Idea 1 – Interactive Spray Paint Synth

After some research, the first first idea I had was a form of interactive pad that reacted to audience interaction, enabling the audience to create their own track. The idea would be similar to how a synth pad extracts and creates sound depending on the how the musician touches the pad.

The idea being that the audience can use some form of tag (RFID tag possibly) and as they swipe it over or create a pattern over the synth pad and a digital paint pattern is created. Depending on how the pattern is created, various samples of music will  play, and these can again be affected by audience interaction.

[http://www.metacafe.com/watch/288813/amazing_live_spray_paint_art_performance/]

Various factors could effect how the pattern is created; My first idea regarding colour would simply be to have a series of colours on a loop that switches every …. seconds  and they possibly blend as the cycle changes. The distance between the tag and pad would determine the tone and texture of the pattern swipe. For example, the closer the tag is to the pad, the thicker and rougher the pattern is but as the tag is moved further away, the pattern will be thinner and sharper.

The same principle can appear to the music! Say that the pad was split into nine sections and each section had its own sample which possibly played by loop, depending on how long the sample was. The sample would change depending where the tag is moved to within the pad radius. Again, variables could change within the music, such as the pace could be changed depending on the distance between the tag and pad!

The whole concept behind this idea would be the association and connection between colour and mood, and see how multiple variables can change and effect an audience member’s mood.

 

 

New Project – Performance Video

“The brief is to make a musical instrument and perform with it.  Creating a piece of dynamic improvised performance on the subject of ‘belonging’.

(what does ‘belonging’ mean)

For those specialising in Designing the User Interface (Interactive Media) you will concentrate on the making of the instrument as a user interface, on usability, the nature of tactile and haptic feedback, the semiotics of the interface etc.

For those specialising in Performance Video (Digital Media Production) you will focus creating emotive expression through effecting video and sound in a performance and on real time effects programming effects, video mapping, etc.

The brief poses a number of questions that we would like you to discuss, comment on and perhaps even pose solutions to: In this society what constitutes a performance, how close does a performer have to be to the audience, is something streamed over the web live, is something that is generative a performance etc, what is an interface, what happens when work becomes play etc?“

Sometimes, you look at a project brief and you either know immediately know whether it’ll be a walk in the park and you know what you’re going to do, on the other hand, you can stare at the brief for days and still not know what to do, but with this brief, ideas are running through my mind but I haven’t got a clue where to start and how to create a successful piece!

I played a lot of bass and guitar over the past decade so I’d really like to create some form of instrument using rubbish or scrap (this being my initial idea) but how would I create a rhythmic   piece to that, rather than just creating random noise!

Needless to say, this project and idea could come together nicely!

Recycled Wax Characters

Below are a few Resources from Recycled Wax, an approach and style I intend to use when created the final design for the characters of my Narrative.  I like how these drawings have a more mature technique and appearance to them but still create a message and character fitting for an animated Children’s movie.

Interactive 3D Film Pitch

Us vs Them

Below are rough drawings of proposed characters and layout for my Interactive 3D film. When we discussed how we thought cinema would progress and become interactive (if at all), I remember the idea of putting people from the audience into the film to get them into the mood, but personally I couldn’t’ see that happening because you’d need an editing team on site to put them into the film so my idea mainly involves creating this environment of putting them into the film, but more giving them their own interactive, teaser trailer! This isn’t necessarily an interactive teaser trailer you’d experience just before you go into the cinema, but a small station that would be available in shopping and commercial environments.

Basically, the main image below is what the layout will look like, with the chair (from one of the leading protagonists, good or bad), which is associated with the film, with the ‘minions’ of both sides, on either side of the chair and the audience member is put into the 3d environment, whether through green screen or just a camera. Basically as the audience member is in the middle, if ever they lean to one side, the opposing side  of ‘minions’ lean over to see what they’re doing, and vice-versa!

Possible “Us versus Them” scenarios;

• Kids versus adult
• Social group versus social group
• kids versus government
• Aliens versus aliens
• Pets versus pets
• Neighbourhoods versus neighbourhoods

This is where I bring in the QR codes. Since I want this to be a form of interactive teaser for the film, instead of the QR codes activating another animation with diegetic sound, it basically shows an ‘Intriguing’ five to fifteen second animation of an associated protagonist or object doing acting out a motion or salute (which isn’t in the main trailer they’d see at home), and by the end of it, the audience’s appetite for actual feature length is filled and they’re ready for the film itself.

The character designs above and below are designed to be the more grudge-holding and antagonist minions within the narrative. They’d be the “Them” of the storyline!

The character designs below are intended to be the “Us” in the title. The more happy and audience loving protagonists we’re happy to see be victorious within the narrative.

With the idea of “Us vs Them”, you view the title from various perspectives, but you do you count as them? I’m guessing from many story-lines that “Them” is the enemy but who decides who is the enemy? The obvious choice would be to stage one side as Youth Social groups (Emos, chavs, goths etc) and have them against some form of political group, such as government agents or political figures etc, but in a narrative aimed at mainly children, you’d have to compromise with how you portray them.

One possible spin-off from my main idea is “Us vs U.S” where the “Them” would be the United States, where one side politely mocks the others culture or accent etc and whilst the others mock their skills as fighters etc. Like in most films you’’ see these days, how a more mature audience interpret a film will be completely different to how the less mature audience interpret it, so I could keep some kind of mature meaning but try to make it subtle within the teaser animations.

And another idea to do with 3D Creatures

Like most people over the summer, I’m sure people saw Toy Story 3! And to get you in the mood, they did another short, “Day And Night”, which, well let’s face it, was genius!

Due to its’ response, I’m wondering how long it may take before something of this nature becomes interactive for Pixar’s target audience! After watching “Day And Night”, I said to myself that ‘d like to create something like that! Combining Interactivity and this style of 3D video, my idea would simply to create something like this, but using reACTivision or QR codes, the audience gets to move the characters so they can see what’s going on themselves! Similar to my ‘Carousel Remake’ idea, the audience simply get to dictate how these characters act, but the environment they can see would be more limited than “Day and Night”.

Triumph Of The Nerds – What I got from This and Concept Of User Interface Design

For part of our development of the unit, we were shown “Triumph Of The Nerds”, which focused on the development of User Interface Design through companies such as; Apple, IBM and Microsoft. The main point I took from these episodes was how far a little idea can go when you put your mind to creating the most from very little.

For example, to answer a simple sum, such as two plus two, on the first computer (Which had no form of monitor), you had to manually adjust several switches, and really that you had entered a codes correctly to get the correct answer. Watching how a machine with lights for an answer progressed to the first mac, well first computers with monitors and how it was programmed was quite fascinating.

After “Triumph Of The Nerds”, we had a lecture on User Interface Design to give us a further understanding of the concepts behind UID and areas to consider when creating the interactive elements to our Future Cinema Project.

• The Different skills levels to consider for a User Interface Design; Expert, Occasional, Novice, Older and Special (These reflect different levels of experience).
• Human Computer Interaction – Ergonomics (computer science, psychology, sociology, software engineering, design) –> efficient design.
• Usability; Easy to learn from; comfortability; adapt to special needs; recognition; colour perception; semiotics (attribute meaning); short/long term meaning (chunking); Metaphors (easier to learn).
• Training Materials –> computerised demos, Apps, Podcasts etc.
• Task Analysis –> Terms Broken Down to subtasks, Interaction (Heuristics: reduce visibility of interaction).
• Considerations When Designing UID; Simple Dialogue; language; consistence; provide shortcuts where necessary; error prevention; user’s memory load.
• Aesthetic And Minimalist Design –> relevant units of Information (Visibility).
• Test Efficiency –> Express in plain Language.
• Anticipation –> Process through the user’s requirements.
• Autonomy –> Status information is up-to-date.
• Consistency; Various environments; In-House/ Platform Consistency.
• Fitt’s Law –> Index Of Performance;

“Principles

Theoretically, the following principles exist when applying Fitts’ Law to interface designs:

• Things done more often should be assigned a larger button. This seems an intuitive principle, but it needs to be used very carefully, since it harms the consistency of the interface.
• Things done more often should be closer to the average position of the user’s cursor. The amplitude of a widget allows more control from interface designers compared to the width . Again, this needs to be used with caution, since frequency-based widget arrangements may slow down the user from finding things compared to logic-based arrangements.
• The top, bottom, and sides of the screen are infinitely targetable because of the boundary created by the edges of the screen (unless a virtual screen exists) . They should be fully utilized.

There are tradeoffs when applying Fitts’ Law to interface designs. Fitts’ Law suggests that interface components should be made larger and positioned closer to the average cursor position. These suggestions may act in opposition to other factors that make an efficient interface, such as organization and use of available screen space.”

(Passage From http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/fall2002/cmsc838s/tichi/fitts.html)

QR Codes–> New Idea

In our later session today, we got an insight into; Max MSP, Open TPSP and TBeta, from which we opened an ran QR Codes through, showing what they’re capable of upon interaction. The whole process was fascinating but the aspect that caught my attention the most was running a QR code and having a small 3d Animation coming up and playing whilst the code was placed over a certain location.

Now from my animations last year, I said that I would like to work or do something like this as a profession, so I began to think how I could I incorporate this idea into Future Cinema, well make it Interactive with an audience. Not necessarily adult buts a target audience of children would love to go to the cinema and interact with characters from a film they’re going to see or want to see etc, and this connects to my little rant about what we’d define as Future Cinema, where the audience have a chance to be at one with the film, whether the director chooses to break the fourth wall or not.

Below is an example of a 3d Animation of Fireworks when a QR code is placed within a certain field on a screen, and below are different versions of multiple trailers of the new Animated film, “Despicable Me”, which I can’t wait see!

From This, I thought of constructing the idea that the audience is brought into a 3d Environment (most likely green-screen), with some form of little creatures (that would be included in the feature length, if it was ever made) standing behind the audience. The part for that, which I’m trying to figure out is that as the audience moves to one side of the screen, the little creatures all glance, slide, lean etc to that side with you and as you lean back, so do the creatures, to make it seem as if they weren’t being nosey (possibly a characteristic of the main narrative).

There are then two-four points on the screen that the audience can then place a registered QR code over, and upon doing so, not only do the background creatures then lean forward to the area near the QR code, but a small animation including a protagonist, a vehicle or prop associated with the film come up and play, bringing the audience into the characteristics of the film. I would aim to make the animation between 5 and 15 seconds long so I have, maintain but not loose the audience interest, without giving too much away from the main narrative.

Ok, pretty much straight after posting this idea, I found this Mobile Advert That Pixar did, the short and comical idea of the little creatures is what I’d like to create, giving the audience a positive experience within the interaction with the QR codes.