Thursday, February 22, 2007

Initial Thoughts on my Personal Project




















Initial Visuals.

For some practical and time constraint issues and because this is one direction I want to proceed in and extend/ develop my skills and knowledge in. I've decided to stick with my idea of taking "The Conversation" group work we did into an Interactive Experience/Film idea titled the "The Thoughts". My Interactive Demonstrator for "The Thoughts I will try to upload onto here if possible at some point or copy some items onto this blog. I plan to develop this project in a very organic way over the next 10 weeks or so, we will see how it grows on this blog.

Here are some of my scrambled thoughts at present - It is about getting an idea or sense of what the characters are thinking as they are saying - whats going on in their heads - maybe what are they suggesting in their body langauge?! Something that the viewer/user can interact with and find out/change the direction of the narrative - interact with the narrative. I will use visuals/colour, typographic (using the written word, like in Mike's presentation - "253" example). I will explore the use of imagination and how you view/interact with something - 1st, 2nd, 3rd person perspective, the idea of distance and outside view. Maybe draw/animate the characters (animatic). Sound will be used maybe as a device to reveal the thoughts. So I want to produce a stunning visual piece which can be used in various ways. I also like this idea of creating communities online in terms of what I experienced with the "7 Years Later" experience, maybe something that viewers can send, share, retrieve etc. Maybe it is open to audience interpretation. It could work on a mobile device across different platforms etc. I will take accessibility and Usability issues into account with the design, which i feel is important. One idea is that it develops into some kind of experience where friends, couples, students learn about or interact with each other regarding the notion -"think before you say something" or it could be related to this idea of 'neural linguistic programming' - eye contact and predicting if someone is telling the truth or not. It could relate to overcoming conflict or about experiencing/showing different moods or personality traits. Hidden thoughts, hidden meanings. Female versus Male (gender differences/arguments). I also have an idea about how the structure of the narrative could work, which i will use for this project or my MA project. When Martin showed us the "Shell Structure" for narrative yesterday, this triggered an idea in me. I have sketched down a narrative structure based on/ influenced by the idea of the "Golden Section", "Golden Ratio" which relates to growth - so I'm exploring if this could be effective/appropriate related to how thoughts form or grow and then develop into what someone says or does. I have lots of ideas/scrambled thoughts and it all sounds a bit like the ramblings of a mad man at the moment, but i will make sense of it all over the next week, into a concise, purposeful idea which could work, maybe! However I might go down the route of producing a viral film trailer over the net.
I want to produce something which is consistent in the way it looks and works, something with a seamless quality to it.

Technical Stuff, I will use the various software below, maybe more:
Flash / Actionscript
Photoshop / Fireworks
I-Movie / Garageband
Final Cut Pro / Motion / Soundtrack Pro

I think this will be delivered over the net, an online solution and mobile solution.

Deliverables:
1. Storyboards and Visuals including Plan and Outline of solution.
2. Motion piece which could be in the form of an animatic/animation/footage from "The Conversation" presented as a QuickTime Movie.
3. Interactive Film Prototype produced in Flash.
4. Visuals/Prototype of how product could work on mobile devices.

I will think some more and finalise my Plan for next week. Any thoughts or ideas on how this project could develop, please let me know.

10 minute Presentation of Interactive Narrative





















My Interactive Narrative Presentation was about the Interactive Film and Community item "7 Years Later" which formed part of the promotional campaign for the Mercedez-Benz E-Class Estate. This was produced/developed by German agency Scholz & Volkmer in 2003. http://www.s-v.de/en/sv.htm. I Think this is an interesting piece of interactive work as it is very engaging and as a commercial aspect to it - an innovative use of interactive film/narrative and community idea within Advertising.

I felt I gave a clear and concise presentation regarding this interactive film idea and the type of interactive narrative used. Using the branch narrative idea, but with only so many options so that the developers still had control. I also discussed the visual aeshetic and technical aspects of the film/narrative. I felt my presentation was effective and engaging using the website as visual stimulus and explaining my thoughts on it in an appropriate way. As my understanding of this area grows (which it is, week by week) my knowledge will increase. I'm enjoying this subject and wish to explore it further within my Personal Project "The Thoughts". Creating an engaging Online Interactive Experience/Film idea. Links will be added to this blog alongside my powerpoint presentation of "7 Years Later".