Inspirational storyboarding by Louise Zingarelli

Came across these amazing storyboards by Louse Zingarelli today from ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archives website. I think they are particularly striking and beautifully drawn.

Inspirational animation: Rain Town by Hiroyas Ishida

Loving this animation, the backgrounds are particularly stunning. All I can say is.... wow.

 

 

Thought of you by Ryan Woodward

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

This is a beautiful animation - I just had to share it :) 

Thought of You - Making Of from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

This is a film based on the making of Thought of You, which is also inspirational.

Planning folder

I've been trying to finish off my planning folder since Easter. I have been spending time reading 'Digital Storytelling' by Carolyn Handler Miller and also, (as recommended by Alan), 'Pause & Effect' by Mark Stephen Meadows and these have been very helpful, but have absorbed a lot of my time, along with the nagging voice in my head reminding me of all the marking I need to complete for work!

I finally created a Gantt chart to depict the planned timescales for the Masters project. I have not added any tutorials or symposiums as I have no schedule of these as of yet. It is a simple breakdown, but it is quite scary when you actually look at the timescale set out like this, as the time seems very short!

 

Masters Project Gantt chart

I have documented how I will record the planning and project documentation, but now need to demonstrate how I intend to provide evidence of delivering the project outcomes for assessment. I hope to complete this today, so am now going to review the Learning outcomes matrix. 

Interactivity

The concept of the word interactivity is often being questioned. Aarseth (1997) rejects its use and utilises - ergodicity, a term derived from the Greek words ergon and hodos, meaning work and path respectively. Ergodic texts are categorised as texts where ‘nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text’. Aarseth thinks that the term interactivity carries with it ideological implications of an equality between the user and interactive text, while at the same time, remaining rather vaguely defined. The word interactivity, when broken down into two parts means, inter: between and active: participating, doing something. It does suggest participation in action, in contrast to being passively involved. Traditional storytelling/films will usually necessitate passive observation, but interactive content requires more than passive observation - it will require interaction from an audience/user and also provide an element of choice and control. This is where problems can begin to occur as the more choice and control that is given by interactivity, the more the narrative structure can begin to fragment and the framework can become enormous and confusing.

I have been researching narrative structures and will go into more detail regarding these in my next entry; but I have decided that it will be best to use some kind of branching narrative for the overall structure. Currently I am thinking of using a branching narrative that has parallel paths where the story reconnects at specific key storyline points. This should stop the narrative becoming too huge and ultimately fragmenting any specific structure and aims within the storyline.

Branching narrative with parallel paths