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.