Sunday 21 December 2008


I cant believe that the first term is over so quickly. I have enjoyed the first projects, even though they drove me crazy sometimes! I think narratives was a good learning curve for me. I also think the title gave me the chance to apply even more meaning behind my projects because I could imagine the story of what made the project. Of why it exists.  

Already we have been given our second project- Identities. I have a brief look at company branding as a good strategy for marketing my project so to speak. Also it gives me a focus of how to reach a target audience. I want people to be able to link me to an image or piece of music to be able to make my piece memorable. A logo is one of the most important things to so this because it allows people to straight away link me to my image/ brand.

Friday 19 December 2008

http://browse.deviantart.com/flash/?order=9&q=we're%20looking%20for%20a%20lion

The next stage was the most difficult for me. In one word- autoscript! It was the vein of my life for two days. Endlessly trying to work out what code I needed, luckily I made a structure before I so I knew what image I needed to connect to each keyframe. After a few tries and some advice from Jools and Sonny I got the hang of how it worked.  The object that I wanted to connect to another keyframe (in this case the baby) I'd have to type the autoscript as baby1 and also type it into the instance name as baby1. In this step I had to make sure the names match because otherwise the program would get confused and play it in a random order. This happened more than a few times for me as I connected the wrong keyframes to the wrong name.

The next step was the audio. To make the characters more realistic I wanted to put some voices in to give the characters more individuality and connect with the audience. A few of my flat mates have got really distinct accents that I thought would suit the characters, for example the dog has got a Bury accent (the bury just off Manchester) so it would be quite a deep, quite grumpy voice. I also gave the princess a high pitched London voice to make her sound posh. 

When I put in the audio I watched a few of the tutorials connected to NOW but they seemed to drag on and not show me exactly the way I was looking for (as expected) so I messed around with how to put the audio on for quite awhile and found a good way on youtube. I added the audio into a folder on the right hand side, selected it and it came up in a box that I had to select at the bottom (near where you'd type n the instance name) and dragged it on to the keyframe I needed it. For me the audio was one of the easiest bits of the process because I was becoming for familiar with the program. 

Looking at the final product it is my most successful in terms of learning curves and creativeness because I used my own hand drawn images. Personally I think it made it more my own. Also the audio made it more individual. I think I could improve it by taking away the faint outline of off white on two of the characters and possibly instead of having the object they choose to find the lion in a box I would draw the object as a whole area and have the scan it for where they would like to go.  

Wednesday 17 December 2008

My illustrations




These are my own illustrations of which the top two are altered slightly in photoshop to make the colour brighter etc. This was one of my favourite parts of the project because I could be as creative with the project as I wanted without any technical set backs. I thought these illustrations are suitable for 4-8 year olds as it will give them something personal to interact with whilst going through the narrative. They are reminiscent of story books so the child will get involved in the story, wanting to know what is happening next. 

I think the images work well, especially the characters so that I can separate the characters on their journey and work with white space to make them stand out. Each picture I create will be a link (rather than text) so the child will be able to understand easily.



When I got assigned my interactive narrative project my first thought was that when I was a kid I wished that I could interact with the characters and make them do what I wanted. The images are already so personal that I wanted to interact with them, get to know them. For me a interactive website is a perfect way to grab children's attention. I can guide them to the story with illustrations and give leave them at a cliff-hanger to make their choices.

These illustration were a inspiration to me as they use simple colours to not over complicate the information for the children. It gets them more involved with the story. Also the children look like they are different ages so the target audience will be broader. 

 

Thursday 11 December 2008

Interactive narrative

Ideas-
  • Interactive children's book based on monster under the bed or we're going on a bear hunt by Micheal Rosen.
  • The target audience is children between 4-8. They have to choice where to go to find the lion.
  • They audience has to work their way out of a prison and get accomplices. They steal loads of stuff to get out. Maybe use pixilation?
  • Basket ball game. You have to choice which player you want to be and you get a choice of moves. If you choice the right moves you eventually win teh gaem and get a medal. cliffhanger= will he get the medal or get sent off.

Saturday 6 December 2008

I am really proud of the final outcome of my one shot film although we all had separate roles we all contributed to help each other. I learnt a lot whilst filming about lighting and how to create the right mood for the right setting however we didn't get to use it in the final due to our location. We also thought natural light would suit it better to create a spontaneous meeting between two people. 

The most tedious job was to cut and time the voice over audio but it was worth it as it pulled all of the elements together to explain the narrative therefore the awkwardness between the characters. We kept the script quite simple so that the thought would stand out more and tell the real story.

Friday 5 December 2008