What do music, voice, and sound effects bring to a narrative that is different from visual communication channels?
The elements of music, voice, and sound effects bring a complete realm of interactivity and experience to the viewer. In my interactive media player I chose sounds that are relatable which allows the viewer to understand what's going on. I chose music to add feeling to my videos. One is a very dramatic, building up to the moment emphasis one.
The different communicative qualities of music, voice, and sound effects (compare and contrast)
Well to start off, each of these give the viewer a different feel, a different experience. Depending on the musics' overall tone, it can be a positive or negative , happy or sad feeling. Voice overs usually tend to give a sense of personal one on one speaking (conversational). Some would be factual information and narrative speaking. In my nonlinear interface my voice over is a comedic experience from the pins point of view. I wanted to set a humorous tone that would personify and explain what the pins might be thinking...if they could think.
The differences between simultaneous and sequential communication
The main idea behind simultaneous communication is you can do a lot of things at once. For example, with our nonlinear interfaces, the user is able to press as many of the sound effects and music tracks as they want all at one time. This gives the user the ability to create their own sense of chaos or humorous video. Sequential communication differs from simultaneous communication because this is where the user is only using one at a time (or going in order). In my interface, the user is only allowed to play the videos sequentially, but is allotted the option of playing the sounds simultaneously or sequentially.
User vs designer control of your project
Well, the control I (the designer) had over the user I think is in the movie clips. I allow them to see the two different point of views and the kinetic type piece. I wanted the viewer to have long videos to play the multiple sounds a couple times or at least have the sounds play all the way through. I did also (unfortunately) cut off the end of some of the music. I based my cropping of the song around the kinetic type movie. I also hindered the viewer from seeing all three movies at once. I wanted them to view one at a time.
When the user is in control, the user is able to view the one movie with multiple sounds (music and sound effects). They can choose a clip from the top bar and layering sounds from the bottom bar. The user has the option of playing the movie correctly with each corresponding sound effects and music, or create their own narrative and hysterical movie.
Participants’ ability to discover relationships through interactive play
I think the participants will discover relationships in anything interactive. The user goes through a small learning experience that's an adventure at the same time. They press buttons, not knowing what's going to happen (although they may have some sense) and from revealing all of the buttons, they of course must combine and mix them. For example, in my interface, the user I think willl find something that is a remembrance of their own bowling experience.
I actually really enjoyed this project. Yes it was a bear, but I really felt accomplished when it was done. I caught on pretty quickly when I started to get the hang of setting up my interface. I was able to import all my sounds and music in like 30 mins. From there I think worked on making it visually pleasing. I did run into some small setbacks from my thumbnails. After working in flash and seeing exactly how the action script works, I realized what you were saying all along with the simplicity of our designs and how much code our ideas would actually take...with the time frame we had. I'm ready to start making other interfaces and doing more with action script. Doing the code by hand also brought me back to thinking about websites. YIKES!
I thought it was interesting to see the relationship of anticipation between the movie aspect and our interface aspect. Both have that sense of anticipation, but in different ways. In our movies, we sort of set up the scene. (maybe put a little foreshadowing or hold on a scene a little longer than the rest to give it emphasis. In the interfaces, there's anticipation behind the buttons...well the movies too I guess also. There's a sense of "what does this button do?" and "I wonder what would happen if I combine these together?")
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Well to start, I really like the aesthetics of this interface, the integration and continuation of the hand drawn/illustrative from your original animations is really nice. It makes for a really cohesive piece, but I think you could have possibly played out the background texture just a little more to give it a bit more depth. The roll-over marks in color are a nice touch but you may want to make them look consistent stylistically; I noticed the top ones look more vector and that bottom are more stylized and have the hand-written style. Also possibly consider having the roll-over marks show up in the score frames and possibly vary the marks, from numbers to spares and strikes. Even look at displaying 10 frames, and have the roll-over reveal that active ones.
ReplyDeleteThe sound effects are great, they really give character to the piece and they are integrated very well, especially the one where multiple are playing and overlapping. The only sound effects that could use some work are the shaking and the ball going down the lane; I am not sure the random user would get the shaking sound effect, although it is a unique and interesting approach. When I first heard the ball going down the lane I was expecting a crash at the end, otherwise it worked really well. Some more research would be nice as far as music goes, maybe try and find some swing/jazz like music that you would hear in an old-school bowling alley to give it even more character.
There is definitely the feel and personality of a bowling alley present and I think overall the interface is very successful, just might need some minor tweaks.
The hand lettered type and interface is a very smart choice. It makes reference to the hand-painted imagery and vector would have looked very out of place. Good choice. The sound effects were verry amusing and I played them several times. They gave the movie another level that I had never thought of by personifying the pins and making me identify with them. All the sounds were important to the immersion of the user into the video. The discovery of which sounds fit best with which imagery was also another level of user interaction. The only things that I feel could be tweaked would be screen integration and possibly longer music that I could just turn on and have play while I went through all of the clips.
ReplyDeleteThe interfaces hand rendered quality also fit in with the sport very well bowling is an every man's sport and the screen is very inviting and non threatening. The voices also add to the level of comfort and familiarity with the subject matter.
ReplyDeleteyes, that is what I have to say