Pixilation/Stop motion Research

So i need to come up with a good idea to produce hundreds of frames for my pixilation before next Thursdays seminar. To help me start discovering and developing an idea, I have looked at several already posted on to youtube. Here are a few that are quite interesting and inspiring for an idea.

Pixilation: Seminar 1

Today we were introduced to the image of stop motion, pixilation and people as puppets. We were asked as a group to produce a short 30 second piece, which is 360 shots, just to familiarise ourselves of what is expected and the sort of things we can do. Our group took a number of shots and ended up creating quite a random piece. I will be able to upload it hopefully next week when i'm taught how to!

Research: This is a Guinness advert that is produced in this way. I think it is quite clever and imaginative, which gives me a few ideas for when I produce my own.

Evaluation of my Interactive Narrative.

Referring back to the brief, I have in fact produced an interactive narrative using still images positioned onto the timeline in Flash CS3, which utilises a branching structure that forces the user to make a number of decisions, as they progress through the narrative piece.

I started to do this by producing a flowchart of decisions, so I knew what decisions needed to be made, but also roughly drew out what each frame would look like in order to have an idea how it would work and how many frames I actually had, bearing in mind we needed at least ten to meet the briefs criteria.

However, as I was new to Flash, I used and stuck with the template provided to familiarise myself with the program, interactivity and ActionScript 3.0. This just included the use of the 'arcade buttons'. Considerations also needed to be taken in to account, such as the audience interaction. I've noticed most interactive narrative's produced by 1st year students on their blog, are mostly aimed at a younger generation. I feel mine isn't particularly aimed at just younger people, but a much broader audience, including slightly older children. The only consideration I may of changed if I were to produce another one, is the narrative. I have many decisions in mine, but branch off and end quite quickly. I would possibly consider having a better narrative where the user might feel they are getting somewhere with a good/bad ending. Audio is the only thing I haven't considered as of yet, but we shall see what happens there, I quite like it as it is!

I done it! Interactive Narrative uploaded.

It seems most people hate Flash...but has anyone not had the annoying experience of deviantart.com!?

Anyways, I hope this works, my interactive narrative uploaded and complete! :

Interactive Narrative-1 by ~hgregory1990 on deviantART

DEVIANTART????????

I've tried a million times to upload my interactive narrative to deviantart.com but it won't do it. FRUSTRATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It says it needs a spererate preview image and then it only uploads that and not the interactive narrative. WHAT IS GOING ON!!!?????????????????????

Essay- Book suggestions?

I feel I should start writing the essay set BUT I just don't know where to start. I took out one of the books suggested - Digital Creativity:Techniques for digital media and the internet, By Bruce Wands, and didn't find it of any help. Was this just me, or does anyone else have any book suggestions I can read to help with the ESSAY!!!!!!?

Additional research

I came across this video on a couple of people's blogs and thought I would add it to mine too! I think this video is amazing. I looked up a bit about it too and it was created by a guy called Oren Lavie. The video was shot all stills, 3225 still photos for the whole video, using one camera hanging from the ceiling for the main body of the video, this must of taken ages!!!!!!

Characters for interactive narrative

I figured out how to print screen!! I feel clever..although the first time I tried it kept taking me to google maps...possibly because I wasn't too sure on the shift button, ha embarrassing. Right, so this is the old lady you start off with on my interactive narrative. Do you want to rob the old lady!?

Request from Jools

For our next tutor session with Jools, he has asked us to create 4 blog entries that contain a link to a sample of work from the following:

AV/film.moving image

Animation

Games

Web/interactive.

I know we are supposed to be doing this anyways as we update our blogs, but so far I seem to be concentrating more on updating my work thank publishing the research along with it. So here are a few I have come across when doing research on previous projects, and also from searching now.

This is created by a guy called Victor Navone, who is also a

Pixar animator for The Incredibles.

Interactive Narrative Research

In our second seminar on interactive narrative, Shaun showed us some examples from previous years.

http://bombfish.com/junk/blog/interactive_narrative.html

This is one i particularly enjoyed playing, the narrative is very good and also it includes animation which i think makes it a lot more effective and interesting when making decisions.

Idea kind of complete!

I decided to go with my initial idea, starting with either robbing an old lady or going to the bank. I've done this by drawing them out in Illustrator, and using colour to fill in Photoshop, I finally figured out how to do it!! The only thing left to do is to make some of the buttons work! the first few frames work fine, and then after that they don't for some reason. I didn't find Flash as complicated or annoying as I expected. From reading most peoples blogs who have already done interactive narrative, it seemed not many got on with Flash!! I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation why some of my buttons don't work, so for now, I feel ok with it. Not too sure also how to show you a few of my frames, my laptop doesn't have a print screen button?? or is that just my mac!?

Might be getting somewhere..

So after thinking of a list of decisions that need to be made, I may have come up with a rough idea, although I'm still not convinced this is the right kinda thing. This is what I have so far:

1. You need some money, but what should you do?

>>Choice: Rob an old lady or got to the bank

-Rob old lady: You get caught, do you wish to plead?

>>Choice: Guilty or not guilty

-Not guilty: You are lying! (game over, back to choice again)

-Guilty: You decide to skip bail and flea the country, but where shall you go?

>>Choice: Mexico or Sweden?

-Mexico: Uh Oh you have caught the swine flu! (game over, back to homepage)

-Sweden: You made it! Go enjoy life! (game over, back to choices)

>>Choice: Rob old lady or go the bank

-Go to the bank: How much do you take out

>>Choice: £10 or £1000?

-£10: what should you buy

>>Choice: Cigarettes and a beer or phone credit?

-Cigarettes and a beer: You are damaging your health, bad choice! (game over, back to homepage)

-Phone credit: Oops! you've had an argument with your girlfriend (game over, back to the homepage)

-£1000: Thats a lot of money, what shall you do?

>>Choice: pay off your debts or go crazy and purchase a flight?

-Pay off debts: Boring option! (game over, back to th

e homepage)

-Purchase a flight: How exciting where should you go?

>>Choice: (back to choice of Mexico and Sweden)

This is my plan for my interactive narrative, and a few sketches to get a rough idea of what it may look like. I tried to scan my images onto Photoshop and add colour, but its been so long since I've used it I just couldn't do what I wanted it to. Im now considering the use of photography for my interactive narrative, which means I may have to come up with a new narrative. Im thinking I may have over complicated my initial idea anyways but we shall see.

Interactive Narrative

The brief:

• Produce an interactive narrative using still images positioned onto the timeline in Flash CS3
• This interactive narrative should utilise a branching structure that forces the user to make a number of decisions as they progress through the narrative piece
• Narrative should be the primary concern

The rules:

• You will need to have at least ten still images to complete your interactive narrative
• It is important that image, text and audio are seriously examined in an attempt to truly consider audience engagement and interaction
• You should use ActionScript 3.0 to build interactivity and the navigation structure into your movie.
• You MUST publish your final movie as an SWF
• This is an individual assignment

So first things first is to get some creative thinking going - a character making a choice, or something of the sort, and create a list of the decisions that need to be made! hmmmm.....

Oh dear...

So it turns out my alarm decided to not go off friday morning for my tutorial, so I found myself waking up as it actually finished, not a good start. I managed to call a guy who is in my tutorial, who was also in my group to find out what I had missed. I found out everyone got a chance to explain about their current projects, and, if finished, showed it to everyone. HOWEVER, it seems our one shot film isn't quite up to standards...the lighting isn't so good, which to be fair, is quite true. So next on the agenda is to produce another one....bad times. My inital thoughts are to conduct a short film in one of the rooms, focusing on using lighting that shows we have thought about it a bit better this time.

Design Process

I thought i would post my design process for my current project - One shot - after having the lecture on it:
Discovering
In order to start the project I needed inspiration. I therefore looked at past one shot films on youtube posted by other students to get a few ideas. This helped in terms of possible places to film, music involved, timing and also understanding the users.
Developing
Next came the selection of ideas and creating of them. So, this is where noting down possible ideas and developing the story to broaden into many outcomes came in. This made it clearer which would be the best to select in order to film.
Defining
This is where the idea was experimented with the camera by filming it - a usability test. This provided feedback in terms of timing, what was working/ not working.
Delivering
The evaluation and completion of the film. This includes the effect and impact myself and others feels it has.