i.Alex McDowell

 

Alex McDowell is a world building theorist and practitioner known initially for his infamous work as the production designer on the future crime film Minority Report (2002), which spawned hundreds of patents for new technology developed as a result of the R&D that took place well before a script was ever written all of this informed the multiple narratives of the script. I was fortunate to interview him via Skype from his LA home for nearly two hours, where he broke down his work at USC (University of Southern California), where he teaches world building to multi-faculty students ranging from biology to film studies within the School of Cinematic Arts under the banner of WbML (World Building Media Lab).

 

 

Figure 1: Click the image to view the interview

Alex was open to me sharing the background information that informed my exegesis research question and some of the derivatives I explored in developing it. It was my question that initially piqued his interest when I reached out via LinkedIn, at which time he replied immediately:

 

Hi Alex,

 

As part of my studies at AFTRS: Australian Film, Television and Radio School, where I’m undertaking a Master of Screen Arts in Production Design, our esteemed Discipline Lead Natalie Beak introduced us to your mind-blowing ongoing research into world-building.

 

As part of my Professional Practice unit, I am required to undertake a creative practitioner interview with someone I admire. Additionally, my exegesis research topic explores your work.

 

Would you be open to being interviewed for 30 minutes, where I will ask a few short questions about how World Building theory and practice can be applied to expedite the pre-development of a historical drama, potentially harnessing the power of AI and agile innovation theory to do so?

 

Hoping you are available sometime before the end of this month to chat further; I look forward to your response.

 

Regards,

 

Nathan Evans

 

At the outset, Alex ensured to communicate that world building was not a film production process but a framework for exploring story. Sharing the following quotes from his lengthy slide deck of multiple presentations dating back to 2016 up until the current teaching syllabus at USC for 2024:

 

 

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Alex refreshed my memory regarding the history of storytelling and took me into a deep dive into the magical world building tool – the Mandala.

 

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Through an intimate explanation of his case studies, I better understood how to develop my practised-based research undertaken across projects encompassing —Collect Call (2024), Chaharshanbeh Suri (2024), and Seven Valleys (2024) and evolving research questions.

 

a.Case Study: MAKOKO

 

​Before interviewing Alex, I refreshed my memory regarding the Makoko project, which I have previously elaborated on as a part of my source review. Unlike the academic research paper, I was privy to information not shared in the article. Most engaging to me was the multi-faceted diagrams shown in the screen captures of the following two slides:

 

 

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The geographical nature of the second slide exemplifies the complexity of interconnectedness that world building as a narrative practice explores. I was dismayed to discover through Alex that the floating school developed as part of the project for the impoverished community had been destroyed.

 

b.Case Study: JUNK

 

I was fortunate to get a working insight into the current curriculum project that Alex was in the depth of exploring with his students at USC:

 

 

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Extensively utilising Miro software as a tool for students to share information and collaborate, I began to see some similarities with my research and how I organise it visually using Milanote; however, the unencapsulated manner in which Miro can be harnessed to develop concepts zooming in at a macro level for detail but still allowing for a holistic overview is something that genuinely fascinates me. From word lists to images, diagrams, and AI-generated concepts, the latter was encouraged due to the diverse array of students from multiple faculties who may not have established design skills.

 

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The above overview exemplifies the development of multiple ideas informing one world with multiple narratives and harnessing the power of creation to conceptualise an artefact that encapsulates either a single or multiple ideals.

 

The overall nature of this project ties in with the basis of agile innovation practice regarding transparency to deliver governance, cross-team knowledge, iterative improvements and ongoing deliverables, which was explained in layperson terms in person when I interviewed my second creative practitioner, Craig Coates—simplification to ensure understanding.

 

Unfortunately, I didn’t take the opportunity to enquire whether Alex was across agile innovation and whether he practises it as part of world-building.

 

c.Case Study: NIKE

 

​The complexity of the NIKE project, especially in relation to the depth achieved by the interactive website created as an artefact to communicate the world building, intrigued me, and I went away wanting to emulate the same functionality and visual aesthetic to all my projects.

 

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The character development of the fictional Sara over time and space using the mandala to organise information encompassing her character journey, scale and context, and artefacts created supporting this was insightful.

 

 

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The complexity of the mandala as a narrative tool to support the narrative process of world building in a cohesive and manageable manner is groundbreaking. The user interface offers a seamless navigation experience.

 

 

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The levels of information in a virtual three-dimensional environment enable the gathering and exploration of hierarchical, needs-based narratives. This allows for the synthesis of many interconnected worlds layered within one another to be easily extrapolated. Unfortunately, I currently lack the programming expertise to emulate this model to the extent I would like for my research. However, I hope to achieve this in the future for Seven Valleys (2024).

 

 

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It was the video artefact creation for one of Sara’s narratives that inspired me to do the same for the first 4/7 seasons for Seven Valleys (2024).

 

 

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At the time this was being developed the screenwriter who collaborated on the project extensively utilised the dynamic information contained in the interactive mandala to create narratives for scripts. I, too, would like to emulate this model of world building to create a working resource for future collaborators to dive deep into the historical world of Seven Valleys (2024), harnessing the ability to interact with it at both macro and micro levels to gain both an in-depth and holistic overview to explore character, events and place in no particular order but whatever occurs organically.