This and That

handfuls of interests

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Meraki 2nd Year Show

I was really happy with the little space for my work, I feel it stopped alot of distraction even if other people kept coming into the room.  All I could do in the future is either get someone to direct how people interacted with it or put another sign on the other side of the door and hope that people would take it in to consideration.  However, my work is solely based on the interaction with the public so some people may have felt differently towards the work depending on how many people were in the room, who was in there and if people walked in during the game.

Tasha and Freya playing my interactive video.

Everyone seem to really enjoy playing the film, that they could play it again to see other outcomes.  They said it was well made and an interesting concept.

I will definitely be looking at using this digital story telling in my 3rd Year, I enjoy it, it’s challenging and I can really bring my ideas to life.

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Final Video

Still needs a few tweaks such as when you move to the new clips on different channels they revert back to the Day Walk so I need to branch out using the same videos to stop this.  Apart from that I’m really happy with my final piece and all my hard work and planning has paid off.

===========================UPDATE==============================

I edited the transition issue where the videos would instantly go back to Day regardless of which channel you’re on.

I had to copy the parallel set of videos and have them walking side by side with the first parallel and marking it as ‘if you’re on the night walk, it would go to the parallel that starts at the night walk’ this made the footage smoother when going to the next set of footage.  It seems simple but figuring out how to do it and actually executing it was a little confusing at first.

I then had to edit every single ‘button’ to make sure they were all the same style size and font.

I'm happy with the final outcome now.

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Editing

Progression, editing and learning.

Additional ‘nodes’ to my interactive video.  These more straight forward than the last.

The first attempt at Flicker Transitioning was a failure, the two merged videos were too pixelated and over edited which caused too much darkness and distortion and look very amateur.  The fade into the ‘Night’ video was incredibly dark and lost a lot of the effect I wanted.  So I had to revert back to the original unedited pieces of films, edit them again and then merge and create a new flicker transition.  The second attempt worked much better and I feel I created a better flicker motion too.

To create a Flicker Transition you have to create ‘keyframes’ as shown below.  On the video timeline you need to make sure the two videos are overlapping.  You then move alone the time line and place your keyframes, using the ‘opacity’ to create the flicker.  For example to show a piece of the ‘Night’ video you would set your opacity to 0% move along the timeline and create a new keyframe and have the opacity to 100% to bring back the ‘Day’ video.  

I learnt how to create a ‘flicker transition’ (see video above) this creates the illusion of a cross over of realities.  I’ve never done this before and I feel for my first attempt it worked well within the video and gave it more depth.  

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Storyboard/Photo Essay

I was going to create the last part of my video this weekend, however the weather had been so bad I had to reschedule.  Instead I just planned out the two videos and the ending videos.  I created a narrative photo guide of what paths will be taken, what interactions will be in the video and what choices lead to one of the possible two endings.  

Fingers crossed that when I create my video in two weeks the weather will be OK enough to finish my project so I can edit and concentrate on my written work.  

I’m really excited to get it finished, to edit it in a fun way and to feel proud of all the hard work I’ve put into this work.  Can’t wait to see the finale result.

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Contextual Referencing

I've already discussed this film in my Visual Research blog, however I wanted to talk about it in relation with more clarity to my own work.

Though my interests and inspiration comes from games I play this film is a good relation to my interactive video.

It looks at the Owl Man folklore.  A repressed memory haunting the main character, stalked by this mythological creature.  Leading him to uncover the truth.  It’s a deity that has the face of an owl and long arms with talons, suited with long legs.  It’s appearance in itself is unsettling as well as it’s lack of movement, which I feel works well.  It works better than deliberate jump scares as it’s behaviour is unpredictable which is the form I’d like to experiment with.

There’s a few scenes where they use black and white to stir a sense of fear and tension within the viewer.

I really like how this film has been produced, it’s composition and narrative.  For a low budget film, created for the Scottish Film Festival it is very well directed and constructed.  

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Crit

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Day Walk Clips;

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Getting the Ball Rolling

It’s two videos of the same path but things happen differently within them.  This is something that I experimented with last week with two different ‘parallel perspectives’ just to show how it would work and how two videos sync together at certain times as well as both play at the same time and you can choose to switch between both.

For this video my theme is in play, the character is present and people can hopefully now understand what I’m trying to achieve.  

The day walk concentrates on interacting with the surroundings and objects, in this instance the bench.  The other introduces my character the rabbit, ‘the Pooka’ which is a continuous being that has started to appear in all my other works being my signature.  The characters appearance occurs in the ‘Night Walk’ where I've edited it to look more eerie and darker, adding ‘noise’ and colour distortion.

Though there are visible stutters and an ever so slight blip in the sync, for a film that I had to produce within a time limit I feel it went quite well and I’ve learnt a lot more.  I’ve started using Adobe Premiere Pro to create atmosphere and make my videos dark which was one of the issues I encountered when creating my videos.  I don’t need to go out at night now.  

A lot of editing and constructing to create something that looks simple.  

It’s starting to get complicated on the datebase...

All of my video clips that I merged together;

Title Screen

I wanted to play around with a title screen to make the video more fluid rather than it just starting straight away, I also wanted to give the viewer a quick insight to the purpose of this interactive video and what they needed to do.

Night Walk Clips;

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Crit

Success in failure

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Parallel Videos

This isn’t the video I wanted to create but after the disaster of today I have to improvise so I had something to show for the Crit.

Originally I wanted to create a Day Walk and a Night Walk which would run at the same time and the viewer can click back and forth.  It is is unique concept to what I want to make.  The idea that objects can be interacted with in the Day walk that may not be able to in the Night Walk.  The Night Walk will have the ‘stalking rabbit’ character which may appear in places the viewer could interact with in the Day Walk.  

I really like the idea of this, it changes from one atmospheric video to another and contrast each other.  I feel it would be a better idea than just a video that you interact with and the time of day stays the same.  It’s the idea that something may happen if you switch to either videos.  It will also remain a video rather than a game which is not what I want to go with any more as it’s too ambitious and it’s easy to overwhelm myself with technicalities etc. 

This video is to demonstrate how two videos will work together and how you can switch from one perspective to another.  The theme is not connected to my final piece but the concept relates and it shows how I’ve still learnt a new technique and I can see how successful it is received from everyone in the Crit.  

It shows time management, how I need to make sure both videos are the same time, things are viewed at the same time and making sure everything is synced.  It’s tedious and tricky but once it’s perfected and is introduced to the theme I want it will be effective.

Below are the two separate videos used for the Parallel Video

Settling Down (Second Video) is compiled of two small clips.  One was filmed in Jem’s perspective as he exits the bathroom and proceeds to walk down the stairs, you see me walking into the living room which is the first video (Making Tea) This is where in the Parallel video the two perspectives meet, it’s was tricky.  I had to make sure that both interactions connected within the time frame for a more synchronised video.

Both videos needed to be the same length so they both ended at the same time.  There is a very slight stutter in the ‘Settling Down’ video as this is where I took over Jem’s perspective as he needed to be elsewhere.  I had to go on movie maker to split bits of the video and cut it down so it flowed into one as fluidly as I could get it.  It worked ok for this demonstration.

I’ve learnt a lot from doing this quick set of videos.  I’ve learned how to correctly place the camera so it see’s what I see as this was one of the issues I had with my Night Walk as the camera fell backwards, causing it to look up to the sky, thus losing my video.

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Assessment Questions and Answers

1.       What  is  the  most  successful  aspect  of your practice this year and why?  

I’m not too sure, my Art and Design has been quite successful and I’ve really thought about the ideas and expanded on my abilities.  However, Digital Practice has made me come out of my comfort zone, had failures but I’ve learnt from them and hopefully it will make me create a really good final piece.

2.       How have you used visual research in your practice?  

I’ve used it as a blog to store everything that interests me and to help me link all my modules together. I’ve paid attention to what I research and how it influences my work.  It helps me think about ideas I can use for my work.  However, as a module in itself I’ve felt it was an unnecessary inconvenience, it took a lot of my attention in the tasks asked for, a logbook which for a blind person isn’t really accessible which, in turn has caused me to neglect it.

3.       How have you developed and expanded your working methods?  

Yes I’ve looked into woodwork, large art pieces and I’ve also looked past my cliché manipulation of horror images and turned towards creating my own interactive video.  I’ve looked more into artists than I did last year and I’ve really taken my work seriously

4.       How have you taken risks in your work?

I still am taking risks, I don’t have a lot of work to show which is risking my grade but I’m hoping my final pieces for the modules will be worth the build-up.  I took a risk with getting a large piece of wood from a friend and hoping it would get here on time.  My work this year has been based on the availability and reliability of others. Models for my work as an example. 

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Next Steps

Next steps will be to create a series of scripts for my videos and start adding characters into these videos.  Experimenting and creation is the key focus now, finding what works and what doesn't.  Transitions between clips needs to be better executed.  

My time management needs to be improved, think about possibly creating a series of short interactive videos doing different things to find a starting point for my final draft.   So during the two weeks off (marking week and Worcester week) I need to go back home, find a few people who are willing to help take part in these videos and start creating something that can lead onto more ideas.  Play around with the environment, consider characters and their placement, consider time scale of each clip and how I will lead the viewer through this night walk.

Consider sound.  Will I use video audio and then add additional sound over the top?

How will the video start?

How many people will be in my video?

Will they interact?

What will happen in the video, what interactions will take place?

Where will it take place?

Will it be secluded?  Will it be a public park? 

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(via Night Walk)

The interactive game on Interlude Treehouse

In this piece I wanted the viewer to experience an interactive narrative.  A set of choices to expand exploration of a ready made Video.The sounds and choices work really well and gives good immersion.The choices need to be made before the time runs out or the decision will be made for you. The equipment and environment is the biggest let down.  It's too dark and the torch and low quality night vision ruin the visuals.  The interference with passers by disturb the feel of aloneness and though characters will appear in my next piece their absence of human familiarity will enhance vulnerability.

3rd Crit

The crit didn’t go brilliant, as I expect.   The video was so dark, so people just start at total blurry, palpitated darkness for most of it.  However, all the choices were displayed smoothly and though you lost a lot of the effect with bad visual quality everyone liked the idea of the ‘horizon line’ the sight of escape, the exit to this unsettling night walk.  Something I’ll look into in my next videos possibly.

 I think the music went great with the piece, it was subtle and added an extra dimension.  I feel however, the transition from each clip was quite stuttery but because this was my first attempt and first look at the equipment and video creator it’s something that can easily be improved.

The benefit of this video is that you don’t need a massive room to view/play it, a smaller room in darkest can help immersion and possible give a feeling of claustrophobia.    

The main focus now is getting the time of day right so it’s not too dark to lose quality but it’s not too light to lose atmosphere.  

The benefits to doing this was learning.  I learnt a lot from this piece.  From using equipment I’ve never even seen before to using online apps and an interesting interface.  It’s definitely something that, with practise, can help me create some good videos and will help influence future work.  

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Creating My Interactive Video

Using Treehouse Interlude, a programme specialising in creating interactive videos.  It makes it simple by using nodes which you place you video clips into and uses ‘directional lines’ to place connections between each clip.  

It’s quite tricky to get the hand of at first, but eventually I managed to work it out.

This is a quick screen recording of ‘Path One’ which has all the interactions.  The video has been sped up by the recording tool unfortunately but due to Treehouse not allowing you to download a hard copy for yourself it was all I could use.  I also muted the original video clips, cropped the sides as the raw clips had my friend in them who walked with me.

Once all clips were arranged, connected, transitioned I then added noises, I used one of the noises I created in an earlier experiment for crit and another is just ambient sounds.

I really enjoyed playing with the Treehouse Interlude grid and all the components.  It helped me understand how to get a better outcome with my videos such as making sure all videos are the same or near the same timescale as well as making sure the videos are clear.  Which in future is something I need to play around with a few times to get the best quality without losing the atmosphere I want.

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First Steps to creating my Nightwalk

‘Turn Left or Right’

‘Sit Down’ ‘Stand Up’

These are the raw video clips that I created:

The Beginning is the first clip, introducing the open gate and the turning on of the torch.  It then shows you the two different paths in the road you can chose from.

I didn’t bother uploading the ‘Getting Up’ video clip as it’s the ‘Sitting Down’ video in reverse as I lost the original clip.  It works well as a transition apart from the length it takes to ‘Get Up’ when clicking on the interactive button.  Cutting the video made it stutter too much so I thought I would leave it as it is.

Path One has the additional interactions.  Sitting on the bench, getting up from the bench or doing nothing and ignoring the bench.  Path two is a straight route.

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2nd Crit

Experimenting with noise and still images. Creating my own sound clips, layered and distorted to create an atmosphere.

The images were taken from a walk through the park near where I live and used them as points of interest.  I then decided to create sound clips from natural noises, adding delays and reverb to produce strange unsettling sounds.

Part of the set up for my installation. 

It was loosely linked with the final idea I want to create, though this installation of still images and sound isn’t how I’m going to work it was still a useful experiment for trial and error and feedback.  The points of interest were so I could begin to start a narrative.  My final idea is going to be still a Night Walk but I want it to be interactive.  This will be done by creating several videos that branch off onto different videos depending on the ‘choices’ the viewer chooses. 

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Points of Interest I decided to take pictures that caught my attention that could help me create a better final video. Using them to experiment with sounds and build up some kind of narrative, to decide a story for my night walk and come up with ideas of characters you’ll see in the video you’re following. I used audio clips from family videos and created my own sounds and manipulated them to play around with atmosphere for the images I've taken. This is keeping with the installation set up I did for my project last year for Art and Design. I'm not sure if I’ll use props this time or additional sensory items for this as it’s mainly experimentation to structure foundations for the end project.