1) Working Title and Elevator Pitch
Working Title: “When you face death”.
Elevator Pitch: This project will be an interactive story about facing death. The story will be an adapted version of my experience and feelings of the 2016 Munich shooting.
2) Concept
The topic is mainly about the mental state when people(I) face death. I choose this content because, on the one hand, the experience was very special, personal and had an impact on my view of death. On the other hand, it is also a topic people are curious about. What is the psychological state of people when they are forced to suddenly believe that they are going to die soon? Does it affect our feelings about death, such as fear? And nowadays, similar events are not so far away from us, especially since there have been several recent shootings/killings near universities. Perhaps this project will also have an impact on our understanding of such events.
3) Sources / Related Art & Practice
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- The Boat
https://www.sbs.com.au/theboat/
This source is used as an interactive article example. In this work, as you scroll down, the relative positions of the words and the picture change, the picture tilts to create the effect of a boat being swept up in a storm, and the music and background colors change. What’s more, it also has a clip of climbing stairs. These are all something I can learn from.
2. Sin City/ Maus
Both of these works are about violence. I noticed their use of shadows (light), such as a spotlight shining on the protagonists during key points to highlight the plot, and I plan to apply this to my interactions. They also like to use silhouettes at key moments, which are abrupt and artistic, yet not so bloody, and worthy of reference. In addition, the use of color on special points also has strong visual effects.
4) Production / Methodology
My project will use images and audio. Basically, the user will read the story while listening to the sound effect, and interact with the page to move to the next page.
The first page will be in the restaurant. The user will input the text and files to accomplish the conversation.
The second page will be on the street, while scrolling down, an interactive page pops out, and the audio changes. That page should be very overwhelming, while users press the mouse, words pop out, and the user should be able to pick them, but at last, they can only pick “run”.
The third page is again in the restaurant, after some time, the music turns into a very loud gunshot, while everything on the page quickly turns black, only the stairs are visible.
The fourth page is a game that shows that the user is in great danger, but there is no place to escape.
The fifth page contains two parts(pages): “face” and “avoid”. They will be like puzzles that you have to play with both of them to get “survive”(to move on). To play with “avoid”, it will be content about avoiding facing death. The page “Face” will show the user’s face and the files/texts that user provided on the first page pop out around it like flashbacks.
The sixth page is a game of finding a safe place to hide, with some texts showing the real-time situation. At last, the user will find that the sense of safety and hope is not brought by a shelter but by people.