#fourthproject

Open Studio - Reflection

At first, I was quite nervous to talk about our Project in Open Studio, especially in front of industry people. However, it got easier after a while as people seemed to be interested in our idea. I’m guessing they were attracted by the “look” of our Project space. Some people approached us, talked to us about our concept and how the CYOA works. They tested it out, and some people even came back to try out different options and paths.

The first person who approached us really liked the concept of our Project, and the overall audio experience that we wanted to achieve. He gave us quite positive feedback.

I was actually quite surprised to hear such positive feedback from both, the general public, and the industry people. Both groups said that our Project was interesting. Some of the comments we received include, “I was really immersed in the situation as the sounds felt real and close,” “I really had to think about what option to choose.” And when we asked them if they would make the same decisions in a real-life situation, most of them answered “Yes.” Some people chose all the “good” options to see where it lead and some people tried to be rebellious with their decisions.

Personally, I found it quite natural to talk to people after they had experienced our CYOA. Sheena and I both tried to build a conversation with the people and genuinely ask for their response towards the Project. Although we couldn’t talk to everyone who tried our CYOA, we could see the reaction on their faces afterwards. Some of those reactions included, surprised, happy, interesting and shocked.

Overall, I feel like it was a successful night, even though we weren’t approached by any industry people for further development of our Project. I will remember this night as a great opportunity for us to network with people, express our creativity and showcase our work. Honestly, I’m really looking forward to the End of the Year Showcase, as it will be another opportunity to get out their and be proud of another Project. I feel like it will be totally different to this one, however, now that we’ve got some experience, we will be fine.

Thinking back to the beginning of this Project, I was confused and out of ideas. It was only when Sheena suggested we worked together, that I started to feel more enthusiastic. At the moment, having finished this Project and looking at what it is right now, I feel proud of both Sheena and myself. I actually really like our idea, however, with a bit more time-management and effort, I feel like we could have produced a much better result.

Like all of the other groups, we faced a few issues along the way. Since the beginning of this Project, Sheena and I have been interacting with different lecturers each day, and this meant that we were suggested new ideas and different takes on our Project every day. Due this this, we were spending more time on the thinking process, than the production process. We were also facing time-management issues throughout the Project. We ensured that we delegated tasks evenly so that we both had something to do, to speed up our progression. However, we had so much work still to complete that by some point, we lost motivation. I feel like we weren’t working as fast as we could have, which meant that we were drowning in work right until the due date. Nevertheless, everything worked out in the end.

According to the Brief, we had to design, build, evaluate, and document a final project that: extends, augments, revisits, combines, integrates, interrogates, deepens, strengthens, responds to one or more of your first Studio I projects: Play, Sound, Speculative Design.

I believe that Sheena and I have successfully met the brief specifications, as we have designed an Audio Choose Your Own Adventure based on Dangerous Driving. Our Project is an extension of the Sound Project as we have revisited the idea of a “car crash,” from the Soundscape and Performance part of the Sound Project. However, I think that our idea is a combination of both the Sound Project and Cards For Play, because we have used the “play” and “user experience” aspect from the first project and combined it with the theme of the second project to give it a deeper meaning and a strong base.

In my opinion, our Project is original, authentic and meaningful. We have used ourselves as resources to make sure that our CYOA is personal yet generic. Our Project can also said to be creative, experimental and exploratory as it is a fresh idea and plays with the theme of “Dangerous Driving” in an Audio Adventure. I also believe that our final outcome is knowledgeable and relevant because it teaches the listener about the consequences of dangerous driving, which is one of the leading issues on NZ roads. Our project is also appropriate for the target audience (teens - young adults), and has the potential to make a difference.

Personally, I was quite invested in our Project as “Dangerous Driving” is a topic that I’m strictly against, which meant that I was passionate to see the outcome. I stayed committed and worked hard to get a result that I could be proud of. I have also learned many lessons along the way, including, having better time-management, spending less time on thinking, working faster, getting constant feedback, iterating and prototyping, but mainly, working on something that you're passionate about about. I have also learned to listen to other people’s ideas and using them in a way that is relevant to the Project.

Overall, I think that our Project was definitely interesting and showcased our creativity. I believe that we can still improve it immensely, and given more time, we could have talked to people outside of BCT to see what their views are. Nevertheless, I’m happy with what we’ve done and throughout the four weeks, I have also learned that collaboration and teamwork play a huge role in the success of an idea.

Day 19 (12-06-17)

Through the past week, we have been making very slow progress. Since our production hasn’t been fully completed yet, we have been unable to play test our work. This meant that we couldn't receive any feedback on the Project to make last-minute improvements. With what we already had, we decided to ask one person to try out our CYOA. Overall, they weren’t too impressed with it. They said they were reading ahead, before the voice-over finished, and also making decisions before time. They would prefer to skip to the next part as soon as they had made the decision. Another issue with our CYOA was that it wasn’t too generic. For example, we mention ‘beer’ as the alcoholic drink in our script, however, the tester doesn’t drink beer so they said they wouldn’t accept the offer at a party anyway. 

This feedback, although negative, was useful to know. In our defence though, we had set the CYOA in a way that the listener had to listen until the end. We did this on purpose as the main point of our Project was to tell a story through audio. And if the listener skipped the voice-over, then they would miss out on the overall experience and purpose of our CYOA. This feedback was only one person’s opinion, however, we would have liked for more people to listen and provide feedback, but due to time constraints and our slightly bad time-management skills, we were unable to do so. Given more time, we would have tested our CYOA several times and fixed the minor script issues. We would also have designed the slides so the text appears with the voice-over, which would solve our “reading ahead” problem.

Although I can’t make any improvements at this stage of the Project, I will remember this as an experience, so that I don’t make similar mistake with future Projects. With our Project at the verge of finishing, we still need to look into the final production, technical issues and setting up for the Final Presentation, that too in two days. But I’m sure we’ll finish in time and with an amazing result.

Day 13 (06-06-17)

Today, Sheena and I met up in Studio to go over our Final script and make any changes / improvements before we started recording. We filled in a few missing endings and re-read it to ensure that our grammar and spelling were correct. We were both quite happy with the final script as it was based around the idea of Dangerous Driving, it provided the user with realistic options and believable consequences, along with being short and simple. We wanted out storylines to be short due to people’s short attention span (6 seconds) and we didn't want them to lose interest. In fact, our goal was to immerse them into a situation which allows them to think about their choices and make the decision wisely, so they don't have to face bad consequences.

Another reason that I like our story was because we tried to keep it as generic as possible. We also avoided “hand-holding” throughout the story. This is why we weren’t too obvious or descriptive and left places for the user to “read between the lines.” We felt like this way, the player will tend to think about it afterwards, and understand how their storyline ended, which would make their experience more impactful and we would meet our brief.

Now that we have our script ready to narrate, we will start the recording tomorrow. This is because we want an even voice throughout the whole CYOA, no matter which path the user chooses. And by recording in one day, we can get Sheena’s same voice in each story.

Day 12 (01-06-17)

Today, we had another chat with Clint, regarding the progress of our Project. We explained that we were currently drawing a “Plan Tree” to help us write and understand each ending. Clint was quite understanding and asked us about our work schedule. Sheen and I realised that it probably is better to create another schedule to help us stay on track an finish each task in the limited time.

Overall, Sheena and I worked on the Plan Tree and tried to work as fast as possible. The main trouble we’re having, in my opinion, is to write a story in a way that is practical and believable. We have been having this same problem since the start of scripts writing, as it is quite difficult to create possible events and their possible outcomes. But working through the tree is really helping us work better and understand our storyline.

I think that we will definitely be finished by tomorrow. This way, we can continue with our script over the weekend.

Day 11 (31-05-17)

Today, we got a chance to speak with Ben and Braeden. We all discussed our Project idea and how we can showcase it in a way that is impactful. We firstly talked about our research on the Statistics and Dangerous Driving Ads. While Sheena explained her side of the research, I told Ben about the Ads I saw. But Ben wanted to know more about what I had learned from this ads and how they would help us in this Project.

I was a bit confused. I understood the idea behind the Ads and their purpose, but it was difficult to explain how each Ad contributed to our society. Answering this, Ben made some really key points, and we talked again about the purpose of these Ads compared to the purpose of our Project. We want our Project to raise awareness about the consequences of driving dangerously, same as those ads, however, we have to present our Project in a way that encourages the viewers to avoid these dangers. At this point, Ben pointed out that viewers are impacted by ads, but not the ones that should be. Those people see right through the ads, make jokes and continue with their style of driving, however, we want those people to change their behaviour, with the help of our Project.

Having so much to think about, Sheena and I were back to “Square 1.” We still wanted to continue our idea and make it impactful, however, we didn’t know how. ben advised us to draw a “Plan Tree” which shows our storyline and the result of each choice. I think this was a great idea cause it would really help us understand the story and work out what decision leads to what consequence. I was actually quite angry at myself for not doing this before, as I had mentioned it in my Research Blog post.

Nevertheless, tomorrow, we’ll make a start on the “Plan Tree,” which will hopefully give us a better overview of our story, so we can continue writing our script.

Day 10 (30-05-17)

Today, Sheena and I continued with our script. I guess we’ve been having troubles to stay focused as we’re slowly losing the motivation to complete this Project. The tasks are taking too long to complete, especially the script, and then the recording and editing will the another week to complete. So, we really need to stay on track and finish each segment as quickly as possible.

Last week, we talked to all the lecturers, who gave us their own opinions about our Project idea. Each lecturer provided us with feedback and something to think about. Their feedback was actually quite helpful and the things they mentioned were quite important to the Project, however, this meant that Sheena and I were spending more time thinking about solving these problems, instead of actually doing any work. I think that we need to keep going as we can’t back out now. I actually really like our idea and I know we can produce a suitable outcome, however, it’s just a matter of finishing the script. We will continue doing this tomorrow. And maybe we need to talk to a lecturer to get ourselves back on track…???

Day 3 (17-05-17)

Today, I went to Studio, still with no ideas on what to do. My goal for today was talk to other people and see what they’re thinking about doing and then maybe talk to a lecturer. So, first I talked with a few people around my table and they had some ideas, but none that I was really interested in doing.

After that, Ben came around to talk to us. I explained my situation to him, about not knowing what to do yet. I realised that I’m in this same position with every Project that I’d done so far - not having any ideas during the first week, and then stressing over time during the last week of the Project. And this is not a nice position to be in. So, I plan on having a plan by the end of the day and going with it, no matter what. Braeden was also with Ben and they were both actually quite helpful. While talking to Ben, I realised that I wanted to continue doing something with my passion for raising awareness about Dangerous Driving. When I told him that I wanted to work with either sound or film, he suggested that I think of a different way to raise awareness - not just make a film or a soundscape about it. This is because things like these have been done a thousand times before and people just tend to skip over them. I understood where he was coming from because I want my Project to have an impact on people, I want it to have a purpose, so I need to think of a unique way to represent this cause.

Then, we talked about Sheena’s idea about doing a “Choose Your Own Adventure” video adventure. She was kind of struggling to think of ideas to base the adventure on, so we talked to each other and discussed some themes that she could work with.

At home, I did a quick Google search to look for any ideas that interest me. I also began to think why I was struggling with ideas so much, and realised that this project is so broad, and we have so much freedom that the possibility of coming up with a solid, impactful, and   a creative idea, in the given time, is quite small. I also realised that having a restricted brief allows me to think of ideas quicker and work better, rather than having a brief that is totally open and limitless.

At this point, I’m doubting that I’d want to work alone. Initially, I did want to do this Project by myself as my previous Group work experiences have been quite difficult. And if I did work alone, I’d be in total control of my thoughts and actions. But on the other hand, working in a group has advantages, as there are more ideas to play around with, and more hands to distribute the work with.

And just then….. PLOT TWIST

So, at night, Sheena messaged me, asking if we wanted to integrate our ideas and work together on this Project. I did agree to collaborate as I felt that her idea of doing a “Choose Your Own Adventure” combined with the theme of Dangerous Driving would produce a creative, impactful, and an interesting outcome. And this outcome would be presentable in the Open Studio Showcase, in front of outsiders.

Tomorrow, my goal is to talk to Sheena and come up with a plan for this Project. We only have 4 more week to complete this Project - which seems like a lot of time, but in reality, it’s not. And as a result of these four weeks, I was us to produce an authentic, meaningful and an exploratory outcome.