Project Documentation
My project is composed of a website that is made to host the 30 minute film festival we helped create on our first day of class. Since creating and producing a film in just 30 minutes requires a lot of creativity, I decided to name the festival "Creativity Hub Film Festival". The main concept of my website is creativity, and I aimed at reflecting that through the theme of the website, mainly the colorful outlook and font. At the same time, I want my website not just to be user-friendly but to also seem friendly and welcoming to the user. I was mainly able to reflect that experience through the text. I chose to go with informal and encouraging text that draws the user to learn about the films, want to volunteer and feel encouraged and inspired to submit their own film. I also tried to create an experience whereby the user finds it easy and simply to navigate the website through the simple flow in each page as well as the clarity of the content. With this in mind, I still wanted to create some sophisticated features such as an interactive and responsive schedule.
I implemented the themes for my website by using light but vibrant colors that I think reflect the creativity aspect, as well as a nice-looking fun font. The logo, its color and font, also adds to the whole theme of the website, especially that it is located in the banner that remains in all the website's pages.
I think some of my expectations were met while others weren't simultaneously. When sketching the wireframe, I had a lot of ideas that were interesting to me, many of which were utilized in actual well-known film festival websites. Even before implementation of my own website, I realized that applying those ideas will be difficult at this stage. Therefore, I edited my wireframe whereby I designed it to be simple yet catchy and effective. As I implemented this edited version of the wireframe, I am quite satisfied with the end result. In this way, my expectations that I could apply various 'complicated' ideas at the initial stage were not met, but then my expectations of creating a user-friendly and simple website were met as I managed to apply my ideas from the edited vision of my website.
Project Partner: Susanne Niemann
The concept of this project is a comic that covers the theme of mental health from the perspective of an NYUAD student. The aim from this project is to present the journey of a student who goes through both good days and bad days in the hope for normalizing the different trajectories one's experiences could take. So, we present our character as first being excited and happy to be on campus and around her friends but then, naturally, feels stressed and rather lonely. One important aspect of our broader mental health theme that we wanted to include is the aspect of outreach. Therefore, we presented our character indulging in self-care activities after she has a text-exchange with her friend. Through this project, we wanted to normalize the issue of "having a bad day or two" and feeling sad sometimes, and also emphasizing that a person needs to do their effort of reaching out for help and using available resources to help themselves.
In terms of user experience, we were trying to make the experience personal as most of the panels are in the form of diary entries. This is to create a mode of reflection that the user can tap into along with the character in order to be updated on her situation/experience in that panel. In addition, we included various interactivity elements, one of which is the scroll feature. As the user scrolls down, they learn about the progress of our character's journey because scrolling down resembles the passing of time and, thus, moving from one stage to another in her journey. We also wanted to create a visual experience through the use of color and pop-up images. The color gradient is used to indicate the different swings of our character's journey whereby light and bright colors reflect her "happy'' mood while dark and dull colors reflect her "sad'' mood. The images, mostly indicating either stress-inducing items (such as the to-do list) or the self-care activities she ends up doing also include an element of animation.
We first started our process by brainstorming the theme. We first had two ideas in mind, one of which included mental health. I developed this particular theme during our brainstorm because I thought this idea is impactful and relatable to many people. We then discussed the content of the panels together. My task was then to write the text for each panel. We also discussed in our brainstorming stage the different features that we wanted to add such as the elements of interactivity. After that, we established a clear idea of what we needed to create with code. We started by borrowing our character from a ready-made illustration page on Instagram. Susanne created the illustrations for the panels that used images. In terms of coding, my main role was putting together the panel with the speech bubbles. Susanne generally put the project together in terms of code.
Thankfully, I think our goals were met in the process of building the final working version of this project. I think our project is effective in displaying the message we were aiming to send through the theme of mental health. Our concept and theme as displayed in the final version match our expectations that we laid out during the brainstorming stage. It is sufficient in offering a personal and relatable experience, which is what we envisioned for it to convey to users.
Project Partner: Alyazia
The concept of our project is a sound piece that discovers an additional version of the infamous children's rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie". Our sound piece is a recorded narration on a webpage that takes the user on a journey to unpack this version of the rhyme. The theme of this project is spooky and dark as our sound piece explores the darker version of the rhyme. We take the user on a journey by first exposing her to the normal "happy" version of this rhyme through a light-colored visual illustration on the webpage and a sound piece of children singing the rhyme. The user gets the option to discover the darker version of this rhyme by clicking on the switch button on the webpage. On this new webpage, the illustration presents the same picture, but with darker colors and details. Here, the user listens to the main sound piece, which is composed of our narration that explains and unpacks the darker version of the rhyme. The sound piece also contains layered sounds to add meaning to the narration and enrich the user's audio experience. We were striving to create a journey-like enriching experience through our audio piece and supporting visuals where the listener learns more about the rhyme's dark version as she progresses through the audio piece.
There was a clear division of tasks amongst us wherein Alyazia took the role of creating the illustrations and developing the website whereas I created and assembled our main sound piece. We both recorded different parts that made up the narration of the sound piece. We both exchanged feedback as we developed our assigned parts of the project.
I think my expectations and goals were met in the process of building the final working version of our project because it was aligned with our ideas that we developed during the brainstorming and script-writing stages. The inclusion of supporting expressive visuals that match the tone of the sound piece, including both of our narrations to explain the background of the dark rhyme and adding different background sounds to enhance the audio experience all have helped in realizing and achieving the initial concept that we aimed for in our project.
Project Partners: Haneen, Gauraang and Logaine
Our project is an interactive video that displays a murder mystery which can be navigated on a webpage. The theme of our video is spooky, fun and comedic at the same time. It's a mystrey that features a ghost who asks the viewers to help him find out who murdered him. The ghost's laid-back character contributes to this fun and humorous theme. Our video is narrative in the sense that we hear from each of the characters firsthand. So, after the ghost identifies his three suspects, we watch each of them describe their point of view with regards to the murder. We wanted to make the story relatable so we revolved the themes of the suspects' narratives around NYUAD topics such as class registration conflicts, Facebook feuds on NYUAD Confessions and of course, campus cats. Our project's interactivity element starts in the website, where the user enters her name and a message pops up as she scrolls down to indicate that she's been recruited to find the murderer. As she watches the video, it's as if she is conducting this detective work by interviewing the ghost and the suspects. At the point in the video where the text displays, "pause the video, scroll down and guess the identity of the murderer", the user is then prompted to scroll to the end of the page and choose who she thinks is the murderer from the three main suspects. This is another element of interactivity in our project.
We were striving to create an interactive and immersive experience where the viewer goes on a journey from the onset of the video until the end to find out along the ghost the identity of the murderer. The narrative aspect of the video, along with the elements of color and audio and the interactivity elements take the user in and immerse them in this video experience. Our website is simple but includes some interactivity elements that allow the user to engage with the story on a personal level. The user gets the experience as though they are the detective and is briefed by the ghost and his main suspects about the details of this mystery. Later on, they get a chance to guess the identity of the murderer by scrolling down the page. After that, they continue watching the video to learn how this mystery really unfolds with the help of the ghost who in his role analyzes the hints that appeared in the suspects' interviews. In this way, the last part of the video featuring the ghost gives closure to this case for the user.
With regards to the process, we came across different ideas in our brainstorming stage until we settled on our current murder mystery. Our initial idea was to film our similar daily activities in quarantine and then virtually meet over a virtual Zoom dinner. During the dinner, we would be discussing some murder mystery that took place amongst us (whereby one of us has committed a murder and we are trying to expose that person). We were unclear how the murder mystery plot would relate to the rest of the video. As a result, we reconfigured our main idea and developed it all around a murder mystery that occurred amongst the four of us. This way, the idea and story line would be succinct and consistent throughout the video. From there, we started developing the story line of a murder mystery. For inspiration, we watched Buzzfeed and Snapchat murder mystery videos to observe their story lines as well as their editing styles. Both our story line (in terms of the story behind the murder, the different hints used to identify the murderer, and the interviews with each of the suspects) and editing style resemble those of Buzzfeed videos.
Our video structure ended up including the ghost as the main character who introduces the mystery to the viewer, and the rest of the team members being the suspects who, in their roles, brief the viewer on their perspectives. After displaying the suspects' interviews, the ghost then goes to analyze various hints that he grasped from those clips. Adding text in various places within the video helped realize the structure of the video. For example, in the beginning a text displays, "Can You Solve This?" to prompt the viewer to focus on the upcoming clips and try to indentify any hints. And the text closer to the end that says, "Who Killed Gauraang?" follows the interviews that displayed all the hints, signaling to the user that they will soon find out who committed the murder.
We were able to implement the concept by first filming the footage. We were all involved in the video as main charcters, so we all filmed different parts with respect to our roles. We collectively brainstormed our murder mystery idea and wrote the script for it. After we agreed on the main themes of the suspects' interviews, we individually wrote our script as suspects whilst getting feedback from each other. We agreed on the overall structure of the video in terms of sequences initially. My role in this project was editing and producing the video by using the editing software DaVinci Resolve. This included editing the footage, sound design, color grading and post-production by adding effects and animation throughout the video, receiving feedback from other team members as I went along with the editing process. Haneen took on the role of developing the website and Gauraang compiled the audio that I used for editing the video while Logaine photoshopped the Confessions post.
Various parts of the editing process helped us create the theme and aesthetic that we were aiming for in our video. The use of color was vital in giving our video a spooky feel. I gave all the clips a blue fade to establish that feel, and increased the blue-ness in the ghost clips to make it seem like he's in a 'different' world. Adding a constant blue fade to all the videos also helped in maintaining the same theme throughout all the clips, despite the fact that they were shot separately. Thus, the element of color was helpful in maintaining a consistent theme that was suitable to the video's vibe. Another aspect that helped with our theme is music. We used various spooky rhymes as background music, especially in scenes that included the ghost. As for the suspect interviews, we added background music that was relevant to what they were saying (so, dark classical guitar music when Logaine was speaking, and the sounds of different social media notifications when I was speaking). Finally, effects and animation helped emphasize details of the story. For example, the addition of the red circles around the hints not only directs the viewer's focus to them but also helps in revealing those hints effectively. Additionally, adding the names of the suspects in their interview clips helps the viewer keep track with the stroy-line and the characters. Another thing that enables the viewer to stay on track and feel immsersed in the video is reiterating the main takeaways. We did this by adding a split screen of the suspects as the ghost wondered what could have lead to this following the text, "Who killed Gauraang?".
Moreover, the font that was used in all the text in the video matches the font used in the website. This allows us to maintain the aesthetic and theme of the project as a whole, that is composed of the website and the video embedded in it. We were able to make the video interactive by following a common structure in filming where we were being interviewed by the camera per se (looking and speaking to the camera), to establish the effect and feel of being interviewed by the user who's watching the video as all the characters are addressing her directly. We wanted to create a pop-up that appears after the text, "who killed Gauraang?" so that the viewer can guess the identity of the murderer before proceeding with the video. However, we faced some difficulty with the youtube API and so we went with the option of adding text inside the video that asks the viewer to pause it and scroll down so that they still get the chance to guess the murderer's identity before proceeding with the video. Although we had experienced this challenge, I think this scroll option that we currently have is effective in ensuring the interactivity of the user.
Given our murder mystery inspired by Buzzfeed videos as our initial concept that we settled on, I think my expectations and goals were relatively met in the process of building the final working version. I think we were able to create a succinct story line as we aimed, and maintained a spooky and fun theme and aesthetic in the video through the use of visuals, color, and music in addition to the content itself (the humorous acting of the ghost for example). Surely, more advanced editing in the realm of post production (visual effects and animations) can definitely develop and finesse the video further. Additionally, the quality of the footage (visuals and audio) could have been better and more consistent as the sound levels and resolution for some of our clips are different given that we shot them using different devices. However, given our current circumstances and the variety of challenges that we experienced as a result of working separately as team members, I am happy with what we were able to create.