Author: Bonnie Chan

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Interactive Video Project – Bonnie Chan

Title: Harry and the Girls

Link: http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~bc2328/commlab/video_project/lyricson.html

Our project is a video project that incorporates physical and digital interactive elements within the website and film. Our website is mainly an interactive platform that plays three different music videos, which footage is all entirely shot by our group. Our user interacts with the website while the video is playing by tapping on the video change between three different music videos. Since the songs that we picked also included korean music, we decided to also add a subtitle/caption function to allow users to understand the lyrics. Our website is mainly focused on combining physical and digital interactions for users as they watch the videos on the site. We were inspired by Namie Amurino’s Golden Touch video and thought it would be fun to do our own version of this as something that differs from the typical story picking project idea. 

Screenshots:

*Landing page of the website that also recommends using touch screen*

 

*Includes a gif of our album and allows the user turn on captions*

 

*Instruction page that tells users how to interact with the video and site*

*First music video (Better Feeling – CL)*

 

*Second Music Video (Palette – IU)*

 

*Third Music Video (Home – Phillips Phillips)

 

*Thank you page at the end that allows users to stop playing the videos*

Process & Struggles: 

For Film/Assets: Since we were showcasing three different videos, obtaining footage for our videos was the most difficult. We filmed most of the indoor footages Each of our songs had such different concepts, it required a lot of props and different location filming such as the footage from the museum and the street lights. Another difficult part of filming was trying to film the props in first person view without our bodies in it. Since the footage had to also seem like it was interacting with the camera by zooming/popping in, it was difficult without a green screen. Thats why a lot of the footage also went through post production. We mainly used Premiere Pro to color balance the footage to create the different background colors, masking in order to have a cleaner cut between the different footages, input captions into the video, and other effects such as speed, scale, and opacity in order to make the illusion of interactivity in our footage. Our album and gifs were created through Photoshop and we thought it would be fun and cute to add our photos into the album as well.

For Coding: The coding for our website was relatively easy to figure out, and we really wanted to focus on the footage rather than the website. We used Javascript for the buttons and video playback and HTML and CSS to make our simple and easy to understand website. We did have a little trouble trying to figure out how to get the video to pause and play at the part of the video that the user left off, but we got it to work in the end. We also had originally coded the css positioning for the website using pixels, so we had to troubleshoot and change the units of the positioning css code in order to have the website fit well for all device sizes.

Post Mortem:

I am quite proud of our website and think that the footage that we had was filmed quite well as well as the website was created in a user-friendly and aesthetic style. I have been inspired by Namie Amuro’s music video for a few years and was very happy that I was able to recreate my own version of that and create three different music videos as well. I think that the visual aspect of it was fun and I wish we had the time to also make a mobile or touch screen version of the site as well. The critique reviewers mentioned that the interactivity component of the video was hard to understand or not done very well but I thought that many users will still find the directions pretty intuitive especially since we had presented the website through a large projector and the website and function of it is a much more private user experience instead. I think that the visual aesthetics and the user functions were also done well.

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Internet Art – Bonnie Chan

Link: https://interface.fh-potsdam.de/future-retro/Streemmagazin/

https://prod.generalpop.com/en/digital/xavier-veilhan-echoes-of-the-studio

https://www.audiograph.xyz/

The website that I have chosen is actually an interactive version of a magazine Streem. This website has a variety of different art styles throughout the website page that the user can explore throughout mainly by scrolling to navigate around the page. 

  

These two screenshots showcase the variety of styles and landing page of the site

This page is some of the main interaction that is available on the site

I thought that this project was unique and interesting because it was a way to make something visually appealing as well as structured interaction for the user. I think this project makes me think of the blend of emergence of visual and artistic website interfaces with the actual and needed use and functions of the page and how these together need to work well in order to create an engaging and interesting site. 

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Interactive Video Project – Bonnie, Helen, Harry

Link: http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~bc2328/commlab/video_project/index.html

Progress:

Our interactive video project’s main focus is on music videos. We grabbed inspiration from the music video by Namie Amuro’s Golden Touch music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6HPANTzA9w) where the video itself has been filmed to be interactive but we also decided to add interaction through our website. Our website includes three different songs and music videos that accompany each one. The content of the videos correlate with each song’s lyrics. Our interactivity for the website is incorporated through allowing the user to switch between music videos as well as allowing the user to decide if they want to show captions or not. Overall, our project was to incorporate interactivity through 

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Tiny Habits – Bonnie Chan

Through the Persuasive Tech Lab reading, I began to understand the psychology of the mind and the motives and triggers behind certain habits and behaviors that we as humans develop. Oftentimes, I realized that behavior change is dependent on luck as much as it is dependent on elements such as motivation, ability, and triggers. However, things such as timing and repetitive action is sometimes only capable through a draw of luck. As well as to think about the emotional factors that go into influencing individuals to things. I realized that societal outlook on individuals and aspects are so crucial in how individuals change the way to behave. Most important, I feel like to create behavioral change requires motivation that is achievable through a multiple of triggers. These triggers allow us to act through instinct in order to make these behavioral changes become something that’s almost like natural instinct.

Through the past few days, I’ve realized that I have the habit of biting my straws whenever I drank something. I realized that this could be something that is frowned upon and decided that I wanted to try to fix this. The small actions I came up with to change this behavior was to do two jumping jacks whenever I found myself biting my straw. My reward for this was to allow myself another sip of the drink afterwards.  I think through that system it worked a little but was not enough time for me to fully get rid of my habit. However, I realized how aware of my habit I become compared to before.

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David Rose Presentation Reflection – Bonnie Chan

I think the presentation from David Rose explores the idea of enchanted objects and creating products that are naturally put into one’s life. The thoughts and elements of something ordinary is always emphasized as individuals continue. However, it was also interesting to think that individuals found inspiration in these creations through our fictional works such as childhood stories. Its intriguing to think that the most complex or different stories are the ones that will inspire the most newest and modern projects. I think another aspect that David Rose mentioned was the idea of having ordinary things that are masquerading different things and people. I thought that creating objects and products that are not directly part of the research will allow for better understanding of the product but also provide the opportunity to observe users.

I do think that David Rose is very accurate in the idea that enchanted objects are really needed compared to other products such as recording events and thoughts. Enchanted or useful products are ones that physically or visually are seen forcefully. That was very crucial in the idea that behavior change needed to be an unavoidable display and affect senses that are often not thought about. Its all about intuition or rather the natural instincts that you have that will help you decide if what you’ve done is a waste or find a person or thing will meet you though. Overall, I do think that ordinary objects and are embedded with small acts of kindness or simple, often used actions will provide the much needed encouragement.