Updates

What's Happening?

Ok, I'm a bit stuck at the moment, but let me try and put my thoughts here on the blog. This week I've tried to work on my flowchart and my storyboarding. I've been trying to put this off because it's a scary process... essentially its visualising how the project will look like. Processing is moving slow and although the visuals are taking shape, I'm trying to stay focused on what the project is about, before going out of point.

Discussions

During the chats we've been talking about Web2.0, or the end of Web2.0 - art after Web2.0, open-source environments, the connected, seamless digital works. This got me thinking about my project. I think it is extremely important that my project focuses on the interactivity as well as the experience. We are in a time where everyone is a creator, everyone can be famous, everyone can be an artist. Everyone wants everything to be about them, so it is important that my interactive experience puts the user at the centre of this experience, and makes them feel important.

Flowchart / Storyboard

I've been brainstorming some ideas for filming. I will be filming in the summer, and in september I will start combining the film with visuals. So far the structure of the idea is this:

Structure part one: Norm
The visuals start off calm, perhaps a little bit confusing. I was thinking of having a series of calming shots like the sea moving. After these shots, the viewer finds him/herself sitting at a dinner table where everyone is looking at them. There is a final sound of a fork hitting a plate, as if everyone has just stopped eating and looked at the viewer. I would like to have a few shots of people eating and food. People eating at a dinner table symbolise a very strange experience for me. Essentially it's a couple of human bodies paying to put 'object's in a hole in their face. I would love to bring this sort of strangeness in the shots, or perhaps just a bit of disgust. Disgust is very real, and at this point, reality is what's important in the project.

Structure part two: Interaction
At one point, the person opposite the viewer on the dining table says something like, "Well, what are you waiting for? Do something." This will trigger the interactive process. Since I live in Malta, I would like to have the people in the film speaking Maltese and then have English subtitles. Although this will only happen once or twice.

Structure part three: Reality
The viewer can then 'click' or 'touch' any of the people at the dining table and this will take them to another video. The videos will be shots of everyday life which tend to make us feel uncomfortable, reflective, frustrated... such as a full, busy shop, looking at someone right in the face, trying to draw something but nothing comes out (this stage needs to evolve - I need to brainstorm and research more). The viewer always has a way out of these uncomfortable situations, they can click 'somewhere' and escape to another video. [I still need to see whether the videos here will be linear / random. Osiris suggested a program called 'Soft Cinema' which generates a series of random visuals which I need to look into for ideas.]

Structure part four: Surreality
Eventually the viewer starts seeing visuals in the films. The viewer can interact with these visuals, touch them, (perhaps they change colour, move, enlarge, duplicate). The more the viewer interacts with the visuals, the more intense they become. Audio is introduced at this point. [This part of the structure is still not clear to me, I need to look into it and elaborate on what exactly happens to the visuals, what sort of video is showing in the background) The goal is however, to amuse the viewer and to let them know in a very subtle manner that the more they play with the visuals, the more intense they get.

Structure part five: Frustration
I'm still unclear of what will happen here, but my idea at the moment is that the visuals and audio become so intense that they become intolerable. I want the audio to be loud, distorted, the visuals to be jumpy, pixelated. This is the climax of the experience. I'm not sure whether I should provide the viewer with a way out, or just leave them here. So far, this is the end but it might change.


I will be getting a video camera around May, where I can start taking some test shots, which I can then combine with visuals to start getting a feel of the final project. Until that time, I will continue to read, process, experiment with colour & after effects, and of course update my structure.