During searching for possible interpretation of the story was interesting to find out how translation can affect the understanding of the story and its possible use. This gave us direction for our project. The multiple timelines require deep planning for shooting so good storyboarding is crucial. It would be impossible to shoot anything without deep preparation.
With my experience from previous project where there was lots to wrote a list of what to do already during the brief. I found it very helpful later on as we could start planning work from the beginning (weekend) and because it took Michele a bit long time to create full final schedule.
We were running a team blog from the beginning of the project where we were posting all the notes, files, showing progress of each person and having discussions. Also as two of us have still problems with connection to the school server this was great solution of problem how to get all needed files accessible to everyone.
There were severe things to consider before starting shooting. For evening shooting needs to be used good camera which will capture quality video and location with enough of light (which become quite problematic). For our idea of multiple layers of video we needed to have fixed position of camera which helps with compression as there are not many parts of the image constantly changing. We planned to use alpha-channels which influenced our choice of compression filter as not many of them support them.
I want to learn more actionscript and on the beginning I planned to script the project but when we decided to go for the idea of moving timelines and ‘what if…’ structure, I left this to Shira as I wouldn’t finish even a one working bit before deadline. Instead I learned a lot about usability.
It was quite surprising to see how this paper prototype actually shows issues the design could suffer from and it’s easy to change them just with erasing the pencil and draw-test new design. With each testing I get deeper under the skin of the design and looking at my own work through external eyes give me lots of freedom to do many changes and don’t feel hurt or upset. I wasn’t actually only one person designing the product; all of us were coming with suggestions and discussing them. I believe that it was great way to reduce problematic parts of the design as each person was able to spot different issues and discussion lead into good solutions.
We were modifying the product design all the way. Usability testing is irreplaceable process for design (I heard about it maybe once or twice before the course) and I learned already lots about users, their behavior and how to design 100% better than I did before. Some of my solutions for usability were considered as too ‘gamy’ or unnecessary but nearly all of them Mazy brought into the discussion during our feedback after the presentation.
To build the product we were thinking of using Flash or Director and direct coding in Quicktime. We needed to take into consideration alpha channel support, superimposing videos and interaction with individual timelines. The first choice was to use Quicktime as it’s scriptable and supports multiple video chanells together with Director which integrates well with Quicktime. But as Shira found with new version Quicktime dropped the integration features and 3rd party tools for quicktime wiring. So as there is no immediate solution for high-level interactive video at present we decided to do only demo of the product and use Flash with embedded video. This led into sluggish result as Flash cannot cope with the required calculations.
Our production techniques were Michele’s timetable to plan the production; the team blog was not only place to keep assets but also to discuss issues and ideas. We also used email to manage meetings and clarify problems which rose while we were out of collage. And of course we were meeting the most of the days at college where we were working and discussing project face to face. The team was quite relaxed; we weren’t interfering our roles but helping each other if needed. Discussions were productive. We understood the deadlines and kept with them as much as possible. I believe that if any team consists of people who participate same thinking and passions the whole process of production would be smooth, satisfying and enjoyable for everyone.
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