Adobe Photoshop Practice (Basic Trials)

As well as working on the group proposal for our project we have also been intorduced to Adobe Photoshop and some other softwares such as Premiere and Flash.We have been practising and playing around with different techniques particularly in Photoshop in order to get used to the software and help ourselves and each other to reach the aims of our proposal and add to our interactive story.

Here are some examples I have made in Photoshop. (Not going to be in project,this is just practice)

Group Proposal

Spice up your life!

Concept:

        Our concept will be based around the phrase “Spice up your life”. The idea came from the thought of how many people aren’t really happy with what they have accomplished in life, or regret that dream they never pursued.

In an interactive exercise we’ll help you create that exact world – with the intention of making you realize that while we can do so with the help of a computer screen and technology, your dreams can only be achieved by you alone. That by doing the small things – the life you’re leading can become colourful and fun. And who knows what that big step will do? You’re in charge of your life and it’s up to yourself to spice it up by adding the ingredients you want. Not the ones you’re expected to put in.

We wanted to tell a story which inspires the users themselves and help them to accept change in life. The motivation is not to just complete a project and tell a basic story, but to push people into thinking about their own life, and whether they are happy with it. 

Main idea:

With this in mind, we decided to create a project based on the hidden desires of every “grown up”. Do you dream of travelling and seeing the world? Living on a candyfloss cloud? Maybe that romance you imagined at 15?

The group project we are working on is going to be an interactive story revolving around an unhappy person who can be seen on screen, walking through the grey city, where everyone and everything looks the same. We would like to demonstrate this by making the beginning of the story black and white which emphasizes the miserable mood. Thought bubbles appearing over his head, weighing him down. 

Suddenly between all the grey, plain shops, one shop stands out – it’s colourful. The person enters, and finds himself in what seems a different world. The shop “Spice up your life” is extraordinary and offers as it says to change people’s lives by adding flavour. Here the user will be able to choose ingredients from four different categories, in addition to a special “surprise” package. This is where the interactive part will start.

After having tried as many options as the user wants the character to, he can click on the “back to reality” button, which makes the shop dissolve, putting the character back on the street which is now colourful and sunny. The person walks away, without worries, a smile on his face and fades away in the distance. Meanwhile a voice gives the users a message, to remember and take with them, which enhances the idea that in real life it is possible to create or “spice up your life”, because it really just depends on our attitude towards things and whether to dare take chances and risks. 

Target audience:

People from all backgrounds, who at one point has felt stuck and bored with their life. It is not designed for a certain age group, it is designed to promote a creative interactive story in order to remind people who are stuck in a routine that it is their job to spice up and have fun with life.

Project requirements:

We are planning to draw a character and use photoshop/flash to animate it. Proceeding we will use both drawings and photography for the background and adobe premiere to place the character into the setting, adding in music and mood sounds. This will mostly be done using the school computers.

Project timeline:

Week 7-8: Street backgrounds done, sketch for the shop outside and interior, and some sketches for the character, divide responsibilities for the break.

Break: Finalize designs, keep in touch via facebook, working individually, have as much of the photoshop and ground work done. 

Week 9(10): bring everything together, create video and use flash to finalize the project.

At January 2013 we have been assigned to work in groups in order to complete an interactive screen-based story/animation. Myself,Catherine Nothum and Mai Vabo have been working on this project.Before anything productive happened via computers,softwares and other materials,we had to sit together and brainstorm ideas about what we are going to do for our project,which involved quite a few questions to think about.We were asked to write a group proposal/narrative which explains pretty much everything about our interactive story.It is more or less about the time-line of the project,what the interactive story is going to be about,the possible software and materials used throughout the making of the video and what sorts of digital media will be involved.Towards mid-February we started writing it and we had to submit it in the beginning of March. Here is a copy of the original group proposal of our project.