Task 2 – Chris Anderson – Digital Storytelling

Element	Detail	Example
SETTING	Place	Real life Chicago, IL
SETTING	Time	Present-day
MAIN CHARACTER	Name	Damon Mitchell
	Background	A man in his mid-40’s who has been working as a medical examiner for Cook County, IL for the past 15 years.
	What does this character want?	He wants to know the life story and death of this unidentified person he’s examining.
ANTAGONIST	Name	Unknown
	Relationship to MC	The body that Damon is examining
	Background	Unknown
	What does this character want?	Technically nothing because they’re dead, but the body itself seems to want to confuse Damon and confound its own life story and cause of death
SITUATION	What is happening at the beginning of the story?	Damon is just an ordinary guy going in to do his job.
INCITING EVENT	What event upsets the situation and introduces the main conflict?	His inability to find an apparent cause of death causes Damon to wonder about the person’s life and death.
CONFLICT	How do the characters react the inciting event?	It piques Damon’s curiosity and drives him to question everything about the person.
	What sustains the conflict?	The total lack of concrete answers and seemingly contradictory things about the body.
	What are the stakes?	Very low stakes, just the pride of the main character.
	What choice must the hero make?	He must grapple between his own desire to solve a mystery and the idea that not all mysteries are meant to be solved.
Premise	What is this story’s core? Theme:	An ordinary Chicago medical examiner finds himself tasked with examining a body with no clear cause of death, but many scars, tattoos, etc. detailing a long, storied life. As he ponders the life story and death of this unknown person, he learns about himself, his assumptions, and whether this is a mystery that needs solving. Theme: This is a story about identity and how an identity can be completely warped by someone else’s perception. It’s also about the futility of making assumptions based on incomplete information.