Allan White: Work

White Balance Images:

Fun photo shoot with Trin and her friends

They wanted to shoot on green-screen, so I put them in some fun and interesting places. The girls got a real kick out of it! I thought it would be fun to put some rampaging elephants behind them, or put them deep underwater or something silly. I put Trin and her friend A. in a museum. What hams!

Some friends over at Soma Games heard about our little birthday adventure game we did with my son and his buddies. The concept was tied together with an iPad “app” from a mysterious order named The DecaLeague.

Touchpad concept: done with Keynote

The concept was really just a Keynote show playing on the iPad; this was perfect for me as I develop a ton of Keynote presentations and I know it’s capabilities pretty well. It’s kind of become the new Hypercard on the iPad. While I was bummed to find some of my animations and fonts didn’t make it over (man that list is short!), the overall effect worked.

They were wondering if I would share the Keynote doc for laughs - here you go! (zip, 7mb)

The Game

I whipped it up in about two hours, including the logo design and exporting graphics for the Tumblr site (I use Keynote as a design tool all the time for mogfx & web dev). The Tumblr site and app were pretty crucial, actually (though could have been more so, given a longer game). The themed site was where the kids uploaded photos of their achievements in order to “unlock” the next challenge: after uploading, we’d gather them together (“Hey guys, let’s see if there’s a new transmission!”) open the iPad, and tap the screen, which would trigger the “incoming transmission” animation and sound effect (a Starcraft sound the Internets brought me). While I’m sure the jaded preteen doubters knew what was up (my son still…accepts the tooth fairy), the effect was fun and added some suspense.

What I liked was the blend of high-tech and physical, high adventure; we wanted kind of a spy theme throughout. At the end they had to collect flour bombs and run a dark forest gauntlet of cousins, pelting them with marshmallows and flour bombs á la The Patriot. They assaulted a bit fast (who wouldn’t?) so we didn’t get the full effect, but boy, they sure loved the finale!

Future Possibilities

I could see some interesting opportunities here. Adventure trials like the Spartan Race and Tough Mudder are waxing popular, as well as orienteering and geocaching; the geo-location, light weight and media features of mobile devices could come together into a really fun, interactive, physical group experience. As a lifetime gamer, social geek and lover of physical adventure, it would be very interesting to see these movements come together.

I’ve just wrapping the blizzard of producing & shooting an event on Atlanta, absorbing a firehose of amazing and profound speakers, musicians, artists, and tiring cross-country travel. I’m telling myself I’m not tired, and only half believing it!