Author: Tenielle K Ellis

Link:  http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~sk7383/videoProject/coding/default.html

Description:

So, our project is basically two boxes “Mr. & Mrs. Box” that are on their anniversary. Through a silent film, and selective dramatic background music, you will see them both having differing thoughts as to what their perfect date would be like! However, they both can’t communicate their feelings so at the very end of the film it is up to the user to pick their anniversary date! (And special endings for each one!) 

Process:

In the beginning, Ruby Daisy and I were a little confused as to what we would do for our project. We looked at past year’s video projects, searched through youtube videos, and we just couldn’t find inspiration. After a while, I expressed that I thought we should do stop motion animation, and the other two were up for it too. We were trying to think of what object we could use, however we were a little stuck. We then went back to our original idea of filming real people and stick to a storyline and script. I mentioned that maybe we should try a more creative angle (since many others were following the same idea) and use objects instead. It would be a fun challenge! 

I came up with the idea to use a box, and there were other ideas thrown out as to what the other character would be such as maybe a pencil and eraser together. We all then came to the agreement that a box would be much better because how would we move the pencils as easily as the box? Afterwards, I also came up with the idea to maybe have a “Mr. & Mrs. Box” and film different scenarios of them going on dates. This became our final project idea. 

Division of Work: 

Out of all my groups, I thought this one was the most cooperative! I thought we all worked really well together, and helped out one another when needed. My part in this whole process, was making the storyboard and storyline of the content for our project. I also led most of the directing in the films, and visualized what each “shot” should look like, for example: drawing out each scene and wether it should be a side-angle shot, a front or back shot, etc.  However, we all collaborated well and changed things up as the filming came in order to make it look as polished and fun as it is now! We make a great team. 

Reflection: 

As I said before, I thought this was the most collaborative group that worked out well for me. We all had strong opinions as to what specific things should be throughout the project, and we made sure to respect everyone’s ideas yet come to a common solution as to how to move forward. I think that mindset is very important to have, especially when working in groups! We all stayed positive and strong, because we filmed almost everyday for a week, and also communicated well as to when to meet and to get what done by what time. Overall, I think my goal of the video project was met! Daisy did an awesome job taking charge of filming and video editing, while Ruby did a fantastic job coding away and piecing together our project 🙂 I am very satisfied with the ending, especially since I made up the storyline, scenarios and shots, the outcome was everything I originally had in mind! It’s weird, because it’s really like a dream coming to life. This was a great experience and I hope to work with them sometime in the future!

Enlarge

This is our storyboard! In the beginning, we were a bit stuck on what to focus on for this project and more specifically how to execute it. However, with some inspiration from previous projects, we came up with the cute idea of Mr. and Mrs. Box! Basically, we are shooting videos of them “conversing” through their idea of a date. They’re going to be going back and forth thinking of ideas (that only the user can see), and at the end of the website the user gets to pick which date they should go on. This is a silent film and hopefully the emotions on these boxes will help convey some of the feelings these two feel for each other 🙂 

This is a two second clip that only shows two scenes, but I combined one more (3-second scene) that is barely visible. I also synchronized all three sounds into one so that you can see the action of throwing the mouse down, but it changes to a different scene being that the mouse is already thrown down onto the table and you can hear a more ‘synchronized’ sound of all three clips combined. 

I thought this was a pretty interesting concept 🙂 I never played around with Adobe or photoshop before so this is cool and I’m glad I got to learn how to combine audio together with different video clips.

(P.S. I cut the audio of me laughing from another scene and integrated it into the last scene ((I didn’t know I could even do that so that’s an accomplishment for me haha)))

Revised Idea

Mr. and Mrs. Box engage in a dialogue with one another. They both romantically like each other, and as they’re “talking” they will both be envisioning what kind of dates they both want to be on. For example, while they are talking, Mrs. Box wants to go on a movie date so we will show a video of them on a movie date in her thinking box above her head. When the user clicks on the other box to start “talking”, they will see a visual of what the other box would envision their date to be like, and the viewer can see that in the thinking box as well.

These shots will be behind the shoulder shots to show that these two are in conversation. The videos will be played in the cloudy thinking box above their heads. The interaction will be when the user clicks on each box to “talk”. These boxes will both have drawn-on emotion on them, and will continuously change based off of what they feel in each situation. 

It took us a while to decide on an idea, but we really got inspired by one of the previous examples of the Roboto video project, and thought it would be cool to reenact that. However, instead of a robot, we want to use a more unique idea of a box called “Mr. Box” and his friend Eraser, or “Mr. Eraser”. These two are not only friends, but roommates, and their job is to solely help the interaction between the user and the website. 

We weren’t too sure what their jobs specifically would be, but we wanted to center our idea around having the user decorate the room, and we give the user the option of either adding something to the room, or taking something out (that is already there). If they are adding something, Mr. Box will come and add it for them, and if they want to take away something, Mr. Eraser will erase the items not wanted. 

That is all we have for now, but we thought it would be a cute idea to focus on objects and draw on their emotions each step of the way, as well as having them interact with the user. Hopefully we can get this done with the allotted time given to us. 

I watched this TED talk before and absolutely loved it. Chimamanda tells us the power of books and the stereotypes it leaves in the readers minds. She does this by literally telling it to us like a story and the flow of her ideas makes it so easy for me to understand what she is trying to say. The whole concept of people seeing others that are foreign or different from them as a single story is sad. This is why I personally do not like people labeling me or categorizing me based off of solely my nationality, my ethnicity, my skin color, or sex. I also find it sad that the people or culture or nation that is being talked about in a single story probably has no say or control whatsoever about how accurate that perception is. It could probably be so far from the truth, but as long as it satisfies the author it is okay. 

Personally, this reminded me of all the times I say I’m from Hawaii, and the only stereotype that comes to people’s mind is hula, grass skirts, beach, and island paradise. Some of these are true, but like Chimamanda was trying to explain, there is no single story for anything, and with that there should be no single perception or narrow-minded view on things just because of what one might see or hear on media. My life couldn’t be farther from the truth, as I never really liked going to the beach, and I didn’t like the humidity and hotness of Hawaii. (It will always be my home don’t get me wrong, but I never could relate to the stereotypes about Hawaii)