 18.5 / 20 are male, and 1.5 are female 35. GENRE in the Top 20 RoI FINDING #18: There are no Drama genre films in the Top 20 But - there are several Dramas in the `Bottom 20 RoI Films 36. Why..? Because: Evolution. 37. 1. What is Knowledge..? `The School of Athens Raphael (1510) 38. 1c. `Schools of Thought 1. Adaptation Studies (e.g. Bluestone, Bruhn, Gjelsvik, Hanssen, Linda Hutcheon, Thomas Leitch) 2. Aestheticism (e.g. Harold Bloom, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Oscar Wilde) 3. Aesthetics/Philosophy of Art (e.g. Nol Carroll, Peter Lamarque, Stephen Davies, Greg Currie) 4. American Pragmatism (e.g. Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, John Dewey) 5. Archetypal/Mythic (e.g. Maud Bodkin, Northrop Frye, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, James Frazer) 6. Australian Realism (e.g. John Anderson, David Malet Armstrong, J.J.C. Smart) 7. Autobiographical Theory (e.g. Thomas Cooley, Albert E. Stone, Avrom Fleishman, Robert Smith, Paul de Man) 8. Chicago Aristotelians (e.g. R.S. Crane, Wayne Booth, Richard Levin) 9. Cognitive Cultural Studies (e.g. Lisa Zunshine, Patrick Colm Hogan, Nancy Easterlin, Brian Boyd, David Bordwell) 10. Colonialism (e.g. Jrgen Osterhammel, Robert J. C. Young, Diderot, de Tocqueville) 11. Post-Colonialism (e.g. Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Leela Gandhi) 12. Creativity Studies (e.g. Csikszentmihalyi, Sawyer, Simonton, Gardner, Boden, Koestler) 13. Cultural Studies (e.g. Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams, Marshall McLuhan, Henry Jenkins) 14. Deconstructionism (e.g. Derrida, Paul de Man, J. Hillis Miller) 15. Digital Literary Studies (e.g. Siemens, Schreibman, Crompton, Hoover, Liu) 16. Ecocriticism (e.g. William Rueckert, Joseph Meeker, Cheryll Glotfelty) 17. Empirical Literary Studies (e.g. Willie van Peer, Sonia Zyngier, Marisa Bortolussi, Frank Hakemulder) 18. Evocriticism/Biopoetics/Literary Darwinism/Consilience (e.g. EO Wilson, Brian Boyd, Joseph Carroll, Jon Gottschall, Brett Cooke, Frederick Turner, Michelle Scalise Sugiyama, David Bordwell, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett) 19. Existentialism (e.g. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Albert Camus, Sren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche) 20. Feminism (e.g. Julia Kristeva, Hlne Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Laura Mulvey) 21. Formalism (e.g. Plato, Aristotle, Vladimir Propp, Roman Jakobson, Viktor Shklovsky, David Bordwell) 22. Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory (e.g. Freud, Jacques Lacan, Charles Mauron) 23. Game Studies (e.g. Kurt Squire, Jane McGonigal, Jesper Juul, Henry Jenkins, Ian Bogost, Salen & Zimmerman, John Maynard Smith, Ernest W. Adams) 24. Gender studies (e.g. Judith Butler, Virginia Woolf, Rory Ridley-Duff, DonnaHaraway) 25. Genetic Studies (e.g. Jed Deppman, Daniel Ferrer, Michael Groden) 26. Genre Criticism (e.g. Aristotle, Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, Carolyn Miller) 27. German Hermeneutics / Phenomenology (e.g. Kant, Hegel, Husserl) 28. History of the Book and of Reading (e.g. Finkelstein, Gameson, Chow) 29. Historicism (e.g. Hegel, Marx, Boas) 30. New Historicism (e.g. Stephen Greenblatt, H. Aram Veeser, Michel Foucault) 31. Linguistic Analysis of Literature (e.g. Hasan, Wales, Talib) 32. Literature and Science (e.g. Beer, Gossin, Westfall) 33. Marxism (e.g. Marx, Fredric Jameson, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno,Terry Eagleton, Slavoj iek) 34. Post-Modernism (e.g. Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze, Flix Guattari, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Jameson) 35. Narratology (e.g. Wayne Booth, Gerard Genette, Seymour Chatman, Meir Sternberg, David Herman) 36. New Criticism (e.g. I. A. Richards, T. S. Eliot, Cleanth Brooks) 37. Philosophy of Science (e.g. Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Simonton) 38. Practice Theory (e.g. Bourdieu, Giddens, Postill, Schatzki, Latour, Rouse, Pickering) 39. Presentism (e.g LaCapra, Grady & Hawkes, Headlam Wells) 40. Queer Theory (e.g. Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick) 41. Reader Response (e.g. Stanley Fish, I. A. Richards, Louise Rosenblatt, Wolfgang Iser) 42. Reception Studies (e.g. Jauss, Hall, Holub) 43. Rhetoric (e.g. Plato, Kenneth Burke, Alex C Parrish) 44. Semiotics (e.g. Peirce, de Saussure, Lvi-Strauss, Barthes, Culler) 45. Structuralism (e.g. Lvi-Strauss, A. J. Greimas, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, Roman Jakobson, Vladimir Propp) 46. Post-Structuralism (e.g. Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, J. Hillis Miller, Jacques Lacan, Helene Cixous, Paul de Man) 47. Systems Theory (e.g. Altmann & Koch, Sadowski, von Bertalanffy, Laszlo, Koestler) 48. Territorialism (e.g. Ardrey, Goodenough) 49. Theology/Religion (e.g. Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Buddha, L Ron Hubbard, Dennis Taylor) 50. Translation Studies (e.g. Toury, Holmes, Venuti) 51. Transmedia Studies (e.g. Marsha Kinder, Henry Jenkins, Christy Dena) 52. Travel Theory (e.g. Jean Baudrillard, Alison Blunt, Kristi Siegel, Umberto Eco) StoryAlity #113: Survey Schools of Thought in the Arts / Humanities http://storyality.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/storyality-113-schools- of-thought-in-the-arts-humanities-survey/ 39. Evolutionary Epistemology - DT Campbell in (Popper & Schilpp 1974, pp. 41263) See also: (Gontier 2006, pp. 1-29). The evolutionary spiral of ideas (Koestler 1967, after Garstang 1922) (Koestler, A, The Ghost In The Machine 1967/1989, p. 168) 40. FINDING #16 All the 20 key creatives are writer-hyphenates: Writer-Director; or Writer-Producer; or Writer-Actor, (and/or, all 3) What does it mean? It pays to stay involved in production. 41. http://storyality.wordpress.com/creative-practice-theory/ 42. 42 1. Born: Bio-Psycho-Socio-Cultural background / `talents 2. Develop a habitus (a `feel for the game- of Film) 3. Absorb the Domain/s (films, books, courses, the web, etc.) 4. Internalize the Domain/s (e.g. Feature Films, Writing, Story) 5. Practise their craft skills (the `10-Year Rule[Hayes 1989]) 6. Navigate the Field, and assume a position within it 7. Acquire 3 forms of Capital (economic, social, cultural) 8. Implement a `creative work (a Feature Film) 9. The work is judged `creative by The Field 10. Acquire symbolic capital (e.g. awards) 11. Continue the cycle from # 2) above AND/OR: 12. Retire / Die Velikovsky (2013) CREATIVE PRACTICE THEORY As per the Top 20 RoI writer-hyphenates: 43. Virality of memes in Systems The `pond-ripple model of film meme virality (Velikovsky 2012) 44. FINDING #21: A System? FREQUENCY OF TOP 20 RoI FILMS = 2.05 YEARS (R2=96%) 45. Figure 5-2 - The increasingly large concentric circles in this simplified schematic represent the major levels at which creativity forces operate. (Hennessey & Amabile 2010, p. 571) CREATIVITY: SYSTEMS THEORIES `What we need now are all encompassing systems theories of creativity designed to tie together and make sense of the diversity of perspectives found in the literature - from the innermost neurological level to the outermost cultural level. (Hennessey & Amabile 2010) Annual Review of Psychology, 2010 46. 46 `For creativity to occur, a set of rules and practices must be transmitted from the domain to the individual. The individual must then produce a novel variation in the content of the domain. The variation then must be selected by the field for inclusion in the domain (Csikszentmihalyi 1999: p 315) DIFi SYSTEMS MODEL OF CREATIVITY 47. DIFi Systems Theory The Domain, Individual, Field interaction Systems model of Creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, 1996) 48. Systems Theory A system and its environment (Sadowski 1999, p. 19) Sadowski, P (1999), Systems Theory as an Approach to the Study of Literature: Origins and Functions of Literature, E. Mellen Press, Lewiston, N.Y. 49. Systems Theory The autonomous system and its environment (Sadowski 1999, p. 76) Sadowski, P (1999), Systems Theory as an Approach to the Study of Literature: Origins and Functions of Literature, E. Mellen Press, Lewiston, N.Y. 50. Systems Theory: Movies SOCIETY (Field) and CULTURE (Domain): Two self-coupled systems 51. 51 `For creativity to occur, a set of rules and practices must be transmitted from the domain to the individual. The individual must then produce a novel variation in the content of the domain. The variation then must be selected by the field for inclusion in the domain (Csikszentmihalyi 1999: p 315) DIFi SYSTEMS MODEL OF CREATIVITY 52. GENES = MEMES (Evolution) (i.e., Selection, Variation, Transmission) Creativity, Genes and Biological Evolution Figure 1: Model of Biological Evolution (M. Csikszentmihalyi and Wolfe 2000: 83) `Creativity is the engine that drives cultural evolution. (M. Csikszentmihalyi and Wolfe 2000: 84) Creativity, Memes and Cultural Evolution Figure 2: The Systems Model of Creativity (M. Csikszentmihalyi and Wolfe 2000: 84) 53. EVIDENCE: A FILM SYSTEM? CREATIVE PRACTICE THEORY AGENT-BASED MODEL OF THE FILM SYSTEM (Velikovsky 2013) http://storyality.wordpress.com/creative-practice-theory/ 54. Holarchy of concepts in StoryAlity Theory (2014) 55. Holarchy of concepts in StoryAlity Theory (2014) 56. Holarchy of concepts in StoryAlity Theory (2014) 57. Holarchy of concepts in StoryAlity Theory (2014) 58. Holarchy of concepts in StoryAlity Theory (2014) 59. Consilience 60. Holons/Holarchies Janus: A Summing Up (Koestler 1978, pp. 28-9) 61. 61 Holons / Holarchies A bio-psycho-socio-politico-geo-cultural holarchy (Velikovsky 2013) A holon is a node in a holarchy. It is a part and also a whole. The laws of holarchies: [1] A holon looks up for what it needs to integrate with. [2] It looks sideways for what it needs to compete &/or cooperate with. [3] It looks down for what it wants to control &/or command. (Funch 1995, after Koestler 1964-78) Also c.f.: Miller, J.G. (1978), Living Systems, McGraw-Hill, New York. 62. 62 Memes (ideas) are holons The structure of the meme the unit of culture: the holon (Velikovsky 2013) Holons: co-operate/compete sideways/command down/integrate up Creativity/Evolution: Selection, Variation, Transmission-with-heredity 63. STORYALITY PREDICTIONS: StoryAlity Theory predicts - a Top 20 RoI Film: CRITERIA PROBABILITY Will arrive every 2.05 yrs 96% chance Will be by a writer-hyphenate 100% chance Will follow StoryAlity structure 100% chance Will be 90 mins/ 90 scenes 80% chance Will be a Horror genre film 50% chance Will be `found footage 15% chance Will be a Drama genre 0% chance Will be a `monomyth story 15% chance Will be a `Villain Triumphant 100% chance Will have `character arcs 0% chance Will have the `3 primal Themes 100% chance 64. 64http://storyality.wordpress.com/ StoryAlity Research Blog: 65. Psychology the systems model (Csikszentmihalyi) Sociology practice theory (Bourdieu) Philosophy holons (Koestler) Memetics memes (Dawkins) Narratology story theory Communications communication theory models Statistics analysis of the story elements in top 20 films Probability Theory high-ROI film predictive theory Complexity Theory modelling the feature film system Computer Modelling agent-based modelling Film Screenwriting Theory since 1913 & `script gurus Film Production Case Studies Top & Bottom 20 RoI Evolutionary Literary Theory Darwin (Carroll, Boyd) Interdisciplinary Components of: Creative Practice Theory Narratology 66. STORYALITY THEORY : Consilience, Evolutionary Epistemology & Holonic Memetics JT Velikovsky Doctoral candidate: (Film/Screenwriting/Transmedia) School of Humanities and Communication Arts University of Western Sydney