Interaction in Media
In past lecture for my Digital Media class, we discussed the interactivity included with advertisements. This procedure may sound familiar if I mention such ads like the Old Spice commercials. There was not only the hilarious commercial, but the Old Spice man continued online by creating response videos on YouTube to anyone who tweeted @OldSpice. Even celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and Perez Hilton were intrigued and got involved. Below is an example of one of his many video responses, this one is a marriage proposal asked from a viewer: “@OldSpice Can U Ask my girlfriend to marry me? Her name is Angela A. Hutt-Chamberlin #Johannes S. #Beals”
because I just could not help but look at more, here’s one that made me die of laughter…
He really did send her flowers! It’s one thing to do little skits but to actually carry through the act, it’s a whole other level of interactivity! With technology now a days it’s not difficult to connect with others and create conversations with people you probably could never meet any other way but through the interweb. It could also be about connecting people by creating stories with the help of users.
Remember when Arcade Fire had their song “We Used To Wait” used in an interactive film? This was to display the new HTML5 coding and all it’s coolness with Google Chrome. I thought this idea worked amazingly, as it created a great buzz. If you haven’t already go check it out here http://thewildernessdowntown.com/ (Little fun trick: run your mouse around the home screen and watch the birds chase away). The great thing about this was how it was able to involve the fans to create little messages that would then be displayed when you go see the band on tour. Power of interactivity!
Pretty Little Liars Show Trailer
For my latest Digital Media project, I had to create a 5 second trailer, as I mentioned 2 blog posts ago, for a show, movie or book. Obviously I did use the show Pretty Little Liars as the inspiration. This was all put together in After Effects.
It’s not as simple as one may think to come up and then create a 5 second clip, since you have to get the message across in a small amount of time. With mine, I wanted to capture the mysterious theme surrounding the series. I first thought of stop motion, but then felt it wouldn’t display the mood I was going for, so I chose to film (on my lousy digital camera). For this quick scene I have a girl, (who is played by my sister, Sonia) which is suppose to represent one of the four friends in the show, painting her nails. This action is like an exaggeration of the “pretty” factor in the title Pretty Little Liars, also inspired from the opening credits of the show (see other blog post). I started with the first frame zoomed in to her hands with the iPhone in sight, by marking a keyframe, then advanced a few frames forward and added another keyframe that was full zoomed out. This gave the zoom out effect. When she receives the text to her cell phone, I wanted to make the tension rise, as it would in the TV show whenever the girls received a text message. Since in the show most times they get messages from an unknown source labeled “A” and they are mostly threats or warnings not to do certain actions. The music I chose was actually labeled as a children’s theme song, but I thought it sounded a bit too happy that it could turn creepy in this setting. All that’s missing is a creepy clown to pop up, haha.
After the phone vibrates, as visible on Sonia’s face, there is tension. Then all goes cold and silent as the candle blows out, leaving only the iPhone visible. Now this is where the real animation takes place, when the title slowly fades like smoke across the screen. I came across text tutorials for ideas, but it’s essentially a text blur. I first found the proper font for the title, which is Edwardian. Then on the text layer, selected the animate operator and added the opacity and blur tool. Then for the start of the keyframe (positioned right before the text appears) scaled the text up 300%, opacity 0% and blur 100%. Changed the anchor point grouping to “line” so the letters would be spaced out straight. Next was to change the offset, started with the first keyframe at 100% then moved up ahead and had set another keyframe to -100%. This lets the letters to animate out then back in, but then changed the shape of this to ramp down, in the advance area. Creating that nice flow in as you see in the clip. And of course, music always impacts the mood, so when the letter flew in I queued some frantic piano keys. Also, in the background, though it’s hard to tell, there is a piano on the left of her. Perhaps there is someone else in the room that played it….A?
*Note: when uploaded the 1280×720 HD version to YouTube the music was shifted slightly off, therefore I used a smaller version for the purpose of displaying it on the blog. The original and one submitted does not have this problem.*
The Tran5media Experience
I’m pretty sure we have all encountered some form of “transmedia” lately. This term seems to have a few different definitions that could get confusing. From my understanding, it’s about connecting an audience from a particular platform, perhaps a movie or show, by using other means of media to interact.
Have you attended a concert lately? How about watching a concert live on YouTube. It’s awesome how we are now able to do this. Watch a LIVE concert from the comfort of our computer screen! I find it’s the new way to grab an audience, with special concerts and festivals now streaming live footage for those not physically there to enjoy. Maybe you even tweeted about it or posted a status update on Facebook about this show, stimulating a conversation. This is all a form of transmedia.
This weekend was the Deadmau5 concert in Toronto at the Rogers Centre (or how some still call it… “SkyDome”). Tons of excitement surrounded this tour finale, and he is the first Canadian to headline this huge venue in it’s 22 years. To add to this hype he allowed LIVE broadcasting on YouTube for the first 25 minutes of the show. This was to mark the launch of his new Live streaming website live.deadmau5.com.
During the show I noticed my twitter feed blow up with people tweeting from the concert. Yes I was still very jealous of them being there, but I was glad to have the option to view the concert on YouTube. It just adds to the whole experience of this one show. This crossed over to many different social networks connecting with a vast audience beyond his crowd in the Rogers Centre. For the people at home, it seemed like they could be as involved with the show as the people actually there, minus the pushing up against rave-dancing people, stepping in who knows what as people go insane to the beats. Different experience but same show. Also, the radio station Z103.5 in Toronto held an hour special of spinning Deadmau5 beats from 8-9pm the night of the show, while also having the radio station Street Team at the Rogers Centre entertaining the arriving fans. This all adds the the experience of this one Deadmau5 concert. An awesome one for sure.
Here’s the newest Deadmau5 single that he used to kick off the special 25 minute live stream.
