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.