Research

Now that I have established the story that I want to do, I can now move on to start researching the content of it and take the opportunity to ask my Grandma questions about my Great Grandma and if she knew much about the time in which the account is written. 

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Before the initial researching stage, I thought about how the book will be broken up based on what my Great Grandma had written in her account. I went through the account and picked out some key points with in it.

I found going through the account and picking out key parts a great help. From doing this I've now got a clear idea of how to break down the account for my Ebook. 

My next steps…

Before I think about how I want my Ebook to visually, I need to sort out the content that I am going to put into it. What I'll need to do is go through the account in which my Great Grandma wrote and from there sort out each sections and take key parts out. From this point I'll be able to then sort out how I want to lay it out and what animations I want. 
Then I am going to move on to how I visually want my Ebook to look. I’ll need to think about relevant designs that would fit in with the account, this means I will need to research the era the account was written for inspiration, look for suitable fonts and think about colours and backgrounds.

I have already got some ideas about how I’m going to set out the Ebook and how I’ll break down the content in chapters. On saying this, I need to development and experiment with what I am thinking of by experimenting and coming up with mock ups whilst along side that coming up with sketches and storyboards in my sketch book. All of this will also be in preparation for my pitch in a weeks time.

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These are some rough and notes that I have come up with to do with my Great Grandma's account:

- Based on the account, could do her life during 1939

- A website called, www.ournewhaven.co.uk - I can use this site to find out more information and find images which are relevant to her account

- Break down each section of the account into sections

- She talks about rationing - maybe have animations of the amount of food

- Where she lived - Mount Pleasant, Denton - What she could see from her house - find images of the area

- What she did during the time

- I could perhaps include what my Great Grandad did as well

- Find suitable fonts to fit in with the theme of the time in which the account was written

- In the account she talks about posters - I could either find suitable images or draw them

- Audio, have the account read - See if my Grandma can do it

An Idea!

After coming up with some potential ideas, I then went on to talk to my Grandma to see if she knew of any family stories that I could use. At first she was bit stuck and couldn't initially think of anything, however after having a think she told me that she remembered she had an account that her Mum had written. She found it for me and showed me that it had been written about the 3rd September 1939, having had a look through what she had written I felt positive that I could use this as my idea for an Ebook. As well as giving me this she also had some pictures of her Mum and Dad and was happy for me to take these away and use. I knew I wanted to find out more as I knew that this would be a good idea for my project, I asked my Grandma some questions and asked if she had some more images that I could use. Below are the pictures of my Great Grandparents.

This is the account that my Grandma let me use.

Initial Ideas

In my sketch book I have started a double page spread of potential ideas based on what I know and what could potentially be used with more research. Here are some of my ideas:

- My Grandad coming from Malaysia -> perhaps talking to my Dad and seeing if he knows any of his family history, as my Grandad is on holiday.

- My Grandma and Grandad living in Malaysia lived in Malaysia for a few years -> they might have some interesting stories, my Dad also used to live out there when he was younger; he might have some funny/ interesting stories about what it was like living out there as a young boy and what school was like too.

- In Penang my family used to own whole street, which was quite an expensive area, they ended up giving it away to the church -> I would need to explore further into when this actually happened, why the did and try and source some relevant images.

- The house that I live in -> this is where my Grandma lived when she was young and grew up here, I could look into the family history of the house; find out when the house was built and pictures of it and the street during the time that my Grandma lived here.

- My Mum was one of the first babies born in 1970

First thoughts...

On receiving the brief, there wasn’t a family story that immediately came to mind. I did start by thinking about my grandparents and their childhoods but I was struggling to think of anything that I thought would be a good idea for an ebook. 
In my sketch I have began by drawing a rough family tree, I thought that this would help me to see who I can target and who to ask for good stories. I have also started doing a double page spread of ideas of potential stories that I can think of, and I'll be talking to my Grandparents and seeing what ideas I can come up with based on the knowledge I have received from them.
My initial thoughts of ideas are targeting my Grandad on my Dad's side and my Grandma on my Mum's side. My Grandad is Malaysian, so I'm thinking that I could find an interesting story through that, however it would be quite a struggle with finding information out as he is currently in Malaysia which means contacting him will be pretty hard. On the other hand I am really close to my Grandma so I can easily talk to her about her family's history and gather helpful documents and pictures to use.

Project One: Interactive Family Ebook

The Brief

In this assignment you are going to produce a piece of interactive documentary narrative which utilises a wide range of media, delivered as an ebook for the iPad. Researching content and sourcing the assets for documentary can be an extremely time consuming process, so this project will keep the content and themes of your story close to home, drawing initially from material that exist for you (family stories and archives of images) and then extend this with new assets (interviews, graphics, animations).

Your aim is to produce an aspect of your family history or a family story to life with mixed media. This family theme can be interpreted in a wide range of ways; think quirky stories or remarkable family members, relative who took part in historic events or have lived interesting lives. It can be historic and/or contemporary, can focus on one particular family member or spread of personalities, can tell a story in depth or cover a range of events, can focus on a period of history or range over time. Alternatively, you could explore the place you're from, which might mean the house, street or town. Part of the challenge of this brief is to find an interesting an engaging angle.

You will source or generate text, images, sound, moving image and animation. The ebook must contain at least the following:

- A title page or cover which may be animated
- Text and images
- At least one audio interview with a family member, edited to tell the story in 1 minute or less
- Animated visual elements to accompany the interviews

You will use After Effects to create the animations and iBooks Author to create the interactive ebook for iPad.

You will follow a project planning and design process which will be reflected in your blog and sketchbook. This will include at least the following:

- Plan your time with a production schedule
- Find and analyse examples of interactive documentary narrative
- Find and analyse examples of animation used in a documentary context
- Visual research which contributes to devising the look and feel
- Design the graphical style, interactivity and animation
- Undertake design and technology research into developing content for the iPad

You will pitch your content and design solutions to this project to the group for discussion in the form of a prepared presentation. This must contain mock-ups, navigation plans, storyboards and animations and/or sequences which experiment with your animation style.

You will produce your ebook and apply user testing techniques to explore it's characteristics as a piece of interactivity. You will detail your user testing in your blog.

You will prepare a finished ebook to crit with the group of and your tutors.

This assignment requires the following:

- Attendance at pitches and crit presentations is compulsory
- Sketchbooks must be available for discussion with your tutors in every lesson and must be updated at least weekly throughout the project
- Blogs must be must be updated at least weekly throughout the project
- The pitch must be in the form of a presentation, prepared in advance of pitch session
- Production will be complete by the crit, so a full product is shown in the crit session, though changes and improvements can be made between crit and deadline

Deadlines and Key Dates

Monday 24th September - Assignment set
Monday 22nd October - Pitch your proposal
Wednesday 5th December - Crit your final product to the group
Wednesday 12th December - Submission of your work

FdA Second Year

During the summer break, we were given a project to complete for the beginning of the second year.

The Brief 

This assignment is to be completed in the summer break between years one and two of the FdA Digital Media Design.  During the summer holidays, you must take part in an event or placement, which shows an ability to take advantage of a networking opportunity.  This may be:-

- Attendance at a conference or industry event as a delegate or a volunteer

- Work experience at a design agency relevant to Digital Media Design

The following networking opportunities are available and suitable for this assignment:- 

1 

   Attend the three day OFFF Digital Media Design Festival in Barcelona (16^th – 19^th May 2012)

2   - Volunteer at Reasons to be Creative ( Formerly Flash on theBeach ) (3^rd – 5^th September 2012).  Email your interest in this opportunity to volunteer@reasonstobecreative.com as soon as possible.  There is a selection process for this; being offered a place as a volunteer is not guaranteed but offers a great chance to be at the heart of the conference, as well as attending for free.  

3   - Buy tickets to Reasons to be Creative at http://www.reasonstobecreative.com/tickets/ and attend as a delegate.  

If you are unable to take part in any of the above opportunities, then it is your responsibility to find an alternative conference of a similar scale and relevance (minimum 3 day conference specifically related to Digital Media Design) or to set up a placement at a design agency, again with a minimum of three days attendance.  Obviously if you’re lucky enough to be offered some paid work at a design agency, you can use this as the basis of this assignment too.  

Method of Assessment

What you need to produce:

You will write a report (word count guide 2000) which outlines an aspect of this networking opportunity you found useful or interesting, and you will produce an illustrated presentation to show to the group and your tutors at the start of next academic year. 

Your report and presentation should be based on something, which inspired you about this experience.  If you’ve attended OFFF or Reasons to be Creative, you may want to pick a particular agency or designer your saw talk about their work, do a profile of them, review their talk and analyse why you found them inspiring.  You may pick a theme you saw several speakers discuss (such as social and mobile media or a technology like html5) and explore the range of responses to this from the speakers you saw.  

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In response to the project I attended a six day work placement at a design agency called East Web. I helped to design a web site for a project called Location Darling, which helps people find suitable venues. This is what I came up with based on the sketches I was given and the design requirements: