Month: October 2019

I’ve decided to settle on the concept of PUPPETS!!! Are you shocked?

Thank you to Professor Ault and everyone else who left feedback on my Initial Concepts post! I appreciated everyone’s supportive comments and I hope this post will clear up some of the questions I received.

I’ve been playing with this idea since around April of last semester, so I have definitely fleshed out the majority of the show before jumping into the technical skills I’m working on now (constructing sets, puppets, etc.) The script has been written and revised several times, and I do have a storyboard that has decided the direction for my set designs.

As for questions about how I’ve tackled pre-production, I made this schedule back in the summer:

Ideally, this semester I’d like to finish ALL of pre-production, and leave all filming, editing, post, etc. to next semester, along with the construction of my exhibit for the showcase. I’m on track for now! If I need to push a set or two to next semester, I’m prepared to adjust for that, too. I’m really focused on getting the puppets themselves finished.

• FINAL DELIVERABLES:
• an 11-minute pilot for a show featuring puppets
• thoughtful exhibit presentation showing behind the scenes and puppet display for people to play with (inspired by Jim Henson exhibition)

BONUS: as you can see from my schedule, I’m approaching my deadline for my practice puppet (which ideally will be a mini-me to have on my hand for the showcase). Here’s how that’s going so far!

As of right now, I still would really like to try to bring my first project idea to life. I had not originally planned to create a theme or message based on water but after taking some time to consider, I may have changed my mind. I think my project might be a great platform to promote The Thirst Project, a nonprofit organization centered around making sure all countries have access to healthy water. I have a vision where while a voiceover reads out these eye opening numbers about people who are dying from their lack of usable water, the water from my fountain begins to drop lower and lower until eventually stopping completely.

Another idea that was suggested in my feedback comments was changing the scenery and possibly trying to build a specific building or landscape that matched my storyline. Building a physical set (outside of my box of a fountain) is something I would love to do and definitely plan to try in the future. For this specific project, I believe my goals and expectations are challenging but both rewarding and realistic. If I were to try to go larger than my basic build, I fear I might overwhelm myself and end up jeopardizing myself more than anything else.

My current goal right now is to come up with a sketch of what exactly I want this fountain to look like so I can begin moving forward towards creating something tangible.

My confidence in the first idea is pretty high at this point. Though I still have some doubts, I believe that If I try hard enough, I will be able to accomplish this. After thinking over a few approaches as to how im going to accomplish this goal, I have set some priorities in mind so I can for formulate a smooth path towards creating this project.

Research and Development – thanks to the few who responded to my concepts, I have a certain vision for this project that I am willing to create. My first step is to search for examples of this type of work done and see how I can apply it to my own work. A leeway into what eventually will become a complete project. Then attempt to create a prototype of some sort, visualizing a pathway forward.

Unity testing – Thankfully I found a program that is used with the Unity Engine that will allow me to easily create the interactivity part if it is as bold as I imagine it to be. It is at a certain cost but it will be worth it to begin some test and see who it work.

Storyboarding and Writing – This will be done as a way of, ofcourse, writing the story out so that way the panels for each page will be constructed in an organized fashion. the goal here is to take the time and think about what type of story I would want to create for this novel and build a world centered around it, with an original thought in mind.

So far this is what I have prepared for what comes next on the pathway to completing this project, and if things don’t work out, then I’ll just have to reevaluate and start fresh.

Future Navigation

Hidden menus, like the hamburger menu, have shown to be counterproductive when it comes to the user experience. The reason for this is due to that the hamburger menu was a quick solution to better handle a navigation bar for the mobile version of websites. However, this has become such an industry standard that no one is changing this practice. Today, this standard practice is becoming out of date and needs to be replaced, but with what? What would it look like and how it will function? Can it be used only on mobile or can it be a holistic element? 

In order to answer these questions, I would do a deep dive to see how people are handling navigation, test to see what type of menu people like (header nav, hidden menu, footer nav, side nav, etc), use the collected data to come up with new designs and test those designs to see what the new navigation concept will be. 

This will be done by in-person interviews, finding sources and insight from people working on this problem, on and offline user testing, and applying cognitive psychology principles.

The final deliverable will be a small exposition and documenting my process, data, and the solutions that came out of this case study.

I am pretty sure I am going to go through my first idea. I think it will fulfill me creatively and will also be something I want to put on my resume.

I am going to write and record an album and do a full marketing campaign. The marketing campaign deliverables will consist of a Market Overview and Vendor Options Report as well as a Post Campaign Effectiveness Report. The majority of advertisements will be run through Facebook ads manager but I will also try to get other forms of media into the mix.

Research

I am currently working with Mark, my boss at the AIMM recording studio, to get feedback on my recordings and mixes to see how I can improve. Professional sounding recordings are essential to this project.

I am going to work this semester with Facebook ads manager to get a feel for it and figure out how to create effective digital advertisements. I can do more research online but the best way to get good at this is to get experience running campaigns.

Revised Concept – Algorithmic Composition

I am fairly set on my first idea with algorithmic composition. I feel like the scope can be small or widened, depending on the progress I make.

Here are some of the responses I have to comments that came up:

Parsing the music will be hard – My idea for this is to transcribe the songs into MIDI sheet music, so that my program can take that as input. While it would be cool to have actual audio parsed, I agree that that would take too much work.

Possibly beyond the scope of time – I feel confident that I can start small and build up as much as I can. I have already started a bit of work on this idea in my free time, so I have a feel for the challenge and how long it might take.

Incorporating aspects of Idea 2 into this idea – I think this is definitely a cool idea! I could use vaporwave songs to generate new vaporwave songs. The only tricky bit I see with this is that some aspects of vaporwave can be glitchy sounding, which is more of an audio thing that can’t be transcribed into audio. For example, it might pitch shift a semitone off a normal key.

Instead of that, maybe I could use the visual aspect from Idea 2. The only question I see with that is whether or not the visuals would be generated on-the-spot, too. If they would be, I would have to see how much work would go into that, because I do not have the background to really know right now.

Initial Concept: I want to create a space using a physical built globe and projection mapping to show causes with the issues revolving recycling on the earth. I imagine using a showroom downstairs with the globe in the center of the room hanging from the ceiling, trash and garbage underneath it and around the area of the globe, heat lamps in certain areas of the room, and overall a dark atmosphere. On one wall there will be statistics, and on the other two walls there will be option A) if we continue to recycle and take care of the earth, and B) if we don’t take care of it what the planet will turn into. On the globe I want to project the earth and the amount of recycling in each continent possibly using visual graphs built into the globe along with projection mapping. 

Program: Lightform

Lightform | The design tool for projected AR

Similar projects:

• https://vimeo.com/41586724

Layout of room:

• globe hanging from the top center of the room
• trash around the bottom of the globe on the floor
• heat lamp in the top right corner of the room
• projection mapping on each wall and on globe
• wall 1: option 1 for the future – clean healthy planet
• wall 2: option 2 for the future – destroyed world filled with trash
• globe will be interactive being able to move the globe

Timeline:

October – December: Research lightform, learn the program, learn animation

December – January: Design layout of projections

Feb – March: Build globe/in room items

April: *hopefully* start testing project /get feedback

October – May: Figure out what I want displayed, research topic, get statistics, etc

Digital manga and Marketable material (Revisited)

(Previously)

Using the skills I’ve been gaining the past year (and while in Japan) for my thesis, I will create high quality chapters of a digitally created manga (using photoshop / clip studio paint & various techniques and digital methods) along with character sheets, cover, marketable materials such as Poster (photoshop), Video Advert (adobe after effects), Merchandise, etc.

(Revisited)

To make my manga idea more unique and innovative I have decided to work multiple elements into the project such as basing character designs on modern/ popular fashion, and unique combinations of story concepts combining western elements I’m accustomed to with eastern elements that I learned about while abroad. Ex. being the incorporation of elements from Japanese religions that I am learning about in my “Religion in Japan” lectures that I have every Tuesday and Thursday. I also want to explore how the digital medium would allow me to present the manga in different ways if time allows.

List of deliverables I would hope to present

Small Physical Booklet

• Manga content
• Character sheets / Turn Arounds
• Project info
• etc

Video Promo (with V/O)

High Quality Character Sheets (adaptation ready)  

Merchandise (based on Japanese  IP Merchandising)

Pin(s)

T-Shirt(s)

Poster(s)