Swing and a Miss

I showed the tutors today my calming iteration and got some good feedback. It turns out I was too focussed on creating a narrative from my footage and it took too long to express the atmosphere of tranquillity I was going for. The fade to white technique I was using definitely expressed "calm" and Elle suggested using white space with a aural bridge to enhance the transitions between shots. Having reworked my iteration it now begins with the pills being taken then fades softly between clips, fading sound in and out to match the atmosphere. There is a slow heartbeat playing through about 70% of the clip which matches up to the shot of the blood flowing in veins and the match cut (if it is possible to have a fading match cut) to the river. Using this better understanding of the assignment the other two iterations should be more accurate. I also checked that the technique of repetition was strong enough to express the effect I wanted for my 'addiction' iteration and I will need to combine it with other techniques to try and make it more disorienting.

Redirecting Attention

I figured I was overdue for a progress update on MDDN 211. 243 had pretty much all my attention over the weekend so I still have a way to go with my clips but my 'relax' clip is near completion. The primary editing technique is still pacing but it makes use of a couple of cross-dissolves and whatever the sound equivalent of a cross-dissolve is. The softness of such a transition is perfect for calming feeling I want this clip to express. As far as the other clips go I had an idea on the sound design for my addiction clip. To match the sporadic cutting between clips I want to put a mash-up of different sounds that create more and more noise before the screen goes black and a sharp breath can be heard. The 'upper' clip would play through at a high speed and I would allow some of the original noise to be played through at a high speed as well though the primary soundtrack would be a song. I won't spend too long focussing on sound as it is primarily the editing techniques that this assignment is about, but I feel some consideration in that area could enhance my work.

Presy Preview

Before my presentation tomorrow I figured I'd show what I've been working on over the past couple of days.

As my blog covers my broader research I want to focus on just the mechanic of 'death' and how it affects player's behaviour. My presentation will be primarily image-based with simple bullet points to summarise the ideas I'm talking about. Images such as the following will make up the backgrounds of these slides;

For each of my selected games there is a separate slide to visually break my presentation down and hopefully provide a bit of humour :)

The three features that rework death in a game to carry a message of sustainability that Iv'e been thinking of are a mix of what deems a player to be "dead" and what the consequences of death are.
My first is the one I mentioned in some of my early posts where the player's character is a mobile life force which can animate particular objects to make a body. To put things into specifics the character could be sentient electricity that animated mechanical objects. Around the map various items could be collected to make body parts to keep the player mobile. The player would be deemed dead when they run out of things to inhabit. This could make for some interesting game sequences where players have to use improvised items to accomplish tasks such as using a lawnmower engine or a fire extinguisher to act as makeshift jump booster to get to higher ledges while it has fuel. It also slaps players in the face with RECYCLE!
The second feature, also mentioned earlier could come from the same game. There could be segments were the player uses small portions of their personal power to make otherwise broken objects functional, such as navigating a circuit-board maze to find the switch to unlock an electronic door or illuminate a dark hazardous room for long enough to escape it. If their personal power depletes then the character dies and a restart is required (different difficulties could vary between restarting from a checkpoint/level or from the start of the game). This would inspire players to be conservative of what resources they have at their disposal and look out for tools/methods that are reusable.
The final feature could be that when a player dies there is a permanent mark left on the game world. What could be once glorious cities and beautiful landscapes could become corrupt or destroyed by players' repeated failure. As an example the player's character could be an immortal with infinitely re-spawning bodies so death only puts them back at the last checkpoint. If the player has to collect a dragon's eye for a witch they end up provoking a dragon which destroys the closest town in rage if the player dies fighting it. The player will of course re-spawn not far off but by the time they kill the dragon and take its eye, the city is ashes and they can no longer shop/rest/hide there. By the end of the game the player's success would be mapped by how much of their world is still functioning. This should make players more weary about how they approach certain challenges or their future game will become more and more difficult/inconvenient. On a less subtle tone the very world around them dies every time they muck up.
Now it's just a matter of getting some visual representations of these features looking all pretty and ready to present :)

Research Recap

Before I rip into putting my presentation together I want to provide a quick recap to tick all the last boxes of research. So here is a more concise version of my last post with a bit more development:

Devil May Cry Series:
- upon death use of a "gold orb", "continue" or "main menu" are selectable. Unless the mission is quit (by selecting "main menu") death carries a score deduction (amount of deduction varies between games).
- gold orbs allow an on-the-spot resurrection, enemies stay in whatever state they were in upon player death, but carries with it an "item used" score reduction (again, amount of deduction varies between games).
- continue restarts the player from the closest checkpoint on full health and all enemies reset as well.
Features that build on the death mechanic are the gold orbs as a purchasable item, the final mission score as death deducts from it, decreasing how many rewards the player receives. The fact that the game assesses the player's performance means death has meaning and good players will want to avoid it.

Dark Souls:
- upon death player re-spawns at closest bonfire.
- all collected souls and humanity are lost and enemies reset. Player becomes "hollow".
- if body is reached without suffering another death all souls and humanity can be restored. Player returns to being human.
- while online, players can leave behind bloodstains that can be examined by other players. This plays a cinematic of their last moments, allowing the viewer to learn from other's mistakes.
The loss of souls and humanity can be devastating, especially if the player has been saving up for a long time. Humanity also brings with it several advantages, such as gaining souls at a faster rate or having more health. This means that death, despite having infinite re-spawns, is still undesirable (even if it is the game's primary method of teaching).

Pokemon Series:
- upon a Pokemon fainting they are removed from battle and another Pokemon must be sent forth. If the player has no more Pokemon then they lose the battle and must flee to a Pokemon centre (this is referred to as "blacking/whiting out").
- a player who whites out loses money.
- obviously a Pokemon that has fainted cannot be used in battle which puts the player at a disadvantage for the rest of the battle.
- Pokemon that faint often enough begin to distrust the player and misbehave in battle.
Whiting out is almost the equivalent of a player dying. Certain battles must be won for the player to progress and if your Pokemon are misbehaving from fainting too often, battles are harder to win. A damaged relationship between the player and their Pokemon can take a while to reverse and as one of the main themes of the Pokemon series is companionship, letting Pokemon faint undesirable on an emotional level too.

MDDN 211 - Project 1 Proposal Submission

The theme of my video clips will be the consumption and effects of drugs. By using primarily pacing, jump-cutting and adjusting the speed of the footage, I will edit the videos I find to imply three different relationships people have with drugs.

The first will look at how downers can calm people and relieve anxiety. The initial pace of cuts and movement within the footage will be relatively quick until a close-up of pills being taken is shown and the imagery afterwards will be calmer, slower and quieter. The change in pace is a visual map of the drug user’s experience. It could also represent a physical effect such as a slower heart rate.

The second will contrast the first clip by representing uppers. The footage will increase in speed each time the pills are taken with a montage of high-energy clips. This could be combined with exciting music to show the rush the drugs provide. The clips, like memories, go by too quickly to fully comprehend.

The final clip will look at addiction and repeat a lot of footage from the other two clips but gradually return to more and more clips of taking the drugs, as well as introducing new and less glamorous clips. The clip could end when the videos of drugs has taken over in a violent mix of jump cuts. The sporadic nature of this iteration is meant to be confusing and almost sickening, as some of the cuts don’t make sense. The soundtrack could also be mismatched and the increasing repetition of the drug imagery represents the growing dependence the user has with them.

Aesthetics of Gaming and Presenting

Today's class helped give me direction in where to go with my presentation and I decided on a basic style and aesthetic. The basic presentation will be a mix of text and imagery on display like a power-point. I'm in the process of drawing some caricatures that will be on display while I talk about my findings and such. What I have so far is just the basic outlines but I intend to use posterised colouring on them.

The intended final image will have a lot more refinement to it.

Cutting the Crap

Now that I have collected a substantial amount of footage it's time to start cutting out the junk I can't/don't want to use. Some of the videos I found have good imagery in them but are part of documentaries and have a lot of interviews with professors and other professionals that I need to cut out. My plan is to go through the footage this weekend and filter out all the good shots and start piecing together draft iterations. Once I have a basic collection of sorted footage I'll be able to see what other shots I need to find to get my message across for each iteration.