Tim's BCT Studio Blog

Looking at the idea of mailing and communicating we came up with the proposal of needing a alternative way of communicating to the one we have now. We started to look into reasons why this might be. Reasons like emp’s and solar flares which would disrupt communications. Looking into this we wondered how dependent people were on the current technology they use to communicate with others and how they would react if it was all of a sudden gone.

The whole group seemed interested in doing some sort of filming related to our idea. We all agreed that we could do a film for the first part of the project then actual create a physical system for the second half. Thinking about the film we decided that the best sort of genre related to our idea would be to do a documentary. This is what we are exploring now, different ways of presenting a documentary styled film that helps our audience understand our subject and try link to the second half of the semester.

For the first semester, the topic that we’re looking at is networks. This isn’t just narrow minded thinking about a network like the internet. Its thinking about every possible thing that is a network; road, electricity, roads, people. The way i see a network is the connection between people associated by something. I managed to find people I like to work with before we started the project. This ensured that I’d be pleased with who I was with considering it was to be for a whole semester. I know that I work well with them because I felt they were one of my better groups that I was with last year.

After being given the brief, I felt a bit lost. I wasn’t sure what exactly was wanted at the end of it all. What were we actually supposed to ‘do’? I was glad to find that it wasn’t just me feeling a bit clueless as to what to do. After a bit of guidance and discussion with some tutors, out group started to shape what we wanted to look at in terms of networks. It seemed we wanted to look at different networks so we decided to do individual research and see what ideas we could come up with within our chosen field. 

I wanted to look at the connection and networking of music somehow. There were a few things that I found online that looked very interesting, talking about connecting online to create collaboration projects etc. I felt that it would be awesome to do something like this, but i didn’t think that it would be the most productive idea and the rest of the group were wanting to do something else. Instead we looked a bit more at the process and network of a virus. Along with some research and throwing around ideas, looking at viruses seemed like it was the path we were going to take. We also looked at the old mailing system and the whole system of sending things through pipes to communicate with others. This really appealed to us and we liked the possibility and potential to make something like this. Comparing the two networks we decided that there were more options and possibilities with what we could do looking at the network of the mailing/communication idea.

Over the break  I was very much looking forward to coming back this course and starting a new year. The first thing that we worked on in our studio work was making our website. This seemed a little daunting in terms of using code and having to create it from scratch. With some help I managed to get something put together. I did end up having some technical difficulties getting images to show and pages to load in different browsers. Here is a link to the site: http://creativetechnologies.ac.nz/BCT/2011CLASS/Tim_Haines/Sliced_index/T_Haines.html

The Experience.

Maggie, Gabe and Roy did our experience. Its really hard to say whether things went well or not.. There were some issues with having the right amount of ipods for the music and eventually because some weren’t connecting to my laptop I just had to use my laptop.

Halfway through, we realized that there was no prompt for them to search our character online.. This meant that they weren’t going to see our digital props! (blog and video). Also, it should have been done at the very beginning of the experience. So this made it seem quite bad. We told them about it afterwards and they had a look. It’s just a real pity we forget to somehow incorporate it into our dairy or somewhere else. Its hard for someone writing a journal in the 18th century to just say “search me on google!”

It was hard telling if the tutors enjoyed our scent experience. I have a feeling that by the end of it they were all ‘smelled out’ and the combination of all the scents after a long time was potent (we had been working at a table with them for a couple of weeks. we know.) 

Now with an idea set in concrete we can focus on getting each aspect of it done. Even though we had individual roles in the group, it seems that there are crossovers with people helping others and giving input. I think that this is great as it doesn’t limit ideas and outcomes as there is more than one person thinking about it.

There are things which are supposed to being done which just aren’t happening. Things were made difficult due to sicknesses in the group and this meant that we couldn’t do things as planned. I’m starting to get a little bit worried about the production of the individual tasks mostly which are mine to do. I’m just finding it difficult to start it and i’m not so sure how to. I just need to get it done and do it as best as I can. Its good to know that the due date is extended to the 25th because of other assignments. This gives us more time to do things better than if they were rushed.

More time is always helpful but only if it isn’t wasted. 

Earlier this week, we decided it would be a good idea to watch the movie perfume (Perfume, 2006). So we did this! It was good to get inspiration about some of the concepts and themes. We also thought about how to make links between the book/film ‘Perfume’ and our game.

We thought about the mentality of the murderer and what we could do with that. We came up with the thought of the player actually being the murderer, or getting framed for murder. Another idea that we came up with was having the player start with a scent and needing to find the ingredients of that smell.

A rather interesting idea was having the murderer making a deal with the devil. At first I was skeptical and wasn’t sure how it would work and it seemed a bit farfetched to me. But then after thinking about the movie Perfume it seemed to make a bit more sense. The murderer makes a deal with the devil and the devil gives the player a full scent at the beginning and they need to find all the ingredients of that scent. The ingredients happen to be the souls (scent) of people. The murderer must kill and obtain scent within certain time limit or else Devil will come for their soul (scent).

We decided to go completely against the whole murder mystery because everyone seemed to be doing it and we were getting caught up in to many tiny details and reasons behind it all happening. So instead we went with the idea of a journal left behind by Grenouille (main character in Perfume) which is a guide to making the ultimate perfume. There would be samples of the ingredients needed in the journal and the player must find these ingredients where each correct choice takes them closer to the goal.

We finalized the media which we’ll be using in the game we’re set on the Grenouille’s journal idea. We started to gather materials (diary and essential oils) and we reviewed all our roles and went into more detail with what we have to do.

(2006). “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.” from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0396171/.

After an exciting treasure hunt trying to find the brief we found out that we are exploring augmented and virtual reality and creating an experience for the player. This excited me as I think that this subject area is very interesting and has a strong place in the future. I found a group and i’m pleased with the members in it. From here we defined our area of interest ad what we could do with this project. What we decided quite quickly was to work with scent and that perception of reality. Maybe we decided on our main idea a bit too soon, but I felt that it set us on track and we weren’t wasting time trying to decide what to do.

The next day we expanded on ideas, trying to branch out and think about all the possibilities. Some things we came up with were: contrasting different senses, finding out how they work together when you mix them up on purpose. We thought about doing a murder mystery like experience to do with scent. And the theme of pleasure and vanity. Appealing to the sense and comparing that to the cost of what makes us feel good. E.g. Chocolate slave children. I liked the ideas that we came up with and I think that we were on a good track.

Next, we sorted out roles of the members and solidified murder mystery idea. Basing the murder mystery on the book Perfume by Patrick Suskind. Maggie approved of our concept and i felt it went well. Developing our ideas to do with murder mystery we wondered how to invite the person in to that alternate reality? We could possibly include a mysterious notebook that seems blank. But is actually written secrets and notes of a serial killer. The whole mystery is is trying to save the last person from being killed by the murderer.