I finalized my idea for the final project when I decided to make it in virtual space since I do not know enough physical computing yet to build a project. I decided to make my project an interactive narrative piece that's everchanging. Even since I became interested in the idea of "the image within an image", I decided to create a narrative where the user can choose how they want to tell the story.
The user interface will be simply the user facing the interface on the monitor and interacting with the mouse. The storyline will start with the image of a person holding 2 to 3 different images. (If I can learn enough actionscript or can find someone who knows, I want to try to create a questionary at the beginning, such as "what is your hair color", so the user can personalize the character that holds the pictures at the beginning to be themselves or however they want the character to look like. So it states that the user is the narrator of the story that he or she is going to make.) Using flash the user will be able to zoom in to see the 2 or 3 different pictures that the character is holding and choose one of them to begin telling a story. Once they make a selection on one of the pictures, the picture will zoom in to cover the full screen. The user will then observe the picture in search for the next 2 or 3 images they can click on to create their story. Each image they click on will be images within an image. For example, as roughly illustrated in one of my sketches, the story begins with a character holding 3 images, photographs or printouts. When the user clicks, it zooms in to show the two images clearly, so the user can make a selection. Once the user picks and clicks on one of the pictures, the pictures becomes fullscreen, showing a woman smiling at the camera as she walks by. The user can then scan the image and find the images within that image for the next selection, such as the two different reflections in on her sunglasses or the image of the movie poster in the mirror behind her, and the story goes on and differs with each image the user chooses.
My idea is definitely mainly inspired by the GPS project by the photography students and the HP printer commercial (link posted in my last blog). I decided to allow the user to create their own narration because I want to try and break away from the linear form of narration that I am very used to. I also want to push the non-linear narrative even further by incorporating the MySQL and PHP scripts that I just learned in Creativity & Computation labs; using MySQL to create a database of images that can be placed with in an image, and using PHP to randomize the images that can be pulled out of the image database. Therefore, each time the user starts the narrative again, there will be different images from the last 2 or 3 that he or she began with. Also, I want to practice using Flash since I have not touched it for any projects this semester.
I know creating the images myself and setting up the system with the codes sounds very ambitious. However, I have asked around and it seems like what I want to do can really be done. It is only the matter of time, but I will do my best to complete it.
Things still being considered:
1. Questionary at the beginning to personalize the character
2. Text story line that goes with the picture
3. Photographs, Illustrator drawings, hand-drawn, scanned-in drawings, or a mix/combination of those for the images?
4. Randomize the pictures from the database?
