Un-reality: Presentations

Presentation went reasonably well today, I wasn't as nervous as I was with previous presentations so I actually said something. I think I've gotten used to it so now I'm more comfortable with talking in front of people. This improvement would definitely help with presentations for next week.

Anyway, I heard other groups presenting and some of the games they talked about seemed really fun. Two of them really stood out to me.

One is Jenny's group. I saw some pictures of their game running and I liked the kidnapping part. A good thing in my perception of what went on with the game is their acting, which made the game really convincing.

The other is Emile's group. I liked it because it seemed really fun and I liked the variety of little experiences inside it. I tried out their binoculars to see the message in the red lines, I really liked that to be honest.

Hand-in is all completely ready too. V^^V I've been taking care of group hand-in since the first day, so there wasn't so much of a rush to get anything finished.

Un-reality: Run through

Run through day was today. It didn't go as well as intended because the digital parts were completely missed out so the setting of the game wasn't defined. What the digital parts did was set up the story so that it makes more sense and gives a clearer idea of what's happening.

A good thing is we could write a lot in the "potential next steps" on ways to improve the game. I think it would have worked better if we had more run throughs so that we could test out the game.

Below is our video, which was missed:



And here is the link to our blog as well.

Un-reality: Final work day

There's not much to say about this final working day for the project. At the moment everything is falling in to place, which is good.

A slight feeling of apprehension about tomorrow's run through though. It feels like something's not quite right yet. Whether it's just my imagination or not shall all be revealed tomorrow.

Un-reality: Filming

Since costumes got sorted yesterday we're half way there to filming. At this point time is running out so we had to simplify. Since planning was not sufficient enough for the filming in terms of location especially, we decided to do the filming in Albert Park in a quiet spot.

Michelle was in charge of makeup, since she's really good with that sort of thing. We got Tim, who was acting, to look tired and dirty to play the perfumer quickly writing down his last wish prior to his execution.




We got locations for each stage sorted and consequently the journal sorted as well.

For locations we simplified it down to three instead of the original five we intended. This would make it easier for us and keep costs down. We also made it so that the decrease in locations won't affect the plot either in accordance to the journal.

On to the journal. The actual writing isn't difficult. The part that took the most thinking was the clues. So while working on the journal we had to think about how to place and present the scents at each stage for selection.

With clues, originally I was thinking perhaps some kind of code. For example, deliberately misspelling words where the correct letters grouped up would make a sentence. Or maybe dots and dashes at certain letters of words to form a sentence. However, that would be rather difficult to do especially because there could be instances where the ink would splatter at some points and break the code.

I remembered reading about how back in the old days perfumers were also alchemists and perfumes were commonly sold in apothecaries. (Lyttelton, 2007) We took that and thought about their relationship with alchemy, which led to alchemical symbols. Symbols are useful because in my opinion they're a beautiful and simple way to convey some kind of message. Take a pen for example and view that as a symbol. It can say a lot of things with just a pen. It's writing, ideas, expression--the freedom to think. This is conveyed through a single symbol. On the other hand if you used words you'd have to carefully craft your words to convey the same meaning.

So within the journal this is what happens:

There is one main symbol for the complete perfume and different parts of it are drawn on different pages. So manipulating the property of the moleskine journal paper where rubbing oil on it would cause the first page the oil is applied to become transparent, this is how the complete symbol is revealed.

This rubbing oil action is first introduced with that main symbol. Therefore, in subsequent stages the player would get the idea that they're have to do more oil rubbings.

This leads on to the stages. Now, each separate component of the perfume has its own symbol hidden on the label of the bottle. What happens is you rub the oil on the seemingly blank label and the symbol is revealed. Each correct symbol to the correct scent when combined with all the other ones would ultimately create the whole symbol of the perfume. Of course, at some stages you'd get identical symbols mixed in at selections so that you'd still have to use your nose to find the right scent. Also, inside each bottle would be a message to tell you what to do once you have your selections at each stage.

Hopefully everything will fall in to place. It still feels like there's heaps to do for everyone.




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References:

Lyttelton, C. (2007). The Scent Trail. London, Great Britain: Transworld Publishers.

Un-reality: Here

Full group is back V^^V Yay, so we got some work done today. Not as much as I hoped, but it's still something.

I did the last practice painting I'm going to do, which is shown above. I think that's my best one so far. Things I still need to improve on is perspective and lighting.

Tim brought in a really beautiful, old perfume bottle to show us. We won't use it though because it's an expensive antique.


He also brought in a strip of leather for Edrian to tie the journal closed. It adds a nice touch to the aged journal.


Edrian also did some amazing drawings as well.


Michelle and I got some little pots to hold the scents. An idea I had was to put the little pots inside eggshells so that it would be more interesting since when you crack the eggs open the scent would come out.

In my head it worked out like this:

Empty out the insides of the eggs as shown below.


Then cut the eggs in half, put in the pots, glue the halves back together and do paintings on the shell.

Tried cutting it in half with a craft knife since I didn't want to use special expensive tools to do it. Obviously it didn't work out as shown below.


An alternative is to use origami. It looks pleasing and they're easy to place. They're also cheap and easy to make.

I wasn't sure about suggesting origami as an option at first, because I know that it's an obsession of mine and I don't know if the rest of the group would like it too. But they approve of using origami as well so I'm glad.


Group dynamics:

Energy is down in the atmosphere today, but still made some progress so that's good. I know that Jason is feeling useless because he's not doing much yet, but rest assured when it's his time to work he will do it well. I think the problem is because a lot of his work is post-production of various objects. For example, he can't edit the film until we actually have footage and he can't set up speakers either until the day comes and until we have definite locations.

Un-reality: Away

Most of the group was away today, so I continued practicing and experimenting with paintings. This time I used 100% opacity with a hard round brush and then a grainy rectangular brush for the more blended strokes. I like this one more than sticking to round brush the whole way through because it looks more like a painting than failed realism. This fits an approach to making art that I learned earlier this year; Stylise what you can't do.

So these are the two paintings that I did. Since other group members were away I was worried that all production would be at a standstill. I knew that the journal probably isn't going to sort itself out so I spent some time thinking through it.

At first we were going to use an existing famous perfumer's name as the perfumer who wrote the journal. But that seemed disrespectful, especially because they were dead and if anybody else saw the content without knowing that it's a game we could run in to problems. In the end it was decided that we should make up a fictional perfumer all together so that when Googled our content would be the ONLY content to come up. Thus, our content would not be missed by the players.

I wrote up the fictional perfumer's history and the letter he writes to the reader at the beginning of the journal. Now that we have a good story along with a solid character now, things should get easier from this point onwards in terms of production. I still need to write up the rest of the content of the journal though. The content is dependent on locations for ease of creating clues, so we have to sort that out.


Group dynamics:

Even though the majority of the group was away I'm glad that communication was still working between members. This is a great thing because it means that ideas can still develop and even though things would be really slow in terms of production it's better than having no productivity at all.

Un-reality: Working

Individual work has begun for each section. Michelle was away sick, but she's done a great job with the perfumes. She's finished the final smell and she's got the fake decoy smells together as well. So that part of her job is finished and I'm really pleased with that because that's one solid thing done.

Edrian's aged the journal over the weekend too, but filming-wise for the short film fell apart because the planning didn't go into it and the costuming, props and locations weren't nailed down.

Today Jason got some good speakers as well. They're perfect for us because they give out a decent amount of sound and the quality isn't bad.

Tim began work on the blog as well, but we still need to sort that out because that's quite an important part.

I'm doing the digital paintings for the blog, but I don't know what exactly to paint yet since the content at the moment is uncertain. So I got practicing today, experimenting with different brushes. Below are two of the practices I did today. I painted people because I have no experience in painting people.

Originally, it was supposed to be renaissance styled digital paintings, but at the moment I'm going for a more digital look. Mostly because my painting skills aren't quite good enough to do really realistic paintings yet so I'll have to work around that. Luckily, it would still make sense with the blog because pictures in blogs illustrate the content so the style of the pictures depends on the purpose and personality of the blogger really. The blogger is a person who is interested in making links between real events and myths and legends. Seeing the relationship between them and how various legends are born from actual events of the time. So they'd be interested in history and legends. No doubt they'd have a great imagination.




We really need to get our locations, film, and ending of the game sorted though and time is getting tight. I think at this point we gotta think simple and do it as efficiently and beautifully as possible. I want it to be amazing even though at the moment it feels like most parts are at a standstill. We'll push through it and complete it as best we can.


Group dynamics notes:

As mentioned before the group was split in to sections. It worked and didn't work in some ways. It worked great for Michelle and Jason. I find that they're quite good at working in their own sections and reporting back to the group with what they've done and what to do if something needs confirmation/persmission from the group. For example, Jason made sure that the rest of the group was fine with the choice and cost of the speakers that he thinks would be good for what we need.

For Edrian and Tim however it was more difficult. Edrian was supposed to plan out the filming process and getting on to it. But the planning didn't happen and various circumstances prevented the filming from happening due to props and costumes not being ready and a good location hasn't been decided on yet either. It feels really unstable with the short film at the moment. Nothing's really solid. That has to be fixed.

For Tim, the blogging is a little halted because a lot of the content is dependent on what happens with the other media objects and how that would fit in to the plot. So tomorrow that will have to be sorted out.

As a result, my paintings have to be put on hold because they are dependent on blog content. As for journal content I can write up the content in the simplest form and Edrian can then add whatever he thinks is necessary to the frame I give him. I would have to add notes on the side as well to make sure that whatever he adds fits in with what happens in the game.

At the moment the group feels like scattered sand. Will need to rebuild a supporting core to keep group morale and productivity up.

Un-reality: Designing objects and deadlines

Today was quite short. Some more experimenting happening while we waited for some more members to turn up so that we could decide on roles and have a stronger idea about making each object.

Edrian is getting really good with ink and calligraphy nibs.



He printed out some Leonardo da Vinci drawings to learn how to draw in a similar style with the ink. This is one of his practice drawings based on da Vinci's.

Michelle continued experimenting with the oils as well. She brought in a little tray so that it's easier to do experiments on with different combinations.


Also, member roles finalised today along with set deadlines.

All members have multiple roles and I've timed out the deadlines so that they can do a little bit every day and not be overwhelmed by the work load. It's still going to take a decent amount of time though.

The sections are divided according to the media objects that we've got. These are the details for each object. Of course, the details will develop and expand as they are in the process of being created. Design notes will be kept to document this.

Short film:

-Short film of Grenouille writing in journal. Done like the Jude Law scene in Series of Unfortunate Events.

-Has link in description to the blog. This video is like a little trailer/advert to the blogger's posts about a legendary perfumer who they think is Grenouille

-Face of person not shown, only silhouette. Should have interesting shadows and the lighting has to be strong enough to give a silhouette. Edrian would like candles, but additional light source would be needed to produce a good silhouette.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fggw2spjaU8&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLD9E2F95BB545318E

Like the beginning of this trailer.

Edrian will be directing, Tim will be in the film and Jason would be doing the editing.

Blog:

Text

-Introduces topic by talking about the book and film Perfume

-Links the similarities to a well-known legend about a mythical perfumer who used unusual ingredients to create powerful perfumes. Later sentenced to death for supposedly practicing witchcraft and dark magic.

-Concludes they Grenouille and this legendary perfumer may have been the same person

Pics

-Has Renaissance style digital paintings of the journal and Grenouille (artist's impression) writing in it including him being punished by the church

-Paintings of various ingredients

-Maybe some paintings of murdered people

*the blogger is a person interested in history and its relationship to myths and legends. Enjoys linking them together through similarities and differences.

Tim will be writing the contents of the blog while I will do digital paintings that will be put in the blog. I think that would be fun for me because I've been wanting to get more practice for digital painting.

Journal:

Look

-Da Vinci style drawings of ingredients and any other relevant imagery

-Aged paper, aged look

-Neat, organised calligraphy

-scented pages with the ingredients

Content

-Addresses reader and talks about an ultimate perfume, Grenouille also states that he will follow the reader until he/she either fails completing the perfume or completes it successfully

-Description of perfume and when to use/make it

-Talks about perfume structure, the 13th essence and maybe the history of key ingredients. Specific ingredients on specific pages with the scent on it.

For the journal Edrian's in charge of how it looks and all the art inside the journal. I will be providing the written content for the journal.

Scents:

Smells

-Less satsuma, more vanilla + mango. We'll need some fake smells as well to provide different choices for each stage

Presentation of smells

-A novel way of presenting scent/spreading it out over an area

-Something to hold the ingredients/oils they need to collect and pick out

-Something to hold the final perfume

Michelle's been experimenting the oils that we've got and trying to find a great scent from different combinations. As for the presentation of the smells Jason will be taking care of that but the group would pitch in and help with that as well because that's an important part of the game and it's a huge load of work as well.

Music:

-Background music in the trail to lead player in the right direction/show that they're on the right track.

-Inspired from soundtrack of film

Tim will be doing the music for the trail as well and anything else to do with audio. He's good at music so it's good to use that skill of his for the creation of a better experience that pays attention to various senses.

Arduino (Look for better alternatives, since Arduino would be too quiet and wouldn't give us what we want)

-Placed nearby location of scent

-Sensor to trigger music

-Must be hidden from sight/be discrete in surroundings

Since Jason's good with electronics I got him to look after the placing of the sound in the game. At first the rest of the group was thinking Arduino, but he brought up various problems that could pop up with using Arduino for it such as the sound quality wouldn't be good enough and the sound wouldn't be very audible either and how it is more complex than simpler methods. So now we've decided to use his suggestion of using hidden speakers and iPods instead. Since when you walk closer the sound would fade in anyway and this is much easier than doing it with Arduino and we could achieve better results with the sound as well.


Another thing I'll be looking after is getting all material ready for hand-in at the end of the project and all the planning and timing throughout the project. So I'm technically the project manager for this.

Anyway, group notes:

Even though Jason felt like a killjoy when he said what he thought about the Arduino sound idea I think it's good that he brought up the potential problems we could have with the Arduino. A lot of the time when you work in groups people worry about making other people feel bad so most of the time people choose not to say anything unless it's really really big. I think that decision is costly to the group and does not give any benefits at all. In my opinion it is nothing but emotional masturbation that ultimately ends in disappointment. Therefore, it's much more beneficial to the group to speak up about potential problems right at the beginning before you actually go about making something for any project.

Un-reality: Reviewing member roles and the media used

We've got a mostly solid plot now. The only bit that we need to think further about is how to end the game. Other than that, the rest is pretty much up and running ready to be created. For efficiency and timing, the group will be split up in to independent sections so that all objects can be made simultaneously. That will be sorted out completely tomorrow.

As for the plot this is what's happening:

A mysterious journal is found, and is discovered to be written by Grenouille. Which leads to the player looking up in Google about Grenouille and some videos pop up as little trailers about how Grenouille may have been a real person. These videos then lead to a blog of an amateur historian interested in finding relations between myths and legends and real events.

The game itself is about the player following Grenouille's guide in creating the ultimate scent.


For the media that's all sorted now on definite things. For digital we've got the YouTube videos and the blog. For physical it's obviously the journal, the scents, and some background music along the trail to enhance the atmosphere. I'll blog about the details in the next blog when we'll have an initial design down for everything.

We got the journals yesterday and Edrian went and bought a calligraphy set and some ink for himself. He started experimenting with those today and learning how to use those tools properly.


As you can see from the pictures there's a splodge in the middle. We're going to scent the journal so we put a drop of some oils we got today on it to see what happens with the paper. It's going to be kept shut over night as well to see if the scent moves on to other pages as well.


And these are the oils that Michelle bought. They were quite expensive to be honest. Our group budget is not looking good. We're all very grateful that the costs are split between five people.

From left to right we've got sandalwood and ginger, mango, pomegranate and raspberry, satsuma, and vanilla.

We did a little bit of experimenting with the oils as well. This is Michelle testing out a combination of oils.



We had Roy Davies in for a talk today too. We won't be using anything he talked about though. At first I thought it might be cool to use QR codes, but we decided against it because it doesn't make much sense or fit with how the journal is from a really old time period. I liked this bit he brought up at the beginning about the bridge between technology and the mind; what you want technology to do. I think that's important because what a lot of people think is that technology just does whatever it does all by itself and that it's extremely smart so it can magically read your mind and figure out what you want it to do. But that's not what happens. With technology the human has to decide what they want it to do, then create the technology with that in mind, which is a long and arduous process. It doesn't happen in a second, but when the final result emerges the time is worth it.

Un-reality: Solid

At the end of yesterday we decided that by 2 or 3pm today we have to come up with something solid to work from. I'm quite impressed with our progress today to be honest. We did everything we needed to do today by around 11 or 12pm despite two members being away.

At first we were thinking that we would go on to further develop the Devil + Murderer idea. As we went along we realised that that particular idea just wasn't strong enough as there were still many empty areas that could further complicate the execution process while keeping the reality fun and believable. Also, it felt like it was far to similar to the book, killing people to get their scent. It's more copying the book rather than growing the idea around a central concept

So we took a step back, went back to the themes presented. The strongest ones are how scent is a powerful thing and the scent is the soul. Jason later combined the idea of scent being a powerful thing with a recurring object in nearly all of our ideas. This is using the mysterious journal as an invitation in to the game.

The idea is that the journal makes no sense until you find the smell, which gives you a lead to the next smell. This expanded and became a guide to create the ultimate scent left behind by Grenouille from the book/film. Since in the book/film Grenouille does have a consuming goal where he seeks out to create the ultimate scent. Multiple scents will be there at different stages in the game for choices and branching out to multiple possibilities and show the consequence of choice.

As for media we've got some ideas flying around. A definite one would of course be the mysterious journal and various scents. For digital we're thinking some short film clips about Grenouille mixed in with extracts from the film perhaps. Will need to think about copyright if we do that though since we don't want to violate copyright laws there. The videos should have a link that leads to the blog of an amateur historian interested in myths and legends who names Grenouille as a legendary perfumer and has various bits of information about him and how the book is about him and so on. Tomorrow, we need to have a clear idea of what we're doing in terms of media though. The journal is solid. We got the journals today. They're moleskine ones because Edrian wants to use them for himself after we're done for this project. I bought one for myself too for when I go to Hong Kong in the summer so that I can still draw.


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It's been a while since I've written about group performance. I think I should write one of these every few days so that we've got our group performance notes all documented ready for hand in.

As of now, group dynamics are smooth and works perfectly with my colour identification. Jason's orange is obviously showing as he gives sudden ideas that we like and agree with. Orange people are the creative spark, basically, they're highly likely to think up an amazing random idea that somehow works, or one that doesn't work but could work after a bit of tweaking. He's quite willing to work as well and is a positive person. I think later on in the process of making the game would be the time when his best qualities will fully emerge as oranges need to do things, especially concrete work like the actual object in the project, to gain the feeling of satisfaction in knowing that solid progress is made.

Tim's a blue, I'm a blue too. Blues are the organisers and problem-solvers. Tim does a great job pinpointing areas of confusion or areas that aren't quite right yet and asks very good questions which help the group develop ideas. It makes a good flow I think. I've been organising everything that goes on, on a day-to-day basis since the beginning of the project and deciding when something has to be finished. So far the time-management side of the group is fantastic. We're right on track. In the future of this project I believe Tim will spot potential errors in making things before we actually make the mistake. This would be handy to make the best use of time and optimise efficiency. I'll continue to plan out deadlines, monitor progress, continue with our group portfolio, which we already made a start to in addition to getting all our materials ready for hand-in, and do documentation.

Edrian and Michelle are yellows. Yellow ones are like the arms/hands of the group. They're quite supportive and they execute the plan. They're the doing people and help the plan/idea become real. They've both given great input on what they think of the ideas that we come up with and what I like about them is their willingness to work and flexibility in working. When we get around to making our media it would be their moment to shine.




Since we need to pay particular attention to group dynamics, I'll seize this opportunity to test my colours idea and see if it works. A major flaw with the colours idea though is that it completely ignores personality traits and only points out how people work in groups.

Un-reality: Movie-watching

Today's movie day :D It's probably too fun to be work, but there shouldn't be a reason why work can't be fun. Anyway, this is our brain food for watching the movie.


And this is our little setup in the hallway. We moved out of the studio so that we won't disturb the other groups while they're working.


After finishing watching the film we went back to brainstorming on how the murder mystery would work. I'll admit we were a bit lost on how to go about it, so we started designing bits of the murderer first. The most popular aspect was drawn from the book/film where Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is the collector type of serial killer. He collects the scents of beautiful virginal girls to create the world's most exceptional perfume and to give himself a soul. A strong theme in both the book and film is the idea that the scent equals the soul, where scent is what makes a person human (Süskind, 1985; Eichinger & Tykwer, 2006). There's also the idea in the book that Grenouille is not human as he possesses no scent of his own, this is marked as a sign of the Devil. So there's as link to that and his collector approach as a serial killer.

Bits and pieces of ideas that we had was:

The player is given a scent at the beginning, and is required to find the ingredients that make up that scent. I liked this, thought it would be more fun than simply looking for clues. It has a strong interaction with the scent as well.

The player gets framed for the murder or better yet, the player IS the murder. If the player is the murderer instead I think that would make it more fun so it's not completely like a cliche murder mystery because it would be the other way around since the objective would be to kill people.

An idea that went quite far today was this one:

Murderer (the player) makes a deal with the Devil. Devil gives them a full scent at the beginning and they need to find the ingredients to recreate the scent. Ingredients happen to be the souls (scent) of people. Murderer must kill and obtain scent within a certain time limit, or else the Devil will come for their soul.

There's a few things we still need to think about if we do that idea. For example, what's the relationship between the Devil and the Murderer? How does the Devil turn up in the game? Why would the Murderer want to make a deal with the Devil in the first place? What does the Murderer gain? What's the incentive to kill?

We had a little brainstorm on that too. Maybe the Murderer is on the brink of death or maybe it's the Devil's sick game. The latter doesn't sound strong or convincing enough to be honest. Or perhaps the Devil promises the Murderer something he/she desperately wants.

There's no definite decision on exactly what we're doing yet, but at the moment we like the idea of the player being the murderer and setting a time limit for the completion of the game.





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References:

Eichinger, B. (Producer), & Tykwer, T. (Director). (2006). Perfume: The Story of a Murderer [Motion picture]. Germany: Constantin Film.

Süskind, P. (1985). Perfume. Germany: Penguin Books.