COMM2540 New Direction in Narrative: Reflection 16

Source

Media Convergence

Media Convergence is not really something new; it actually has been around for a while, although now it has been growing much more rapidly than it was around 4 – 5 years ago, With the advancement in mobile technology such as, smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart TV’s, and even more technology on the way that’s going to be adopted into our everyday life, it’s only going to get much easier for the consumer to enjoy their entertainment, the development for “wearables” such as Google Glass, Apple Watch, Android Wear is big in 2014 – 2015, and it is exciting to see where this technology going to take us in consuming our media content, with that in mind I think media convergence is being able to consume connected  entertainment content throughout a broad range of digital media platform.

In the industry, people and even companies nowadays are racing to make contents that is flexible and can be consumed on a lot of different platforms, this might be problematic for the content maker (filmmaker, programmer, etc) but this is a very good thing for the consumer because it will only give them faster, nicer, and easier to use product, and when the industry is competing to give out better services and content, the customer always wins.

It is not always easy for media makers to follow the trends of this media convergence, media makers need to be more innovative, unique, precise about the things that they are creating, back then in the 80’s media are limited and are usually one way communication such as TV’s, Radio, and the consumers are only consuming the media that the makers are presenting them with, now, the consumer can communicate directly through comments on YouTube to the makers of the contents, and this can be a good thing because the makers then can improve their contents, and with that same mentality in mind tailor their contents for their specific target market, so the idea of being able to use multiple services in one platform like YouTube itself is already a media convergence at work.

With all the services available for us to utilize for our own project nowadays, since the era of media convergence have now birthed a new generation of content makers, this can be a bad thing and a good thing, when consumers / viewers starts making their own content, they now can learn that media making is no easy task, and to be able to make in as a media personality isn’t as easy as they thought it would be, and that puts the knowledge of content making to the consumers, with that knowledge this generation are getting better and better at creating contents for the digital media, the downside is that the standard for today’s media seems to be obscured and gray because of the emergence of these new content producers, some media can be very well made, and some can be really bad, with that knowledge I embark to try to create my own media content that utilizes multiple parts of this media convergence era.

COMM2540 New Direction in Narrative: Reflection 15

Yuri Ardana – S3438317

Cho Hee Kim – S3279002

Jessie Xi Tan – S3478473

Arnie’s Pizzeria – Simulation

Breaking down the ten videos for the interactive video simulation:

Start: Arnie’s taking order from customer in the Pizzeria by phone, afterwards he tries to decide where to go using Boogle Map on is phone, and the screen will prompt the choice to go left (1A) or right (1B)

Choice 1

1A: As he speeds with his scooter he saw money on the sidewalk and decides to slam the breaks when a group of pirates from StallOne Pizza ambush him, Arnie of course annihilate them.

1B: As he speeds using his scooter he saw a granny trying to cross the street, as he tries to help her, he was ambushed by a gang of ninjas, Arnie of course wipe them of the face of the earth.

Both video will lead to one conclusion, which brings us to video 2A

2A: After the explosion in the background from the defeated enemies, Arnie rushes through with his scooter and find that there’s a roadblock he then took out his phone to see which way he should take.

The viewers are prompted once again with a choice on which road to take.

3A: This is the longer road and in here the scooter runs out of gas, he tries to fix it, pound it, punch it, but nothing works, he then decides to go by foot, and run, and then we have to choose to go up the fence or go to alley.

In this video you can go to 4A or 4B

3B: This road is short but he crashes into concrete because the road is narrow, so he has to continue by foot, and run, and then we have to choose to go up the fence or go to the main road.

In this video you can go to 4B or 4C

4A: In the Alley he then meet a mugger or thug, who tries to take his money and pizza, he then punch the guy in the face and proceed to the main road where Silverstar Stallone is waiting for him in a military helicopter, telling him to drop the pizza and go home, what will happen next?

4B: After he jumped the fence he landed in a place full of rabid dogs full of rabies and stuff, of course he took care of that as well, and leave the place unscathed, but he’s stopped by a military helicopter with Silverstar Stallone is using to threaten him to drop the pizza and go home. What will happen next?

4C: He takes the main road where there’s Silverstar Stallone in a military helicopter shooting him, and he ran, jumped and dodges the attacks, they then stopped, and Silverstar Stallone asks him to go home and drop the pizza, what will happen next?

Here there’s only one conclusion that leads to the final video

Finish: We see Arnold saying “NO!” to Silverstar and then jumps toward the chopper where the chopper at the same time fires his missile, we then cut to scene where a door bell is ringing and when it was opened Arnie was standing in front of it delivering the Pizza, Hasta la Pizza Baby!

COMM2540 New Direction in Narrative: Reflection 14

Today after presenting I have found out that more than half of the class are actually doing an interactive video piece, which makes me wonder whether I should keep going with my concept, or actually find new medium as my platform, although for now it is not clear for me yet, what I can do is nail down the concept that I already have and develop that. These are my slides from my presentation.

After that I have attracted two people to join my group and work on my project, the first one is Cho Hee Kim, and the second one is Jessie Xi Tan, hopefully this project will be able to take off and live up to the expectation, not just mine, but my classmates ass well.

COMM2540 New Direction in Narrative: Reflection 13

I have written down my concept about the story that I want to do, it will be a comedy, and it will be animated, but the word animated will probably mislead a lot of people into thinking I’m actually going to make a cartoon, which in fact I will be animating for a moving graphic novel, where the characters appear as if they are in comic strips but are moving, even though the movements will not be as much as an actual animation, it will still be able to accommodate the story and the narrative that I’m going for.

The story will be about Arnold Schwarzenegger running a pizza shop and be a pizza delivery man, although I would not be using the name Arnold Schwarzenegger, the name of my protagonist will be simply, Arnie, but the character design will have a spitting image of Arnold Schwarzenegger it is not him, Arnie will be running a pizzeria business, he is a washed up Hollywood action hero that is has now opened a pizza joint in New York, or maybe Los Angeles, the location are still not final at this point, but he will be delivering his pizza to the customers as well and when he does that, his rival from the pizza stand across the street Stallown pizza shop will try to sabotage his delivery and his business, from this point on hilarity and menace follows their footsteps.

With this story and premise I’m thinking that I should change my approach to the narrative structure, previously I was using a database narrative structure for the Breakeven story, but now with the change of the genre and story, I think the best way to approach this is by using a multi-linear narrative, with the multi-linear narrative I will be able to guide the audience on their adventure,  even though the audience will not have as much freedom as they do when I’m using the database narrative, it will not be confusing for them to follow the story progression for this comedy.

COMM2540 New Direction in Narrative: Reflection 12

S3438317 – Yuri Ardana

Structures & Tools

The structure that I will be using is multilinear structure, I have concluded that this with this structure I will be able to achieve story telling much more effectively and efficiently and give a much more exciting interactivity for the audiences. By using multilinear structure I can make the audience think that they actually have options about the outcome of the character, which they do but only to certain extent which then the story will actually converge again into one conclusion, but the journey that the audience will take is the main attraction of this interactive video, the multiple outcome can intrigue the audiences to play it again and try different paths. You can see this when you look at the structure visualization.

• Describe any software that look promising

There are a few software that can work very nicely as a base for distribution and developments. The first is YouTube as the base for the distribution because it is easy to share among the social media, even through mobile distribution.

I’m going to go with motion graphic novel style look for this project, after much consideration, I feel that this is the best way to accommodate my story and narrative, and by keeping that in mind, some of the obvious software choice is Adobe After Effects because I am already quite familiar with the software and so I am able to work much faster than any other software, After Effects can be used as special effects tool, but it can also ultimately be used as an animation tool.

I’ve stumbled across this software from Adobe called Adobe Edge Animate, we use it to create animation on a HTML 5 based canvas which is very useful, if I want to publish this as a HTML 5 web based game, then maybe this software is the way to go, although I might have to go look for some free web hosting first to be able to publish it on the internet.

• Explain how you might use the tool in your project

I would be using Adobe after effect as my animation studio to composite the scenes that will tell my story, by using after effect I can make movement to the characters and objects on screen without actually having to draw them frame by frame, The idea is like controlling a shadow puppet that you can assign to do movements from point to point rather than frame by frame, and by assigning those movements I will be able to manipulate the characters to move in an animation like fashion.

COMM2540 New Direction in Narrative: Reflection 11

Source

I have conducted a lot of surveys about myself and my project with my classmates about the Breakeven concept, they all said that it is a very interesting concept and can be something very powerful, although almost all of them are confused on why I would tackle a genre completely outside my comfort zone, I have been known to always make comedy genres, a lot of my friends and not just my classmates said that I have a knack for it, and I too believe that I am good at writing comedy, since I consume a lot of comedy films and videos growing up, and their comments got me thinking, do I really want to do this?

After a long and hard consideration session (hey that rhymes) I decided that I should go back to what I am best at, and that is writing comedy, I feel like I am a bit stuck when I’m writing a love story, it almost always trying to veer of into a comedic territory in my head, I guess that is my strong suit, now with that in mind I continue to percolate ideas in my head.

The system and the structure of the narrative delivery will not be changed at the moment as I think it is a very interesting approach to tell a story using a database narrative, and again if done correctly it can be a powerful tool to wield, and I think it also adds to the selling point of the project.

I have come across something interesting about the YouTube annotation, which is not Link Annotations, but Timeline Annotations, what is that you exactly?, so when you click on a link annotation another window or tab on your browser will pop out and take you to another video that are related to the first video you viewed, this means that when you are doing a database narrative, there is going to be multiple windows or tabs that are going to be open in your browser, and that can be overwhelming, especially when nowadays YouTube advertisement are taking the slot in every start of your video, that can get annoying after sometimes, the solution for this is to actually use something that is called a timeline annotation.

Timeline annotation allows you to go to specific part of the video by clicking on the annotations, for instance you will be taken from point 1 minute 28 seconds to 4 minutes time, by clicking on timeline annotation you will be jumping from one time mark to another instead of having to jump to another windows or tabs when you are using the link annotations, and by doing this you can also eliminate the waiting time to load pages every time you click on it, it also eliminates the commercial playing every time you load a new video from a new link, and with that I will be able to maintain the audience’s attention much more firmly.

COMM2540 New Direction in Narrative: Reflection 10

Audience Analysis

S3438317 – Yuri Ardana

•  Why are you creating this story? Goals, rationale, purpose, premise? What do you want your audience to experience or understand?

The purpose of why I created this story is so that the audience can follow the footstep of the main character and experience what the main character is experiencing through the characters eyes, so it’s not about the destination or where the finish line is, but it’s about the experience and the journey, Like Deepak Chopra said and I quote “The journey is the destination”

•  What is your story? In what way will it be original, surprising, human, passionate, truthful or relevant to your audience?

 

My story is about a guy who just went through a break up, and he is obviously sad and broken because of it, from there we will be able to enter to his thoughts and experiences through different objects that he touch or pick up, we will be taken to see what happened behind every objects, and what makes it so hard for him to let go of her and the stuff.

 

•  Where will you publish your story? What platform/s and hardware are suited to your audience? E-books, blogs, videos, photos, podcasts, tweets, status updates, apps, games, forums, websites?

 

I will publish my story at YouTube because of the technology behind it, it allows me to integrate several videos to one video, by using annotations and links to navigate through the videos, I think this is the best mediums to achieve that also because it is easy to distribute.

 

•  Who is your audience? Who is your target viewer/user – i.e. the group you will target in promoting the work?

 

My audience is teenagers, young adults, basically the age where you are still out there in the forest of life looking for your tree of love to build your house in.

 

•  When will you create the content and start to engage your audience? What is the production process and publishing schedule?

 

I will be targeting to start working on this concept this coming September, somewhere around the end of it so that I will have a lot of material to work with, the production will involve a lot of post-production process because of the nature of this project, and everything will be published simultaneously, and would most definitely promote this on the social media since it’ll only need a link to be distributed.

 

•  How will your audience participate in the narrative? Will they be able to contribute to the narrative, alter the narrative, respond to the narrative?

The audience will be able to participate in this narrative by taking a semi guided tour around the characters past, which they will be able to dive into different chapters of his life in a non-linear fashion, and the audience will be able to understand more when they open more videos, where in the end, the audience will be able to relate to the character and maybe even empathize with the character.

COMM2540 New Direction in Narrative: Reflection 9

Source

“The Journey is the destination” by Deepak Chopra, I think that is the essence of this project, that saying is the basic idea of why I’m doing this narrative using database narrative, the journey is not something that you can dictate, it is something needs to be experience and not just told, by using the database narrative, the audience can reveal the stories by going through it, they reveal the stories by interacting with it when they want to do it, they take the journey, not the directors, and with that mentality I will try to let the audience have as much freedom as possible.

I have considered of actually making this into an app, the problem is I have zero knowledge about programming and coding, so I think that it is mostly impossible for me to do it that way, although an app will provide me with more freedom on how to approach this project, and might be able to immerse people more in the narrative.

One thing that I notice is that when people are using app, whatever it is, it can be games app, social media app, messenger app, people are more focused when they are interacting with them, but when people are opening YouTube people seem to have a very short attention span to spend, this might be a problem that I have to tackle, to grab audience’s attention is the main goal of every content maker, but just grabbing them is not enough, you have to maintain that attention as well, keep them hooked on your content, if you are able to do that you will be able to make your content share worthy, nowadays in the era of internet, everything can get shared easily and can get famous overnight, the end goal is of course for monetization, the tricky part is how to make your content actually marketable and shareable throughout the internet.

There is some app builder or maker that is available to use with very basic features and with no steep learning curve such as:

gamesalad.com

this app builder is easy to use and are very user friendly, there are currently over 750,000 developers using this program in 189 countries around the world, which is very convincing, I have tried them and it is very user friendly, but it is very 2D based, I might be able to find something similar with some 3D capabilities.

COMM2540 New Direction in Narrative: Reflection 8

I have decided that what I should do for the narrative is the database narrative for the Breakeven project, the reason for this is to accommodate the story telling aspect, a linear narrative can make an impression on the viewers and the author or filmmakers can have the certainty that the viewers will go through the story as the makers intended, which is a very good way to convey the directors view, but with this database narrative, I’m trying to let the viewers reveal the stories with their own pace, the more they click, the more they know.

The story is about a guy who just ad his heart broken, his girlfriend left him, it is not reveled yet whether the girlfriend left him for someone else or because of circumstances, I might leave that to the viewers interpretation, I haven’t decide on that, the guy will be sitting on the sofa in his living room, and his best friend had just decided to leave after consoling him, the scene then starts when our protagonist lifts up his head to look around his living room and realizes that his living room are actually full of stuff that contains memory of him and his ex-girlfriend, the annotations on YouTube then will pop up on screen floating in front of those stuff, they are clickable and will be taking on to other video, and that video will explain why that item is important for him, the explanation will be in a flashback fashion, where there will be flashes of events and moments shared by him and her that includes that particular items, so basically it is in a way a real database of his memory with his girlfriend stored in every items around him, and by clicking more items, the viewers will reveal more and more of his story and will be able to understand why it is so hard for him to move on, and maybe even relate to him.

With this I will try to capture the viewers empathy, by using a point of view perspective, it will appear as if the viewer are making the choices themselves, this point of view will also provide a better view of his living room, which is essential to establish the premise of this story.

This project sound like it is very feasible and doable for this course, and with my skill now, I am confident that I will be able to pull this off, however I might need help from my classmates and maybe even someone from outside RMIT to do this project, might have to get permission for this first before I nail everything down.

COMM2540 New Direction in Narrative: Reflection 7

Digital Narrative Concept

Platform:

To tell this non – linear narrative video, I think the best way to go is by using the feature that YouTube already have, YouTube have a function where you can use and integrate annotations and links to link between one video to the others, and can be presented in such a way that it can feel like you are playing a game, or reading a non – linear interactive book, where you can go to specific chapters and pages if you make different decisions, and with that in mind I would think that YouTube is the best platform to base this project on.

Scenes:

In these videos, the scenes would be changing a lot, but the main story will take place in a living room area in front of a table full of used stuff, and the point of view of the whole video would be in first person point of view from the main character with voice over.

Narrative & Story:

Keeping in mind that this is a non – linear base narrative, the main idea here is that the main character has just been dumped by his girlfriend and are having a tough time to move on and forget about her, and because of this he gathers all of the stuff that he got during his relationship with his girlfriend, the stuff are put on a table and are being spread out to be able to see clearly, the color of the scene will be gloomy and blue, to accommodate the and capture the feeling of the main character that is in this case, “feeling blue”.

Scene 1 (Starting point):

The scene will start where the main character is sitting in front of a table while sobbing and tearing his eyes away, and then one of his friend comes to his apartment to console him and telling him to move on, and he can start by throwing away the stuff that reminds him of her in his apartment, which has been laid out on the table in front of him. When he picks out the stuff he will have a flashback telling a story behind every item there.

Scene 2 (Flashback 1)

Starts right in the middle of the action, where a guitar is being picked up and he flashes back to when he plays that guitar in front of her to ask her out on a date, the scenes will be a lot of jump cuts between important marks that happens during that period of times that involved the guitar.

Scene 3 (Flashback 2)

A PlayStation controller is on the table and he picks it up, and he’ll have flashbacks about all the times they spent together playing games with similar style of editing.

Summary:

The basic idea here is to tell a story in a modular way where the audience will unfold more and more of his story as they watch more videos, and understand why it is so hard for him to just let go.