Stanley Parable Idea?

Having done a good job using YouTube annotations, I have decided that I will be using this technique for my final film.

I have a basic idea of what I would like to do and I want to create something around the idea of a game called 'The Stanley Parable'.
"The Stanley Parable is an exploration of story, games, and choice. Except the story doesn't matter, it might not even be a game, and if you ever actually do have a choice, well let me know how you did it."

The Stanley Parable has no logic ending it just has so many unique ending due to the choices you make through the game, you are the main character Stanley and the narrator tries to take you through to the ending by telling you a run through e.g. When you come to 2 doors, the narrator tells you to choose the left door. Choosing the correct door will get you to the happy ending, but the more times you choose wrongly the narrator stars turning against Stanley.

I would like to use the same type of thing but in video, and only giving one chance to amend their wrong choice. If they choose wrong twice then the game will end and they will have to start from the beginning, if they amend it the story will go on.

As of yet I am still unsure of exactly what the narrative will be but I know how I want to film it and have an idea of what dilemma's the user will approach and how they can be amended.

YouTube Annotations: The Interview

After fully filming our Interview and already began editing a few days ago, piecing it together so as all we had to do was create the annotations, so that the users decision skipped to the appropriate scene. We edited it on Adobe Premiere and made the video all on one timeline rather than skipping to various links. We felt this would be easier to create the annotations on YouTube all on one editing screen rather than going to and from different ones.
It worked well and our editing went smoothly. My first experience of using YouTube annotations was a good one and I enjoyed it thoroughly and would like to do another user interactive video some time. Our narrative was simple which I thought was neccesary for a user interactive video, I feel that if they were to come across some difficulties then they may not want to carry on, so the simplicity of it being a mans preparation to a job interview was okay, but the comical twist in the cut scenes allowed for the user to remain entertained throughout.

After presenting our video, we got the response we wanted, it had a fun feeling to it and gave some laughs. Please have a look at our video and playthrough some of the possibilities and I hope you enjoy watching.

 

 

Below is a list of the possibilities after choosing each path:

 

How to get the job: Short Preparation > Change Shoes.
                                       Long Preparation > Be Cheeky.

Failed to get the job: Short Preperation > Take The Risk

                                          Long Preperation > Lie

                                          Long Preperation > Truth

 

 



Triptych and QR codes

As I was away for the first couple of weeks for creative media practice, I missed out on both Triptych and QR code sessions, but I still wanted to look into both of these and see how they worked and if they could be ideal for my final project.

Triptych

A triptych is a split screen video that is often split into 2 or 3 screens, but of the same storyline just at different angles or of different images, but they all stay to the same narrative, e.g. one of the screens may be a POV of a character walking somewhere and the second screen could be just be close ups and extreme close ups of the character and then the third screen would be wide angles and birds eye shots.

I liked the idea of creating this type of video and maybe wanted to create a video which tells the same story but from a different point of view, so have 3 friends taking part in some sort of activity or sport and film it from all 3 perspectives, the only difficulty in this would be re-enacting the same event 3 times to perfection, there would always be some things that didn’t go together like if it was a sport like football, to create the build up to a goal 3 times the same, would be extremely difficult.

I then looked into other classmates Triptych’s to get an idea of what they had created, and after watching a few videos I realised that triptych was a good was to make a video a lot more cinematic and I wouldn’t really be using it to its full extent with the idea I already thought of, so I have a lot to think about if I want to use this filming method in my final piece.

 

QR codes

A QR code, short for Quick Response Code, is a scan able code that links you directly to a link, whether it is an advertisement, game or website. Below is a picture of Yell’s advertisement to their own QR code.

 

 I was always familiar with QR codes but I had never really been a big fan of them, so to have created one would have been interesting into whether I might gain more of an appreciation for them. Once again I looked at other students work and liked how some had created narratives by introducing a story and then you can look at previous happenings in the story by scanning the codes, however I still wasn’t convinced that this would be the most creative method to make my final piece.

Isadora

Due to illness I was unable to attend the Isadora workshop, but looked into what it was,

“Isadora is the award winning, interactive media presentation tool that allows you to follow your artistic impulse. Whether you are an artist, designer, performer, or VJ, you can quickly and easily harness the limitless potential of digital media and real-time interactivity with Isadora.”- http://troikatronix.com/isadora/about/

 Isadora is an editing software that I wasn’t familiar with so missing the workshop meant that in the following session I attended where groups were finishing off their productions, I was completely lost! I looked at what Mark Nugent had created and he talked me through how Isadora worked by linking videos into other videos and effects, it was all a bit confusing and just seemed difficult and not very user friendly. I think other editing software was much easier in the way you could work on a timeline, Isadora just wasn’t for me but I could see the potential of it, some of the effects that Mark had created for his video were great and looked really good, but once again I didn’t think in any way it was superior to other editing programmes I was familiar with.

YouTube Annotations

Today we looked into YouTube annotation videos which were user interactive videos, that given a decision you make at the end of a chapter, you are linked directly to another video that was the result of you, the viewers decision. We were asked to create YouTube annotated video which I was quite created at the prospect of, I already had a few ideas that I would like to try and create as I had seen some prior to our briefing.

We watched a few videos during the briefing, one of which was a Metropolitan Police video called; 'Choose A Different Ending'. It was a good video that sent a message across to viewers about the consequences of making one bad decision, such as; taking a knife out with you or choosing to join in on a fight. The only problem with it was that it jumped from one video to another so there was some buffering and paused involved in it, we seen others that used different points on the timeline of a single video that seems to flow a lot better.

Choose A Different Ending: Start

We got into groups of three and I was with Michael Shiells and Josh McDowell. I proposed one of my ideas straight away of three people all going for a job interview, and the user could decide which character to be and choose who got the job throughout, and choosing the wrong choices and getting one character into a bit of a muddle, he could always go back and play with a different character. They liked the idea and we were all enthusiastic from the start and wanted to begin filming immedietly, but after running it by one of our tutors and re-evaluating it, we realised that their was just too many outcomes to film and edit into using three characters. After looking back into it we decided to choose the character for the user, and make the decisions they made effect whether or not his job interview was successful or not.

We had around 5 outcomes in mind available for the viewer to experience, the thought this was more than enough as we would accomodate the few decisions with long cut scenes for more of a viewing pleasure.