Will89’s Weblog

Here is the shot list to accompany the storyboards that I have created and posted up earlier. I would like to credit Tom Wickaman for creating this shot list for our project.

Camera Shot List

·      RED = Video

·      BLACK = Still image

 

Shot No.

1.    ES – Looking down seafront towards pier.

2.    LS – Looking towards path from pier courtyard.

3.    POV – Walking along the path.

4.    WS – Looking down path.

5.    POV/Low Angle – Looking up at kidnapper.

6.    CU –  Kidnapper’s hands tearing up paper.

7.    CU – Kidnapper stuffing paper into pocket.

8.    CU – Piece of paper falling out pocket onto floor.

9.    POV – Walking further down path.

10. WS – Looking down path.

11. POV – Camera moves about as girl is grabbed by kidnapper.

12. POV – Camera looks down at floor as girls shoe falls off.

13. CU – Kidnappers hand as he bins a piece of paper.

14. POV – Walking further down the path.

15. WS – Looking down path.

16. CU – Looking down at bottles.

17. POV/Low Angle – Looking up at kidnappers face as he drinks from bottle.

18. CU – Kidnapper’s hand putting note into bottle.

19. POV – Walking down path.

20. WS – Looking down path, beach huts off to the side.

21. POV – As girl is thrown into beach hut.

22. POV/Low Angle – Looking up at kidnapper closing beach hut door.

23. WS – Of beach huts.

 

User helps:

1.    WS – Shows all beach huts, picture fades out.

User doesn’t help:

1.    CU – Of users hands, screwing up paper and throwing it into the bin.

2.    CU – Looking at newspaper article.

3.    WS – Of beach huts. Taped off by police. Fades out. 

Here are the storyboards that I have create for the our narrative project. These storyboards shows the rough basics of our project and how the narrative plot turns out. Each shot shows a visualisation with a description of the camera angle and also how the audio will be represented. So here are the storyboards for our project called Sea front: 

Also here is a detail version of the Synopsis Of Idea to accompany the post of Synopsis Of Idea that I just posted earlier, which explains in detail about each process and decisions that the User will make within the narrative project:

Title of the product: Sea Front

Slogan: Every Action, Has A Reaction. It’s Your Call !

·      The User find her/himself walking along the seafront – early morning

·      While walking, come across a piece of ripped up paper with writing on it – on the ground.

·      When the user picks up the ripped up paper, the user experience a flash back of a kidnapper ripping up a found letter in front of the girl that he has kidnapped but drops the first piece of the letter on the ground.

·      The User returns to reality and carries walking along the seafront further, till the User stops – This is where the User has a couple of choices find to the next piece of the letter – i.e. a bin, a vending machine, etc.

·      The User experiences another flashback when picking up the next piece of the note, showing the kidnapped girl being grabbed/dragged by force by the kidnapper, as this is happening, she looses one of her shoes, but she sees the kidnapper putting part of the letter in the bin.

·      The User returns to reality again and carries on down the seafront path and finds the lost shoe and take it as evidence. The User come across a pile of empty beer bottle. The User smashes the bottles and finds the next bit on the letter and picks it up.

·      This causes the third flashback showing the girls perspective of the kidnapper who is getting more abusive and drunk, as he has been drinking. The kidnapper grabs another piece of the ripped out letter out of his pocket and stuffs it into the beer bottle and throws it drunkard onto the beach and laughs at the girl.

·      The User returns to reality and carries on along the seafront and come to a beach hut, which has a piece of the kidnapped girls clothing caught on the wooden banister with blood on it. At this point the User has a look around the beach hut and finds a pair of keys on the floor and searches for any another signs for the next piece of the letter. 

·      The User find the next piece of the letter caught under a wooden slat. When the User picks it up, triggers the next flash back of the kidnapper throwing the girl into the beach hut, she catches part of her top on a wooden banister, ripping part of the top off, which has a bit of her blood on it. As she sees the kidnapper closing the door and before hearing him locking the door, she sees him dropping the last part of the letter out of his pocket and then the noise of keys dropping as the sound of footsteps fade out of earshot.

·      The User returns to reality and after finding the pair of keys and the last piece of the letter and piecing it with other three parts of the letter, reads it – voice over of the girl who has been kidnapped narrating it.

·      Now the User has a life or death choice to make, whether to find the kidnapped girl even though the police could frame him for being part of the kidnapping of the girl or take the cowards way out because of fear and the fear of being framed for the kidnapping.

 

If the User act upon what the letter:

·      The User steps away from the beach hut, to view other beach huts along the seafront and has to make a choice on which beach hut, the User thinks the kidnapped girl is being held prisoner by trying to unlock the padlocks on each of the beach huts with the pair of keys that the User has found.

·      Once the User unlocks the right beach hut, The User finds the girl and saves her. This will result in the User have successfully completing this interactive product and a message will appear on the screen saying: The choice you made that day means that someone can live another day.

 

If the User doesn’t do anything about the letter:

·      The User walks away, crumpling up the letter and throwing it away, because of the fear to act upon what has been found and the fear of being framed for the kidnapping.

·      Next the User will see an image of a newspaper article about a kidnapped girl found dead in a beach hut on the seafront, this will transition into footage of the beach hut tapped up with police tap to show the crime scene.

·      Finally the User will be faded out of the product, with a message appearing saying something like: The choice you have made today have come at a cost.

 

Right once again the stupid idiot that I am forgot to publish the synopsis of idea that  I completed two weeks ago, so here it is: 

Our interactive narrative story take elements of the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, for instance, we will be focusing on the breadcrumb trail aspect for our story.

The interactive story is set on a sea front path in the early morning, where the User enters the prospective of a person walking along the path.  As the User experiences the person walking along the path, the User will come across, part of a ripped up letter, which has some writing written on it, asking for help.

As the User picks up the part of the letter, the User will experience a telepathical flashback of the past, set on the same path the User is walking along, looking through the eyes of a girl who has been kidnapped and who was the one who originally wrote the letter.

The aim of these flashbacks is to show the User, past events linking with the pieces of the ripped up letter. After the User see the flashback and returns to reality, the User then embarks upon this trail to find the other pieces of the letter.

The User will have to interact make choice for the plot to unfold by having to find rest of the letter, experiencing more flashbacks with every piece of letter the User finds to understand the events of the girl being kidnapped.

Also gathering clues and items to help solving the location of the kidnapped girl. Once the User finds all the clues and items, the User has a life or death choice to make, whether to find the kidnapped girl even though the police could frame him for being part of the kidnapping of the girl or take the cowards way out because of fear and the fear of being framed for the kidnapping.

In our first week of the project, me and tom decided to sit down and discuss about ideas for our group project, over a nice cold pints of beer at the student bar. As time past we came up, with a list of fairy tales and folks stories that we knew of, which were the following:

 

• Goldilocks
• Little Red Ridding Hood
• Three Little Pigs
• Humpty Dumpty
• Gingerbread man
• Jack & The Bean stork
• Rumple Stiltskin
• Hansel & Gretel
• Pied Piper 

Now looking back at the brief, it said that we were to choose a well known fairy tale or folks story as a foundation for our interactive product and that it didn’t matter that are story ended up being completely different from the original tale, but had to say how it evolved from the original tale to the final story. 

This gave us the chance to modernise and change the story to how we wanted it to be like, but still having those key elements of the original tale that we still needed to decided on. 

So after another pint each we discuss more about each of the tales in turn and decided how we could adapt them to our liking. In the end we choose to looking into more detail about the following two tale:

• Little Red Ridding Hood
• Hansel & Gretel

We both started to talk about how the tales were structured and broke them down to their basics, so we could have a better understanding of how each of the narratives worked. After we talked about them in detail and realised that everyone was probably going choose the tale of Little Red Ridding Hood, for the obvious reason that everyone one knew it and would be pretty easy to do. Us two decided to be completely different and do Hansel and Gretel. 

At point I thought we were barking madding to be honest, because of one simple thing. 

Where the hell are we going to find an edible house made of sweeties in Bournemouth ! 

However we did not reflect upon that to much as we would change that aspect of our story, but we would take this element of the story and change it. Also we thought that we would use the bread crumb aspect of Hansel and Gretel as our main focus point for our interactive narrative story.

By the time me and the others in the group have fully discussed this idea of Hansel & Gretel and have sorted the final idea, I will post up synopsis of the idea on here for anyone to view and also the flowchart that explain the interactivity parts of the story.    

Here is the production schedule, which myself and my group members will be working towards:

Week 1:

 

• Research Into Fairy Tales
• Choose A Fairy Tale As Foundation
• A Synopsis Of The Idea
• Assign Production Roles

Week 2:

 

• Story Development Plan
• Flowchart
• Storyboard
• Get Visual Samples

Week 3:

 

• Create Presentation

Week 4:

 

• Pitch Presentation (14^th January)
• Capturing Video Footage
• Gathering Audio Content
• Editing
• Start Programming XHTML/PHP

 Week 5:

 

• Continue Editing Video & Audio
• Continue Programming XHTML/PHP

Week 6:

 

• Finish Product
• Testing
• Upload Finished Product 

Right the first week of this project was a bit bumpy as we didn’t know where all the group members were, however that little issue has been all cleared up now and finally we have our group and I believe that good things will result at the end of this project with the work we will produce. anyway in our brief we had to assign production roles within the group and here is what myself and my other group members will be doing:

Myself:

 

• Programme writer/producer

Tom:

 

• Video Director
• Camera & Lighting
• Editor

Sadie:

 

• Graphics Designer
• Assistant Audio Director
• Assistant Editor

Joe:

 

• Audio Director

Dan:

 

• Production Manager
• Programme Director 

 

Focusing on what my role, which is Programme Writer/Producer, I will be mainly helping the group to kick start this project off, with the following:

• Creating a synopsis of the idea.
• Contributing to the story development plan.
• Starting off the storyboard for the narrative.
• Constructing a flowchart showing how the narrative works.
• Lastly creating a production schedule.  

Hopefully by doing this much work for the group and contributing to a high level, will be recognised before I leave for my operation in January. 

Also I will putting the presentation together for the group to pitch to our seminar group, which will take place the second day back from Christmas holidays. This presentation will count for 20% of our final mark, for our project.

For the presentation we have to fill a assessment criteria of the following:

• Quality of the idea and relevance to the brief.
• Ability of the group to articulate clearly and concisely, the concept and proposed production details.
• Demonstration of the understanding of the processes and needs for production of the project.
• Finally quality of the presentation assets in terms of the digital and written materials. 

So it is up to me to produce a high quality electronic presentation for my group, before the 11th of December which is a week on Thursday, which isn’t long away.

O Bugger !