Night Life Blog

As mentioned previously myself and Ken have completed work on the script.

One of the key aspects of the story is how the narrative contains a number of scenarios and that the scenarios displayed shall be dictated by user interaction before viewing the piece. In order to illustrate how this will work please see below for a graphical breakdown of the story flow structure.

The titles of Scene 1,2 etc are simplistic but the theory remains the same. The scenes in blue shall remain constant throughout all viewings while only one red scene out of the options given shall be placed within the timeline. Each red scene shall correspond with an interactive element and, depending on which elements are selected by the user, this will then determine which red scene is played.

At the moment, with the number of scenarios that we have written there are 24 different possible narratives that are available to be shown.

Today myself and Robert finished work on the script for our animation. It has been specifically designed to allow for the interactivity we are proposing.

Each group member will take the opportunity to read the script over the rest of the weekend. There will be a meeting on Monday to flag any problems or concerns. If there are no problems the script will be signed off on and work on the storyboards will begin. If any issues arise time will be taken to rectify them.

As soon as it has been signed off on the script will be posted here for download along with a simple diagram detailing the design of the interactive element of the script.

- Ken

An important aspect of our project piece shall be incorporating elements that allow the viewer to interact with the piece before viewing and having their interaction dictate the events that will then take place on screen. Though how this interaction shall be carried out has yet to be decided upon.

During the time off we have been investigating a number of methods of possible interaction that we could implement into our final piece.

Using this method we would develop a series of buttons or pull switches with each switch corresponding to a particular scene of the animation. Once the switch is pulled its corresponding scene will then be loaded to be played into the animation and once enough of the switches are pulled the animation will then begin. As the main characters of the animation will be stars we envision these switches to be shaped as such and will illuminate upon being used. In surveying the site in which we hope to display our piece we have seen that these switches would be buttons placed upon the wall of the space or possibly pulleys hanging from the ceiling.

If we were to move forward with this method we would more than likely be using an Arduino setup as well as developing the appropriate back-end code.

Another method that we have explored has been to use QR Codes as an interactive element. In a way this system would work similarly to the one outlined above, in that each QR Code would correspond to a particular scene and that upon being scanned would lead to a URL page that then loads that scene into the animations timeline. These QR codes again could be embedded into star shaped stickers to keep in theme with the animation and could be scattered amongst the entire Wandesford Gallery instead of being restricted to the display area. However a downside to this method is that in order for people to interact with the piece they will be required to have a smart-phone or other device capable of reading QR Codes.

A further method we are considering would be to develop a system similar to the one seen here in the project Tangible Viewpoints.

http://mf.media.mit.edu/pubs/conference/TangibleNavigation.pdf

In considering how we would replicate this system, we envision having a webcam looking down upon a surface and on that surface projecting the image of a star chart. We would then have star-shaped counters and possibly using Processing we would be able to track where the counters are placed upon the star chart. By splitting the chart into a number of different areas and assigning each area a particular scene, the placement of the stars by the users could then be used to determine the story of the piece.

Today, Robert and Alder attended the script writing workshop with Darren Bolger. He covered a lot of valuable ground with us, from writing a treatment to script writing software to the appropriate language to use.

We started by writing a treatment. This gives an outline of the story to potential funders and acts as a foundation for the script. He told us it should be written in the present tense and be about 10 lines. This is the new treatment we came up with during the exercise:

The two human characters, male and female are lying on the bonnet of the car, star gazing. The female asks the male if he thinks there’s any life “up there”.

In space, the two main star characters, Altair and Vega, are sneaking away from school.

They cause mischief, harass constellations, and fly down to earth. Altair interacts with children who react with wonder and terror.  Vega in competition with Altair’s antics imitates cows in a nearby field.

They fly back out into space and unwittingly awaken the antagonist monster character who begins pursuing them.

Their parents are informed of their absence and go looking for them.

The monster wreaks havoc in pursuit of Altair and Vega and corners the two but Their parents arrive just in time.

The monster comes close to destroying Altair but Vega tricks it into consuming itself. There is a flash of light and for a moment it is unclear whether Vega survived.

The protagonists are revealed to be safe and well, and are happily reunited, but with a lesson learned.

Returning to the star-gazers, the male human answers the opening question by simply responding  “nah.”

Darren’s only criticism of the treatment was that we should use more descriptive language and action verbs.

We then went on to using script writing software Celtx which is free and offers a lot of automation for the process and was extremely easy to use. We wrote the beginning of the story with Darren’s feedback and advice. He also gave us printouts about how to write realistic dialogue as well as a glossary of scripting terms.

Overall the workshop was very much worthwhile and informative. Ken and Robert will be completing the script next week.

Myself and Ken have completed the Literature Review investigating Narrative Structure and Narrative Theory.

This review can be found at the following link

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1Chiw36w-ZU44opLPeyxY9QLyCblFx6KF9FpDFMoK_c0

As you can see we looked into a number of narrative structures both from a typical and an atypical viewpoint. We feel that this process has proved worthwhile as in doing so we know realise what it is that we must do when constructing the story for our piece. Namely, to create a story that fits within a typical narrative structure yet utilize the methods that appear in the atypical structures as regards branching and interweaving stories.

This knowledge, combined with what we will learn at the Scriptwriting workshop tomorrow will prove invaluable as we move forward with developing our narrative.