Partner: Anica
Concept: The idea of this project stems from a novel ‘Tokio’ by Higashino Keigo, which we are inspired by the theme–time travel, circulation, and redemption. The overall story will be based on the original plot, but it will going to be delivered by the selected quotes from the first-person perspective of Takumi. Tokio, son of Takumi, goes on a temporal journey back to 20 years ago and helps his father uncover the truth about his family background. In our life, parents are always thought to be stronger, both physically and mentally, than the child while in fact, they can be helpless as well. This storytelling witnesses a reversed role–Tokio changed the life of his father and helped him become a better human being. Although Tokio unfortunately died at a young age, he still appreciated what he had had in the world. Thus, besides our personal motivation, we seek the project to be as an educational fiction for both children and parents, which can also break the conventional hierarchy between children and parents. Therefore, the project will tell young people to be grateful for what they have given by the parents even if their living condition does not satisfy their wants. Similarly, our work will let parents remind the importance of self-improvement and warm attention to their child.
Sources: Two sources significant to the project are both from a Front-end Developer ‘302chanwoo’. In his work ‘Going Home’, he constructs a story of a robot who embarks on a journey way back home. Unlike typical stories, ‘Going Home’ does not have a detailed plot, but has abstract scenes that more trigger users to anticipate the future scenes. Likewise, our project also aims to establish the plot with minimal details of the story, but with diverse visual and audio effects that can function as much as texts do. Furthermore, the main medium for transmitting the story will be two-dimensional illustration and animation. This idea is originally drawn from a three-dimensional animation, which is prominently used in his other project ‘꽃, | flower’. From the work, we learned that how simple and organic form can effectively convey the emotion of each character. While those sources gave us a lot of insights, we thought the effects would be maximized if there were supporting audio elements. Therefore, our project will further attempt to adopt audios that could particularly contribute to expressing the emotions of the characters.
Production: The webpage will include quote(s) of Takumi on one side, and on the other side, illustrations or animations that match the plot will appear. The positioning of quotes and visual elements may differ from each scene so that we can maximize the legibility of users. Regarding the techniques, we will combine two-dimensional visual elements with programming. For example, first, by coding, we may create several organic forms such as ellipse and rectangles, and place the illustrations or animations, drawn either by photoshop or coding, on top of those organic shapes. In addition, we may let the user press the button for a certain amount of time, which can be used for the transition between the scenes. Once they take their hand off, the picture will zoom in, indicating the character traveling back to the past. The project will also include a few audio elements like background music during the monologue of Takumi and conversation between the characters.