Starting Flash Interactive Narrative and Research

Last week we were given our Flash interactive narrative project briefs, we have been asked to create a Interactive flash narrative using the Adobe flash that includes choices that must be made and involves a narrative which can be changed depending on the choices the user chooses. The interactive narrative must have a minimum of 10 slides, action script 3 must be used as well as it being saved for CS3 as an SWF file.

In our first seminar for Interactive media we had a look at several examples as well as being guided briefly through action script 3 on flash and how it works, we also had a look at the definitions of narrative and the difference between narrative and plot and also the structure of stories including characters such as the protagonist and antagonist. Still slightly confused about how or what i am going to do for this project, we were given time to think of a narrative which would be good to use for our interactive flash.

UFC / Cage Fighting Themed Interactive Narrative ?

FIGHT-SCIENCE ?

For the short time we was given the idea i generated consisted of the theme of fighting professionally (for instance UFC cage fighting), where my interactive narrative would also play out like a game, where the choices you make create a fighter depending on what you choose. Carrying on developing this idea i found that there were far to many combinations of what you could choose and become, so continuing with the theme of my narrative i decided to scrap the idea of choosing 2 types of martial art out of 4 to combine to create a unique combination for yourself, totalising at 6 slides for the 2nd decision i found that it would be a waste of time to create since most slides would render useless and i only have 2 weeks to complete this so i have to keep realistic goals.

Though my concept is still in development, after thinking about it further i decided that my narrative/game would still give you a choice to choose what profession/style of martial art you would like to train in but with set choices rather than time consuming combination choices and then the style you choose would have its own skill sets, such as its own strengths and weaknesses.

The strengths and weaknesses will be displayed and explained to the user of the interactive narrative and then the correct decisions for him/her would determine how far they would get against opponents they fight, since making a wrong decision would cause them too be damaged since correct decisions are based on the strengths of your skill set determined by your martial art style.

To display the opponent you fight for the "1st fight of your career" i will use an illustration of the character along with paragraph to explain himself and his fighting style along with his strength and weaknesses, along with his win / loss statistics. After reading this and looking at his strength and weaknesses along with his particular fighting style, you must choose the correct decision based on what happens during the slide - for instance he may attack you, and you will be given a choice whether to counter attack, take down or avoid - the correct decision will be based on the weakness of the opponent and if you choose the wrong decision your health will diminish, as you take a powerful blow, only 2/3 blows can be taken until you get KO'd therefore choosing the right decisions are vital to defeat the opponent and also tests your knowledge of your martial art styles strengths and weaknesses.

After reflecting on my idea i feel it is highly likely i will continue to develop this concept, though i have a feeling it may take a while ... especially with contextual and another pixelation to be completed !

Group Meetings and Creating our FInal Stop Motion ..

Throughout the One Shot weeks, our group met up several times to discuss possible ways in which we would film our movie and decide what would and would not work.

On the day of filming unfortunately the weather was poor and there was a lot of rain and because of this we decided to scrap our idea of filming within a graveyard since looking at the future weather forecasts didn't seem promising.

This meant we had to sit as a group to discuss on a new narrative for our one shot movie. After discussing we decided it would be best if we filmed inside where we was currently situated since moving somewhere else and risk getting the camera equipment wet would not be a good idea since one of us would end up having to pay for the damages.

After gathering ideas from each of our group we came up with an idea where we could use the one shot footage to act like a camera which has been set up to capture an event. We decided on the idea of catching thief / thieves, discussing together we created a narrative where a character attempts to capture a thief by setting up a camera and drawing him in using left valuables, with a comedic twist to our film, the character trying to capture the thief would end up with no valuables left as well as the camera also being taken failing miserably at his task.

When we started filming we did some initial test runs and taking a director type role i helped with altering parts of the script in our one shot to make our film more effective in projecting our narrative.

I also played as the main thief within the play, the character in which the protagonist played by Boris is trying to capture.

Here is the embed to our finished uploaded one shot film.

Initial Development For Our One Shot Film ..

For the development of our one shot, we all looked at examples and gathered as a group to discuss possible themes and narratives for our final piece.

As a group we come up with several ideas but most of them were terminated due to having to keep to the one shot rules and keeping the camera steady using a tripod.

This included my initial idea which was based on a first person view one shot film of a boxer engaged in boxing against an opponent. The idea of my one shot was to show the viewer what it is like to actual be in the ring and experience the feeling of being the fighter instead of being a spectator from the outside in which is the case for most people who watch the sport. My idea was too include effects of punching such as being punched, moving around the ring, dodging with the head and blurring of the vision using editing to maximise the experience of the first person view as a boxer. Unfortunately my idea was unable to be filmed due to the camera rules even though it was discussed as a strong idea when it was pitched.

Having discussed after a while we came up with an idea to create a horror themed one shot film which was to be filmed within the dark, featuring two members of our team acting as the victims walking through the graveyard where we were going to film. Another actor from our group was then meant to play as the ghost/paranormal character whilst we would film at night using night vision mode on the camera to create a more eerie effect.

BUSY MOVES ....

These past week and maybe a bit more has been a busy week for me, since in terms of my work we have been busy meeting up and filming as well as editing and every other time consuming task involved with creating our one shot film.

As well as this i have been busy with personal time since i have moved student accommodations to the city centre Sandby Halls since i believed it would be easier for my self with getting where i needed to be on time and with everything in close proximity i thought it was a good choice though it took a while to rearrange my life in my new home.

So for this i apologise since i have not been able to post many updates on what i have been doing in terms of my project work but i will be catching up with posts through out the coming weeks to explain more of what i / we have been doing.

Stop Motion Self Made Music Video

I was just browsing through Youtube for research, when i found this video, i saw that they had created there own video, since being an independent music artist meant marketing themselves of Youtube.

So as well as producing there song they had also made the music video alongside the music, which is why i decided to link it to my blog since i found the use of "Stop Motion" for there video that they composed themselves quite interesting and inspiring since the artist being naturally creative in music was also capable of creating a his own stop motion video alongside the music he has produced.

Pinhole Camera Photo

Even though its well late, i thought i would put it up anyway since i only found out how to get hold of it from the scan we did at university, at least it saved me time by not having to scan it my self, although to do it i had to download everybody else's images which wasn't very convenient for my time.

For my pinhole camera photo, i decided to get a few classmates i was with at the time to stand underneath a bridge in the park near the university, i placed my camera on a bin and faced it towards the direction of the bridge. After i exposed the film inside the can for the 7/8 seconds, i covered the hole back up as told too. I was happy with what i captured and felt that my pinhole image went well, since it captured the whole view as well as capturing the person standing within the centre of the bridge as i intended for my photo, giving my photo a sense of twisted eeriness, as the photo also curves on the left and right side as the light hit the photographic paper.

Introduction To One Shot Project

Having recently started my one shot project, i decided to have a look at examples of one shot parts within films or examples of films which have been totally shot using one shot filming. At our first seminar we were shown examples of one shot films by our tutor, most of which were old B&W films since one shot filming is rarely used in modern day to produce movies.

Having looked at one shot examples i did a bit of research and found a modern example of one shot being used within a martial arts film called "Ong Bak" which features a part during a large fight scene which the camera follows the leading actor Tony Jaa up long set of spiralling staircases within a enemy building.

The one shot camera follows the main actor Tony Jaa whilst keeping distance so the viewer can see the martial arts with ease and often zooms up and back out to capture the action if it departs from the area in which he is filming.

Here is a the one shot clip from Youtube.

Ong Bak features stunts and Muay Thai martial arts performed by Thai boxer and actor Tony Jaa and is set in Thailand and Australia, for those who are interested, the film is really good and features stunts and fighting displays that would even shock those of you who like voilence !

Ong Bak 2 has also recently been released though i have not watched it yet, i may try to get hold of it too see whether it also includes a One Shot scene.

Group Pixelation / Stop Motion Finalised

After having trouble, i finally was able to upload my video onto youtube.

When saving my files on Premiere on Mac it automatically saved as an .mov file on Export. When uploading my file onto Youtube as .mov an error occured and it played the audio but kept a black screen. I then re-saved the premiere file as a .flv file and uploaded it again and was happy to see it working.

For my pixelation project, we firstly started in a group, taking photographs in the park near the university to experiment with possible outcomes and what effects we could achieve using stop motion techniques. We then began taking photos of our group lined up to make it seem as if we were hopping / floating to a destination in the park. Since i found that it was quite a eerie footage, i edited my photos on photoshop to make it seem as the location of the video was in a strange place by altering the hues and saturation of each of the photos on in my pixelation to make the colours in each photo seem alien and different as if it were a different world. To add to the effect i created a shadow border for more eeriness to suit the footage editing. I also added audio and tried to find a song to match the video, i chose "Hung Up" cover by "The Enemy" originally by Madonna because i thought it was relevant to the video since i find it a strange song and unusual cover for the song, i also found the lyrics "Time goes by so slowly" repeated in a bizarre rhythm suits the video and jittering style of my pixelation film.

Modern Uses Of Stop Motion Clay Animation

As well as Aardman Animation using stop motion clay animation techniques (also simply known as "Clay Animation") other examples of modern uses of clay animation include children cartoon programmes which practise the techniques such as the cartoon called "The Ooglies" on CBBC.

The cartoon is comprised of a series of short animations and uses everyday household objects along with fruits and vegetables and brings them to life using plastic google eyes and gobledy-gook voice sound effects similar to that of Morphs voice to express emotion and communication. Occasionally they will use plasticine instead of real objects. The shorts are generally humorous and often end up with a squashed fruit of vegetable, i find that the voicing of the individual objects gives off a lot of character as well as the variety of plastic googly eyes used, which express a lot of emotion.

MORPH

Morph is another stop motion cartoon created by Aardman Animations. As well as being a the name of the cartoon, Morph is the name of the famous plasticine man made famous by the BBC starting in 1977 on several UK tv programmes such as Take Hart and Hartbeat along with presenter Tony Hart.

Morph was a character capable of "morphing" into different shapes and and objects. The cartoon was shown in 1 minute short animations.

Later on developments of the animation shows Morph accompanied by Chas, a cream coloured version of Morph, his character was a lot more badly behaved but he did not have the ability to morph.

Their most modern tv appearance was earlier in 2009 where they were a guest appearance in the BBC drama "Ashes to Ashes"

I found it was important to research into aardman animations and their cartoons such as morph and wallace & gromit since they show interesting and unique ways in using the stop motion technique in modern day use, and are one of the most famous companies that use stop motion technique for there animations.

It also inspires me to attempt to recreate my own plasticine stop motion animation after looking at what can be created by professional companies.

Here is a clip of 1 of Morph's short stop motion animations shown on television.