Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Animations for Little Soldiers
Below is the animations that were created for the little soldiers website however unfortunately they could not be used as the distorted the images in the backgrounds. They were created in Flash CS5, this was a difficulty we ran into that we didn't foresee happening however it was a lesson learned
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Usability Testing – Little Soldiers
Did you find is easy to navigate around the website?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : yes
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : yes
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : not at first but eventually got the hand of it
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : yes it was ok
Do you like the colours/pictures?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : they were very cool
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : the were well done, strong vibrant colours
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : nice colours, pictures came out really well
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : artwork was brilliant
Do you like the style?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : yes I like graphic novels
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : its different nice style to used
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : the style suited the story
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : yes I liked the characters and pictures
Did you find it easy to follow the story?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : yes it was straight forward
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : not at first I scanned through quick it was after I realised what was happening
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : yes I found it easy to follow
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : it was ok to follow, I managed
Was the website laid out clearly?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : yes simple enough
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : it was ok
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : I thought it was grand
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : yes I liked it
What did you like most about the website?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : the characters
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : the landscapes and characters
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : statistics at end and characters
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : the different colours
What did you like the least?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : having no sound
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : could have more animations
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : wanted to see more text to tell the story
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : nothing it was all really good
If you could change something what would it be?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : add sound maybe
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : more animations
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : add some more text
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : I wouldn’t change anything
Would you recommend the website to a friend?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : yes
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : yes I would recommend it to a friend
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : yes I would
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : yes I would
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : yes
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : yes
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : not at first but eventually got the hand of it
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : yes it was ok
Do you like the colours/pictures?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : they were very cool
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : the were well done, strong vibrant colours
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : nice colours, pictures came out really well
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : artwork was brilliant
Do you like the style?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : yes I like graphic novels
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : its different nice style to used
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : the style suited the story
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : yes I liked the characters and pictures
Did you find it easy to follow the story?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : yes it was straight forward
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : not at first I scanned through quick it was after I realised what was happening
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : yes I found it easy to follow
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : it was ok to follow, I managed
Was the website laid out clearly?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : yes simple enough
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : it was ok
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : I thought it was grand
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : yes I liked it
What did you like most about the website?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : the characters
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : the landscapes and characters
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : statistics at end and characters
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : the different colours
What did you like the least?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : having no sound
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : could have more animations
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : wanted to see more text to tell the story
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : nothing it was all really good
If you could change something what would it be?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : add sound maybe
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : more animations
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : add some more text
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : I wouldn’t change anything
Would you recommend the website to a friend?
User 1 aged 16 – 20 : yes
User 2 aged 20 – 30 : yes I would recommend it to a friend
User 3 aged 20 – 30 : yes I would
User 4 aged 30 – 40 : yes I would
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Website Development
The graphic novel will be online. We decided from the begining that the artwork displayed on the website would take up most of the screen. To achieve this I used CSS to scale the images to the full size of the window. To change from page to page in the story I used Jquery. I used the anything slider Jquery plugin to create a slider that could contain any type of html/flash/images so on. http://css-tricks.com/anythingslider-jquery-plugin/ this allows the user to view each page full screen and change to the next page using the keyboard arrows or the arrows on screen.
In the introduction page the logo appears in the sky with clouds the move when the mouse is moved creating a motion parrallax. This was created using Jquery.
As part of the website an extra hidden infographic which can only be seen if the user finds all the hidden objects throughout the story. This was done using variables and click counters.
The infographic shows LRA activity since the date of the last day in the story, the 20/1/2012. The infographic involves a custom twitter feed that collects all tweets from @CrisisTracker only since the 20/1/2012. This was difficult to do as twitter only allows you to retrieve 20 most recent tweets. An array, Jquery and looping through each batch of tweets, getting the id of the last one and getting the next batch using that id and displaying all tweets since the id.
The lracrisistracker.com became a useful resource for getting information and numbers of abductions and more. A visual representation of the number of abductions since the 20/1/2012 and since 2009 is also included in the infographic using Umapper and self made visuals.
In the introduction page the logo appears in the sky with clouds the move when the mouse is moved creating a motion parrallax. This was created using Jquery.
As part of the website an extra hidden infographic which can only be seen if the user finds all the hidden objects throughout the story. This was done using variables and click counters.
The infographic shows LRA activity since the date of the last day in the story, the 20/1/2012. The infographic involves a custom twitter feed that collects all tweets from @CrisisTracker only since the 20/1/2012. This was difficult to do as twitter only allows you to retrieve 20 most recent tweets. An array, Jquery and looping through each batch of tweets, getting the id of the last one and getting the next batch using that id and displaying all tweets since the id.
The lracrisistracker.com became a useful resource for getting information and numbers of abductions and more. A visual representation of the number of abductions since the 20/1/2012 and since 2009 is also included in the infographic using Umapper and self made visuals.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
photoshop stock brushes
In creating background imagery where soldiers were present these photoshop brushes came in really useful thanks to BacklashCBD on deviant art. http://backlashcbd.deviantart.com/art/Soldier-Brushes-27312152
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Character creation
For the past two weeks i have been creating, drawing and colouring all the characters for Small Soldiers. I have created them in photoshop using a graphics tablet. Each body part is on a seprate layer for animation ability.
* All the below images are copyrighted *
The main characters:
Kato
Kato when young
Kato's Sister
Bale
Other School boy's
Other School girl's
Julien
Amari
Olive
Security Forces
Weapons
Friday, March 9, 2012
Twitter Feed
I created a Twitter Feed for our Missing Children Link in the story. I wanted to see how it would be done and if it would work. I created it using Twitter's search widget, that you can customize with your own search query's. It can be incorporated into any website we create, our blog and social media accounts.
heres the link https://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets
Here is a screenshot of what I made:
Small Soldiers link to Home
The link
How to incorporate the link into our story
- Fictitional story based on what would normally happen if a child went missing in Ireland
- Twitter feed on the topic of #missing, #child etc.
- Fictitional social media account with the story of the missing person being covered by it
"Kony 2012" gone viral
Since march the 5th a film made by the organization Invisible Children has gotton nearly 50 million views on You Tube. This film "Kony 2012" aims at raising awareness worldwide and stopping Joseph Kony the leader of the LRA, a rebel group in Africa by the end of this year. The film want's to do this by making Kony famous, giving him celebrity status and making him a household name which in turn will force governments, mainly America to capture him. The film certainly has achieved it's virality but also has put the organization under scrutiny. People argue that what they state in the film is untrue and that stopping Kony will not stop the LRA.
Although it is bringing the situation to light and using social media's power to do so, The video has been viewed nearly 50 million times on youtube in 4 days, #Kony2012, #Kony, #Uganda, #LRA have become worldwide trends on Twitter, the campaign has been the talk of newstations/papers/articles since.
Here is the film..
What Kony 2012 does right:
- Uses social media to gain a worldwide audience fast
- Created an immersive film
- Involves people in the campaign, by allowing them to sign up for the pledge, get an action kit and so on.
- Using and making Kony a celebrity to make him known and aid in his capture.
- Used huge worldwide celebrities and politicians to back the campaign, spread the word and get their fans involved for example Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Bono, George Clooney.
- Using creative, artistic methods and peoples talents throughout the campaign
- Being Inspired and doing what they believe is right, the founders went to Uganda found a story and were shocked and promised friends they made their that they would help. They also were inspired by the arab spring and how Facebook fueled it.
- Hard work, The organization have been preparing for this campaign for years.
What Kony 2012 does wrong:
- Not intirely true statements. The LRA are not in Uganda anymore, they are in CAR, DR of Congo and South Sudan.
- Catching Kony does not mean an end to the LRA, poverty and inequality are major problems at the root of the conflict.
- Aimed mainly at an American audience
- Putting American 'advisors' on the ground in Uganda. The LRA are not in Uganda, the people may not want them there and they may have alternate motives such as oil and being near somalia.
- An aim of the film overlooked was getting america to join the International Criminal Court
- Local people are just as scared of their army as they are of the LRA.
How this effects our project and what we could take from it:
- Have correct and accurate information
- The power of social media and it's advantages and disadvantages
- Catching Kony may not be the solution
- Kony 2012 is mainly targeted at an american audience and getting the american government or army to stop Kony, we can raise awareness in Ireland and Europe and maybe see what European governments can do.
- America should join the International Criminal Court
- Kony 2012's creative methods and using peoples talents was sucessful
- Getting existing celebrities and politicians to back the campaign
- immersive and engaging content
- user/audience involvement
Links, references and more information:
Twitter: #Kony2012, #Uganda , #LRA, #Kony, #stopKony, #invisiblechildren
Friday, March 2, 2012
Possible ways of telling the story using the web(part two)
Html5 scrolling page
example one:
The story appears as you scroll down the page, media such as video is also included.
example two:
This page scrolls across to tell the story when arrows within the image are clicked.
Html5 comic style
This is a website that displays a comic book like a comic book. With next and previous buttons, with attractive style and visuals made with HTML5.
Html5 interactive website
ROME "3 dreams of black"
Like with the wilderness downtown this is an interactive music video that was directed by chris milk.
Explanation below.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Possible ways of telling the story using the web(part one)
Mapping Technology
Telling a story through maps, location of characters, images and text. For example We tell stories, "The 21 steps". Umapper is one example of how this can be created.
Membership Website
A website that allows the user to join, the story is told through many mediums such as video, images, text, social media etc. Example "Conspiracy for good" website.
Social Media
Use of social media to tell a story. "the Hyp replacement" is an example. It is about four characters who live in the same area in Brooklyn, New York. The main story is told on the website through a series of short chapters in a 3rd person narrative. The characters each have different social media accounts one is on twitter, another on tumblr, another on blogspot, and another on YouTube. These accounts are incorporated and embedded into the main story. Prose + social media = The Hyp Replacement
Storytelling URL's
Using the url of a webpage to tell a story, and lead you to an answer.
HTML5 interactive websites
Personalizes the experience by incorporating google maps images of where you are from into the video. You can also write and draw a postcard to yourself. It also uses pop up windows very cleverly.
to be continued..
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Notes on Paul's Meeting
1. Website to look up We Tell Stories -> Penguin 6 Writers -> 21 Steps
2. Using Google skins could have an inter-textual jump
- linear sequence then jump into Google maps go to chracter or place then skip out and continue the story.
- Another way of using the map you could go to someones house or a garage and pin point where they were last seen
3. Need to nail down storyboard - look into Celtx for script writing
4. Find a strand in the story that connects to Cork in some way. Eg part of the story could be a volunteer or builder that build a hut and LRA tore it down.
- Main thing is to find a strand in the story that in some way connects Cork to Uganda
5. Story doesn't have to be true but must be effective
6. Use maybe a wrap around story - use Google maps to jump in and out of different stories and locations (maybe)
2. Using Google skins could have an inter-textual jump
- linear sequence then jump into Google maps go to chracter or place then skip out and continue the story.
- Another way of using the map you could go to someones house or a garage and pin point where they were last seen
3. Need to nail down storyboard - look into Celtx for script writing
4. Find a strand in the story that connects to Cork in some way. Eg part of the story could be a volunteer or builder that build a hut and LRA tore it down.
- Main thing is to find a strand in the story that in some way connects Cork to Uganda
5. Story doesn't have to be true but must be effective
6. Use maybe a wrap around story - use Google maps to jump in and out of different stories and locations (maybe)
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