
Born in Indonesia and raised in Singapore, MARGARET KERRISON achieved her Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Her career spans television, film, digital media, games, brand storytelling. She's worked as a Story Lead, Story Consultant, and writer for multiple projects around the world. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Good Morning America, and Wired. She was a Disney Imagineer from 2013-2022. Immersive Storytelling for Real and Imagined Worlds - A Writer's Guide is her first book. It is now available from Michael Wiese Productions.
Dave Watson: Congratulations on a great, timely book. How did it come about? People seem to have a hunger for immersing themselves in different worlds.
Margaret Kerrison: It was really a challenge for me. During the quarantine, I thought, what is something I can work on, can chip away at every day and have it be a personal challenge to do. It was a real challenge for me to think about, well, if I was I going to teach or guide anyone through the skill set or training I’ve had over the last fourteen years of my career, how can I do it, how would I describe it? How would I codify this craft?
I thought, this was a book I would have wanted when I was starting out in my career. I thought about writing for film or television, I didn’t even consider the discovery of this whole world of immersive stories.
How to ask the right questions. That’s how I approach the book. I’m not trying to give a step-by-step textbook version of how I do what I do. Moreover, it’s a guide to ask the right questions as a storyteller and writer and creator.
Every story is so particular and personal. You don’t want to echo or repeat another story that’s been told before by someone else.
I wrote every day, Monday to Sunday, from six to eight a.m., and wrote until I had a first draft. I sent out the first drafts to publishers and went with Michael Wiese Productions which is a great publisher and publishes books I’d read when I was starting out in my career. Books like Save the Cat!, The Writers’ Journey, and Writing the TV Drama Series.
DW: It sounds like you really gave yourself over to this book, this idea of immersive storytelling. The title appears inherently important for film and streaming series because audiences give themselves over to stories on the screen. You talk about the opening scene. People talk about the hook. Why is it so important?
MK: Because you have one chance to make a first impression, a good first impression. That is true for any storytelling, a book, a TV series, a film, and immersive experience. That first impression should have that ability to suspend an audience’s disbelief, that you as an audience member are walking into a story you are fully, participating in, immersed in, and believe in, and to have that ability as a creator to create a space or story that has someone completely invested in your world, and looking around and believing that they are in this world, is something that Walt Disney was a master of.
I brought up the opening of Haunted Mansion because that was so important in my life as a kid, when I went through that attraction believing I was in a haunted house and knowing that you’re in a safe space to discover and immerse yourself in a ghostly, spiritual world where you know you’re going to come out safe.
That someone or a team of people had created an environment that had so much story, so much potential for this realm of imagination, that really inspired me to think about how storytellers in the world do this in the first few seconds of a film, a story, not only to have an audience’s attention but to suspend their disbelief and enter this world.
DW: You uncannily transition to discussing the creative process. Why?
MK: I wanted to include the creative process because I want people to understand that it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of thought and detail that goes into thinking about how you tell a story in an environment.
Through characters, through all the multiple senses: sight, sound, hearing, smell, taste, everything, and how do you tell a story in a particular place. How do you tell a story so that people enter and immerse themselves in that world is a process. What is that process?
As I mentioned in the book, there are no two projects I’ve worked on that have been the same. It all depends on the scope of the work, the nature of the team, the nature of the work.
I wanted to really find a way to outline a creative process that could be applicable to immersive storytelling or any kind of storytelling. Are you asking all the big questions up front? The “Why” is really important, why your story should exist, and why you are the best storyteller to tell it. If you can’t answer those two questions, then you’re in trouble.
You as a storyteller have to understand this reason for being, this game, this TV show, this film, this whatever, you have to understand who they, the characters are, and where they’re from. These are universal truths that you have to seek and have it resonate with the audience.
When I thought about all the projects I’ve worked on and trying to find a way to outline what this creative process is, this is my attempt to do that, and hopefully it worked.
DW: You talk about the audience experiencing a story, which implies a sensory experience and this is done on multiple levels. What did you want readers to take away from this section of the book?
MK: We are human beings that take in information, find patterns, create memories, using all of our senses. We are not machines, as much as a lot of people react like we are.
All of those feelings create memories, and create patterns in our behaviors and rituals and habits, with family, our friends, colleagues; all of these things are part of our experience as human beings.
To think about creating immersive storytelling in this environment using all of these senses is a really great way to immerse people fully in your world.
It’s not just about sight or sound; it’s about how you feel when someone touches your arm, whispers in your ear, when you smell cookies in the oven. It brings back associations you had in the past, it brings up dreams you may have had as a child, this feeling you may have forgotten about you’re reminded of again. There’s such great psychology behind a place and a space., and how do you think about how your audience member or participant is going to feel and engage in that particular space, so that whatever emotion you want them to come out feeling, those are all details you have to consider as an environmental, immersive storyteller, or story designer.
Whether it’s going to be a small, ten-by-ten room or a gigantic sixteen-acre land, all of these things still apply.
DW: So there are levels of conscience in your book. People remember movies for months, quote them for years, and that never ceases to amaze me. Your book is also very personal, which was a fresh surprise. How and why did you incorporate these elements into the book, which is a story on its own?
MK: (Laughs) As I was writing it, it did become part memoir, part writer’s guide. It’s one of the things I noted in the book as well: if you want to make a universal story, you have to make it personal. This field, this craft, is very personal to me. Growing up, I was that kid who was always lost in her imagination, and lost in her world of make believe. I never separated the two. I never separated the idea that this is what I’m going to do for work, or this is who I am; all of those things are part of who I am, and sharing that story, going to museums around the world and sharing these experiences, I think it’s important to share that with the next generation of storytellers and creators because there’s a responsibility to represent your audience in an authentic way, and that’s so important to me as an immigrant, as a Chinese person, an American, a mother, a wife, it’s important to be thoughtful and recognize the fact that no two human beings are the same.
So how do you create something that is meaningful to everyone? It’s very tempting for every new storyteller to want to make it as generic as possible because they are hoping to get as many audience members or people engaged as possible when the opposite is true. When you do make something that is specific and personal to you, people will resonate with that because there is a universal truth about it.
Everyone feels love, jealousy, fear, envy, anxiety, and passion, so when you feel that way, audience members will feel that way too.
When you come from a source of truth and authenticity and a genuine feeling of wanting to share that story with others, I think that’s when magic really happens, that’s when people really resonate with your story.
DW: That’s come up here before: the more specific choices you make, the universally applicable they are. Even if you travel to inner Mongolia, people may identify with that place. What's next?
MK: I always think about a quote by James Joyce. He was being interviewed and was asked once, “Why do you always write about Dublin?” and he answered, “Because it’s what I know, and in the particular is contained the universal.” I’ve always loved that quote. It’s so true. No matter where you’re from, a remote countryside to a very urban city, I think what unifies us all are the feelings and emotions that we share as human beings, and the more we are reminded of how similar we all are, rather than different, the better we are as a society. We can function better, we’re not so different after all. I think that’s the beauty of storytelling, the power of it.
DW: Film can transcend national borders pretty instantly. You’re speaking as a global society. This grand scale in mind, what’s next for you?
MK: I’m always working on several things in my mind (laughs) at once. I’ve really enjoyed writing this book. I’m working on a couple of book projects right now.
Thinking about other book ideas, I’m thinking about the immersive world and what I want to do. There are several pots boiling at the same time. I’m always trying to find ways to push the boundaries and tell stories in different mediums. There are several things in the works.
DW: What is your favorite cinematic moment?
MK: That’s a really hard one to answer! I’m a huge film and TV series buff. There are always the classics like the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark or when they see the dinosaurs for the first time in Jurassic Park.
I have to say Squid Game has been really powerful for me, how telling a particular story that’s very universal, this is a Korean TV series that’s taken the world by storm. I just watched Prey and there are many scenes that have stayed with me.
There are so many, it’s so hard to choose. I’m an avid reader, but also guilty of binge-watching all kinds of movies or TV shows. There are so many!
DW: I lived in South Korea for a year, saw Squid Game, saw Parasite, which won Best Picture and International feature, the first time to ever do that. I said, “That’s a very Korean show and movie,” and audiences said, “We know what those people are up against in Squid Game, and what those people are doing in Parasite."
MK: Right. Everyone knows what it’s like to be a part of a family, even a dysfunctional one. For Squid Game, people know what it’s like to struggle with debt. I love the stories who ask, “What would you do? What’s important to you?” Especially with the pandemic, it’s all out of your control and you have to ask questions like, “What is or who is worth sacrificing for?” And you’re really pushed to the limit of who you thought you were and what you were, or thought you were.
Clip: Squid Game
Founder and editor of Movies Matter, Dave Watson is a writer and educator in Madison, WI.
Dave Watson: Congratulations on a great, timely book. How did it come about? People seem to have a hunger for immersing themselves in different worlds.
Margaret Kerrison: It was really a challenge for me. During the quarantine, I thought, what is something I can work on, can chip away at every day and have it be a personal challenge to do. It was a real challenge for me to think about, well, if I was I going to teach or guide anyone through the skill set or training I’ve had over the last fourteen years of my career, how can I do it, how would I describe it? How would I codify this craft?
I thought, this was a book I would have wanted when I was starting out in my career. I thought about writing for film or television, I didn’t even consider the discovery of this whole world of immersive stories.
How to ask the right questions. That’s how I approach the book. I’m not trying to give a step-by-step textbook version of how I do what I do. Moreover, it’s a guide to ask the right questions as a storyteller and writer and creator.
Every story is so particular and personal. You don’t want to echo or repeat another story that’s been told before by someone else.
I wrote every day, Monday to Sunday, from six to eight a.m., and wrote until I had a first draft. I sent out the first drafts to publishers and went with Michael Wiese Productions which is a great publisher and publishes books I’d read when I was starting out in my career. Books like Save the Cat!, The Writers’ Journey, and Writing the TV Drama Series.
DW: It sounds like you really gave yourself over to this book, this idea of immersive storytelling. The title appears inherently important for film and streaming series because audiences give themselves over to stories on the screen. You talk about the opening scene. People talk about the hook. Why is it so important?
MK: Because you have one chance to make a first impression, a good first impression. That is true for any storytelling, a book, a TV series, a film, and immersive experience. That first impression should have that ability to suspend an audience’s disbelief, that you as an audience member are walking into a story you are fully, participating in, immersed in, and believe in, and to have that ability as a creator to create a space or story that has someone completely invested in your world, and looking around and believing that they are in this world, is something that Walt Disney was a master of.
I brought up the opening of Haunted Mansion because that was so important in my life as a kid, when I went through that attraction believing I was in a haunted house and knowing that you’re in a safe space to discover and immerse yourself in a ghostly, spiritual world where you know you’re going to come out safe.
That someone or a team of people had created an environment that had so much story, so much potential for this realm of imagination, that really inspired me to think about how storytellers in the world do this in the first few seconds of a film, a story, not only to have an audience’s attention but to suspend their disbelief and enter this world.
DW: You uncannily transition to discussing the creative process. Why?
MK: I wanted to include the creative process because I want people to understand that it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of thought and detail that goes into thinking about how you tell a story in an environment.
Through characters, through all the multiple senses: sight, sound, hearing, smell, taste, everything, and how do you tell a story in a particular place. How do you tell a story so that people enter and immerse themselves in that world is a process. What is that process?
As I mentioned in the book, there are no two projects I’ve worked on that have been the same. It all depends on the scope of the work, the nature of the team, the nature of the work.
I wanted to really find a way to outline a creative process that could be applicable to immersive storytelling or any kind of storytelling. Are you asking all the big questions up front? The “Why” is really important, why your story should exist, and why you are the best storyteller to tell it. If you can’t answer those two questions, then you’re in trouble.
You as a storyteller have to understand this reason for being, this game, this TV show, this film, this whatever, you have to understand who they, the characters are, and where they’re from. These are universal truths that you have to seek and have it resonate with the audience.
When I thought about all the projects I’ve worked on and trying to find a way to outline what this creative process is, this is my attempt to do that, and hopefully it worked.
DW: You talk about the audience experiencing a story, which implies a sensory experience and this is done on multiple levels. What did you want readers to take away from this section of the book?
MK: We are human beings that take in information, find patterns, create memories, using all of our senses. We are not machines, as much as a lot of people react like we are.
All of those feelings create memories, and create patterns in our behaviors and rituals and habits, with family, our friends, colleagues; all of these things are part of our experience as human beings.
To think about creating immersive storytelling in this environment using all of these senses is a really great way to immerse people fully in your world.
It’s not just about sight or sound; it’s about how you feel when someone touches your arm, whispers in your ear, when you smell cookies in the oven. It brings back associations you had in the past, it brings up dreams you may have had as a child, this feeling you may have forgotten about you’re reminded of again. There’s such great psychology behind a place and a space., and how do you think about how your audience member or participant is going to feel and engage in that particular space, so that whatever emotion you want them to come out feeling, those are all details you have to consider as an environmental, immersive storyteller, or story designer.
Whether it’s going to be a small, ten-by-ten room or a gigantic sixteen-acre land, all of these things still apply.
DW: So there are levels of conscience in your book. People remember movies for months, quote them for years, and that never ceases to amaze me. Your book is also very personal, which was a fresh surprise. How and why did you incorporate these elements into the book, which is a story on its own?
MK: (Laughs) As I was writing it, it did become part memoir, part writer’s guide. It’s one of the things I noted in the book as well: if you want to make a universal story, you have to make it personal. This field, this craft, is very personal to me. Growing up, I was that kid who was always lost in her imagination, and lost in her world of make believe. I never separated the two. I never separated the idea that this is what I’m going to do for work, or this is who I am; all of those things are part of who I am, and sharing that story, going to museums around the world and sharing these experiences, I think it’s important to share that with the next generation of storytellers and creators because there’s a responsibility to represent your audience in an authentic way, and that’s so important to me as an immigrant, as a Chinese person, an American, a mother, a wife, it’s important to be thoughtful and recognize the fact that no two human beings are the same.
So how do you create something that is meaningful to everyone? It’s very tempting for every new storyteller to want to make it as generic as possible because they are hoping to get as many audience members or people engaged as possible when the opposite is true. When you do make something that is specific and personal to you, people will resonate with that because there is a universal truth about it.
Everyone feels love, jealousy, fear, envy, anxiety, and passion, so when you feel that way, audience members will feel that way too.
When you come from a source of truth and authenticity and a genuine feeling of wanting to share that story with others, I think that’s when magic really happens, that’s when people really resonate with your story.
DW: That’s come up here before: the more specific choices you make, the universally applicable they are. Even if you travel to inner Mongolia, people may identify with that place. What's next?
MK: I always think about a quote by James Joyce. He was being interviewed and was asked once, “Why do you always write about Dublin?” and he answered, “Because it’s what I know, and in the particular is contained the universal.” I’ve always loved that quote. It’s so true. No matter where you’re from, a remote countryside to a very urban city, I think what unifies us all are the feelings and emotions that we share as human beings, and the more we are reminded of how similar we all are, rather than different, the better we are as a society. We can function better, we’re not so different after all. I think that’s the beauty of storytelling, the power of it.
DW: Film can transcend national borders pretty instantly. You’re speaking as a global society. This grand scale in mind, what’s next for you?
MK: I’m always working on several things in my mind (laughs) at once. I’ve really enjoyed writing this book. I’m working on a couple of book projects right now.
Thinking about other book ideas, I’m thinking about the immersive world and what I want to do. There are several pots boiling at the same time. I’m always trying to find ways to push the boundaries and tell stories in different mediums. There are several things in the works.
DW: What is your favorite cinematic moment?
MK: That’s a really hard one to answer! I’m a huge film and TV series buff. There are always the classics like the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark or when they see the dinosaurs for the first time in Jurassic Park.
I have to say Squid Game has been really powerful for me, how telling a particular story that’s very universal, this is a Korean TV series that’s taken the world by storm. I just watched Prey and there are many scenes that have stayed with me.
There are so many, it’s so hard to choose. I’m an avid reader, but also guilty of binge-watching all kinds of movies or TV shows. There are so many!
DW: I lived in South Korea for a year, saw Squid Game, saw Parasite, which won Best Picture and International feature, the first time to ever do that. I said, “That’s a very Korean show and movie,” and audiences said, “We know what those people are up against in Squid Game, and what those people are doing in Parasite."
MK: Right. Everyone knows what it’s like to be a part of a family, even a dysfunctional one. For Squid Game, people know what it’s like to struggle with debt. I love the stories who ask, “What would you do? What’s important to you?” Especially with the pandemic, it’s all out of your control and you have to ask questions like, “What is or who is worth sacrificing for?” And you’re really pushed to the limit of who you thought you were and what you were, or thought you were.
Clip: Squid Game
Founder and editor of Movies Matter, Dave Watson is a writer and educator in Madison, WI.