Brainstorming was done today to branch out from our main idea of exploring the scent and how it relates to the world we live in. At this time I was worried that we would pin down on one thing too quickly without consideration for other ideas but at the same time I was also worried about not progressing far enough to get a solid concept at a suitable time for optimum productivity. These fears were banished as it appears we are on track with developing our ideas. Since the lecturer said that today should be considering more options rather than sticking to one thing.
I think for my group from this viewpoint of what we're supposed to be doing is right on time. Not too late, not too early. We do have a foundation of what we're like to find out more about, which is scent and how it affects people. So this makes it easier for us to branch out from this main idea.
Some ideas we have so far is to confuse the senses by contrasting them to smell. For example, something absolutely disgusting like a dead rat infested with maggots smelling like fresh apples covered in morning dew. Or perhaps a durian, which smells like cat feces but tastes delightful.
Another is about pleasure and vanity. This one is more about the senses in general rather than just the sense of smell. Here the idea is to appeal to all the senses at different stages to make the person feel extremely good. Then right at the end you reveal the cost of their pleasure and vanity: for example, starving slave children making chocolate for you which they have never tasted, and never will, in their life.
One idea that Edrian came up with is doing a murder mystery in relation to scent. The "how" in this idea isn't figured out yet, but at this stage we don't need to know that at present. We can sort that out at a later date further down the road of development. This is the most popular idea among the group thus far, so it is highly likely that it will be further developed.
The previous day we did a bit of individual research. Jason found this really interesting research paper about the relationship between scent and humans and what their effect is on the person. The most interesting thing presented in the paper is that just by placing a pleasant aroma in a casino caused a 45% increase in gambling. I thought it was interesting how strongly scent can affect out decisions. For example, in one part the paper talks about how some unlabelled shampoos were tested for being the most effective. With the scent in tact, the worst shampoo with the best scent scored the highest ranking and the best one with a scent that wasn't as good as the others was ranked last. After removing the scents however, the one that smelled the best before came last and the one that smelled worst before came out on top as the most effective shampoo. (Fox, 2011)
I read about an approach to perfume-making in my part of researching as well. It's where the scent is made to "evoke an atmosphere"; an approach in perfume making begun by the Guerlain perfume house which revolutionised the perfume world. (Lyttelton, 2007) I think this is an approach to creating the scents that we could use, though it depends very much on our plot.
However, it is definite that we can't make scents with a full set of top, middle, and base notes as it takes hours for the entirety of the perfume to unfold all its layers. Basically the top notes are the introduction of a perfume. The first scents you catch, which then move aside to reveal the meat of the story (the middle notes) and finishing with a finale of base notes. So it would be better to opt for a linear perfume, which stays the same scent throughout its lifespan as we don't have that many hours for a complex scent to unfold. Maybe we could have the different stages of the story be made from different notes from the top, middle, and base range so that the narrative in a way mimics the structure of a perfume?
Also, I think it may be a good idea to base our game on Patrick Süskind's novel, Perfume, and its movie adaption Perfume: The Story of a Murderer directed by Tom Tykwer. It could be a place to draw in major inspirations to inform our work. It's a very intriguing book as well as a gorgeously executed film with an enchanting soundtrack to match.
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References
Fox, K. (2011). The Smell Report: An overview of fact and findings. Retrieved September 29, 2011 from http://www.sirc.org/publik/smell.pdf
Lyttelton, C. (2007). The Scent Trail. London, Great Britain: Transworld Publishers.
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