Good Luck Soup is a transmedia storytelling project documenting and sharing stories about the lives of Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians after they left internment camps at the end of World War II.
The project, from filmmaker Matthew Hashiguchi, involves a feature-length documentary, but also includes a web-based, interactive component to complement, reinforce, and encourage participation in the larger effort to preserve this history through social media, participatory storytelling and community events.
Filming for the documentary is complete, but they're currently raising funds for the development of the Good Luck Soup Interactive film/website. Here's a video with some more information about the project:
Here are some more details about the interactive website:
Good Luck Soup Interactive is an interactive documentary and participatory storytelling project that will reveal what's happened to the Japanese American and Japanese Canadian Internment Camp victims since the camps closed nearly 70 years ago. The stories will be told through uploaded text, photographs and videos from internment camp victims and their families and will be shared through an interactive website.
WHAT IS PARTICIPATORY STORYTELLING? In Good Luck Soup Interactive, the stories of the various Japanese American and Japanese Canadian Internment Camp victims will be told by the victims themselves or their family members through photo, text or video submissions. The story that we are telling is the story of a community, and we want to provide Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians with an outlet to share their own experience and story.
WHAT IS INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING? Interactive storytelling refers to storytelling experience on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user's actions by presenting content such as text, graphics, animation, video, audio, games, etc. Good Luck Soup Interactive will be an interactive website that will allow the visitor to choose and interact with the storytelling experience.
WHAT IS TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING? Transmedia storytelling (also known as transmedia narrative or multi-platform storytelling) is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies. Our story will be told through film, community events and the Good Luck Soup Interactive website.
This sounds like a really awesome project that aims to preserve and tell a unique part of the Japanese American and Japanese Canadian internment story. The goal is raise $15,000 by the end of the month. For further information, and make a pledge to Good Luck Soup Interactive, head over to Kickstarter.