Last night I participated in the Society of Professional Journalists’ monthly Twitter chat, this one being about online storytelling. Featured guests were Mark Briggs, Mandy Jenkins and Mark S. Luckie. Check out the highlights here.

When guests were asked to name some of their favorite online storytelling examples, Luckie nominated the interactive web documentary Prison Valley. I wanted to give it some attention in case more people haven’t seen it before.

Prison Valley is kind of a hybrid between a point-and-click video game and a traditional documentary. It’s also a great example of filmmakers pushing the online medium to the limit.

From The Pixel Report:

This interactive web documentary explores Supermax, America’s new Alcatraz, in Cañon City, Colorado. Users follow the journey of the journalists who made the film through a video game-style site which recreates motel rooms, prison cells and other scenes of the story, discovering interviews, statistics and extra footage as they progress. Platforms for discussion and space for user responses are built into the story.

Why is it impressive? Briggs emphasizes that different components in a story work better on different platforms. Action favors video, emotion calls for audio, complexity works well with text, etc. He thinks students should build the components of their story before worrying about which tools to use.

This is the reason I’m so blown away by Prison Valley. All the multimedia and interactive elements have been purposefully put there because they help tell the story, not because they are cool.

Add this the the growing list of stuff I want to learn…

For more examples of interactive storytelling, check out Tracy Boyer’s top 50 multimedia packages of 2010.

Also, I apologize for the title of this post. It was a moment of weakness…