#dynamic communications

On wednesday i presented the body of my work to the 3 remaining modules' lecturers. Overall feedback was brilliant despite my warbling and mind-blanking throughout the presentation. First off was Visual Literacy: The feedback was very positive. The lecturers were pleased with my research and experimentation with different styles which has led to my own unique art style which i have kept consistent throughout my other modules as well as Visual Literacy. My next step is to push my comfort zones and try materials and techniques I am not normally familiar with to further widen my skills and styles. I will try these practices for my future Visual Literacy work.

Next was Dynamic Communications: Again feed back was extremely positive. My choice for my Kickstarter was seen as personal yet humorous and was a topic that a large audience could relate to. My style carried that same personality throughout the different assets of the project and the whole idea could be considered as a proper Kickstarter project should i choose to try something along those lines later. The only criticism had nothing to do with the body of work but more my presentation slides for this module. The screen grabs on the slides could have been slightly bigger so the viewers could observe the high level of detail. I will take this into account for further presentations.

Lastly was Elementary Animation:

Due to class requirements, my DC work will not be posted on Tumblr and will be posted on WordPress instead.

To see my work for this module, please follow this link;-

This final idea came about after I'd decided against the last one. I'd gotten back into my love for space after visiting the Glasgow Space Centre and after that I had full ideas for this. It is about a small boy who watches a rocket take off, going on childish like behaviour, obviously wants to be an astronaut afterwards. Though years later he didn't realise how hard it would be to get to that status and he's able to make a large decision. Go forth and push his self to become what he always wanted to be, or ignore it and just go ahead in life with the grades he got that year. If he chose to ignore, he would later regret that decision and had a chance to possibly go back and redo it. If he pushed himself he gets to Uni and starts more training in becoming an astronaut.  I decided to add in a plot of a young kid coming up to him and you getting the choice to save him after he almost gets hit by the car because originally I was going to have the man be wheelchair bound and watch the kid grow older and strive to become the astronaut the man now couldn't be. But after time and family issues became a struggle, I had to cut this out as I would definitely not have finished this due to previously changing my ideas so much previously.  The style I went with for this one was messy and - to he honest - very sloppy. If I had the chance to clean it up and possibly add colour to it and more animation sequences then I would have been happier with the outcome. Though after managing to figure out the coding, (Which I had been very scared to start incase of mucking up) I am proud of myself for at least achieving that.  I had planned to make the story a lot longer and a lot more complex by adding a female love interest or a choice which involved you choosing between drink and work (Inspired by my very own father haha). But again due to time constraints I was unable to complete this ambition.  Sketchbook/Digital work:

My second idea for my Interactive Narrative was following the story of a society where everyone was the same. No colour. No specific features. All ruled by a group/government who insisted that this was correct. But the player had a choice to be different and (Start of story) "choose a different path of life" by literally taking a different route home that day. He/She would bump into a man after finding a glowing river and discover the truth behind the world they lived in.  If they ended up falling into the river their skin would glow yellow and you would have the chance to change everything in your world by making people rise up against the society.  I was also going to add a sequence where the player gets caught by the guards and is sentenced to death for this apparent crimes. You would be given two options - two different types of bullets. One would rid you of your colour and memory and be sent back into the society you were trapped in and the other would be a normal bullet that would keep your colour but you would indefinitely die. If you chose the latter then you find out there are piles of deceased people who have tried to do the same as you and also decided to keep their freedom.  I thought of this idea after having a discussion about my work and life in general in a cafe and she mentioned something about not going with the norm and being yourself. The idea just hit me after that. I didn't go with this as I wasn't enjoying it as much. As cool as an idea I thought it was it didn't turn out all that I wanted it to be and trying to find a simple style to go with it proved very difficult for me at the time - as the style I decided on, wasn't as liked as another one I had went with at crit week. The style everyone liked, I just couldn't seem to keep consistent and it ended up looking very sloppy and I was very unhappy with it. Sketchbook/Digital Work:

My initial thought for my interactive narrative was to base it on the 7 deadly sins. I had been going through a phase of being very interested in the topic and had been playing games and watching movies such as Dante's Inferno, The Binding of Isaac and Se7en. I thought it could be an interesting way to approach this narrative.  At first I wanted to personify the sins as characters and have the 'player' interact with these sins. I also thought that the player could have the sins occur in their lives - either in a fantasy setting or just a regular "high school" or "university" scenario. This lead me to the idea that the player could choose which one to face by picking a door to go through to meet with that particular sin - that way I could design the door itself as well as the sin inside.  Though even after having a huge feel and excitement for doing this, it would be a much larger task than I first thought and I decided not to go with it as it would literally be seven different mini narrative stories in one and I didn't believe I had the capability to do that.  Sketchbook/Digital Work: 

I decided to research some names for my characters so that they feel more real and fleshed out. I have chosen to select from some of old Celtic and Gaelic origin to fit with the period of my story.

Firstly the young boy is now called Rowan. I wanted him to have a recognisable name so as not to alienate him from the audience too much but still have a Celtic origin.

The for the old man in the woods I have chosen Iollan (pronounced eyo-lan) meaning 'he who worships another god' I feel this is suitable for his character as the outcast who defies the ignorance of the village.

For the village elder I chose Iseult (pronounced Iz-yew-ult) although its celtic meaning is more suited for a beautiful maiden its Germanic route is in ice, I think the word itself is more suiting to his character as sharp and manipulative and plays nicely against Iollan