Thesis Paper by yvonne romano

THESIS (UNTITLED) YVONNE ROMANO THESIS 1 / FALL 2012 / INSTRUCTOR: JUN SASSA

CONCEPT STATEMENT

CONCEPT STATEMENT My thesis is an interactive digital narrative that raises awareness about where our food comes from and how it is manufactured; alternatives to consider when buying; and best ways to handle food once you get it home. It will take a fresh, playful approach to sharing insight about our food choices and how to keep the foods we consume, and ourselves, safer. The components of the project will be structured in a website with accompanying animated shorts.

IMPERATIVE

IMPERATIVE I was fascinated by the documentary Food Inc. and started with the premise of doing my thesis on food. I researched other documentaries, organizations, books, statistics, ways information about food is displayed, and what exists in terms of informative online content. I wanted to create a project that brought food into a playful context, liberating it from â&#x20AC;&#x153;coldâ&#x20AC;? numbers and facts, cryptic spreadsheets, and text-heavy representations, in hopes to create a less intimidating, easily digestible, and most of all fun, healthy relationship with food awareness.

IMPERATIVE

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: TONE

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT TONE What struck me during my initial research was that information about food is often presented in a very serious and dry manner, especially when looking at resources like the US. Food and Drug Administration, Nutrition.gov, United States Department of Agriculture, as well as books on the subject. Even with sources like food blogs and other organizations, information is presented in a blunt, clinical, not-very-approachable way. I did, however, find some interesting examples that countered this pattern.

Michael Pollan’s book Food Rules, was released in a new illustrated version, making it more appealing and friendly. Another example is Chipotle’s commercial, Back to the Start, a stop-motion animation that offers an interesting view of our food system today and playful insight into the growth of the commercial food industry and call to return to less industrialized methods of farming. Although unrelated to food, I also looked a lot at Creature Comforts, admiring their use of dialog, subtle humor, and clever narrative structure. A combination of these examples is what I want my project

to embody: not so much of an infographic or text-heavy approach, but something that takes “food” with an approach of child-like amusement and playfulness, yet still provides essential information.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: INTERACTIVE & VISUAL STYLE

INTERACTIVE As a starting point in conceptualizing a web narrative, I examined different web formats, looking at parallax and vertical scrolling sites such as: Spelltower,

http://www.spelltower.com

Big Apple Hotdogs,

http://www.bigapplehotdogs.com

WWF Foodstory, http://assets.wwf.org.uk/custom/foodstory

These are Things.

http://thesearethings.com

Since there is so much information I wanted to present, simplicity would have to be key, and keeping with a simple vertical scroll with minimal dynamic elements such as icons, illustrations, etc., would in my mind, be effective.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: INTERACTIVE & VISUAL STYLE

VISUAL STYLE I wanted to take a simple approach stylistically as well, making it fun, colorful, and engaging. Looking at vector illustrations, solid planes, no defining outlines, and playful colors. Included here are illustrations by Danel Frost, Ryan Todd, Owen Gatley, and Luke Best.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: ORGANIZATION

ORANIZATION I organized my gathered data in a flow chart to begin to define the main topics I wanted to address, and decided to split the information into three categories: 1] where your food comes from before you buy, 2] what to consider for when you are actually in process of selecting the food you buy, and 3] once you’ve bought your food home, how to deal with proper storage. These will be the three main categories that define the content structure and flow of my digital narrative.

Topic 1 will include illustrations contrasting how our food system worked before vs. the industrial commercial food system now. Topic 2 will give insight into food “in-season“ and include a seasonal diagram. It will also discuss the benefits of buying from “local” providers. Lastly, it will examine the merits of “organic” food and include a diagram of the Dirty Dozen, (foods found to be most contaminated with pesticides). Topic 3 will address proper storage and placement of food items through a diagram of a fridge, as well as information on shelf life and dealing with leftovers.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: ORGANIZATION

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: ANIMATION

ANIMATION Continuing with this idea of a narrative, I wanted to enhance each of the three major sections with related animated shorts. The animations will be in the same visual style as the rest of the site.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: ANIMATION

PROTOTYPE: INTERACTION

PROTOTYPE: INTERACTIVE Initial wireframes, and styleframes. Topic 1: Topic 2: Topic 3:

PROTOTYPE: INTERACTION

PROTOTYPE: ANIMATION, STORY 1

PROTOTYPE: ANIMATION STORY #1 Looking at the commercial food industry and what an industrial agricultural system has done to our traditional sense of food. A humerous, subtle, satire on the topic.

FADE IN: EXT. ON THE FARM - DAY On a farm, scene of a cow and a stool. Farmer with a bucket walks in from the right. He walks over to the cow, sits down on the stool and starts milking, then leaves.He comes back with a syringe and pokes the cow with it. The cow Stands up, buffed up with muscles, and shoots milk out of its utters at the farmer. The farmer gets shot off the screen. CUT TO: CLOSE UP: COW (worried) Wow. Yeah.. um.. There is a pause as COW looks to the right, and looks back at the camera) COW (CON´T) I don’t know what happened… I just.. I.. I couldn’t control myself. THE END

PROTOTYPE: ANIMATION, STORY 1

PROTOTYPE: ANIMATION, STORY 2

STORY #2 A subtle play on commercial and organic produce.

INT. IN THE DINING ROOM Close up of a piece of broccoli on a plate. A fork comes down, pierces it and takes it up off the frame. The broccoli in front of a mouth opening. BROCK chewing. He is wearing a disheveled broccoli suit, bags under his eyes, sunken in face, and unkept facial hair. TOM, in a tomato suit, eating tomatoes. He is blonde, and handsome, and can bounce a nickel off his abs. TOM You don’t look so good. BROCK Yeah well I got pepper sprayed, couldn´t see, and then stepped in some peepee. Not to mention I think I’m coming down with the flu. BROCK reaches over and picks up a glass taking a sip. TOM (hastily) DON’T DRINK THAT WATER! Brock keeps the big gulp in his mouth, cheeks puffed out).

TOM (CON´T) The plumber said that sewage is coming up through the drains. Water seeps out of BROCK’s mouth. TOM (CON´T) Lucky for you i was here. You potentially just drank poop. BROCK I´ve been drinking it all day… There is a pause. BROCK (CON´T) (grumpily) How was your day? TOM I swam in the lake, and laid out in the sun all day… (TOM smiles) …Au Natural! THE END

PROTOTYPE: ANIMATION, STORY 2

PROTOTYPE: ANIMATION, STORY 3

STORY #3 Looking at the importance of proper food storage through humerous interactions of food within the fridge.

INT. FRIDGE View of the fridge door from the inside. Milk hops into view, and perches next to a hot sauce. HOT SAUCE (looks over) Condiments only. MILK ignores the comment. Glances over, and looks back. HOT SAUCE (clears throat) I said… Condiments ONLY! MILK Huh? HOT SAUCE (frustrated) Condiments only! You can’t be here. HOT SAUCE tries shoving milk off the screen, MILK is too heavy.

MILK Alright, alright. I’m leaving. MILK tries to slide back in, the HOT SAUCE looks over angrily, and the MILK slides back off the screen. The MILK walks back in dressed as ketchup. HOT SAUCE gets fired up, his eyes bulge, and sweat drips from his forehead. HOT SAUCE GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! The MILK walks away. STRAWBERRY passes him. STRAWBERRY is walking along the bottom of the fridge. He smells something funny. He tries to locate it. Sniffing to the left, sniffing to the right. He starts losing his color. Panting. As he looks off to the left of the screen, he notices BANANA, chokes, turns grey, coughing, starts growing fuzz balls and collapses. BANANA, wide eyed, flees the scene running. CARROT the cop tumbles into the scene, gun pointed at BANANA… CARROT FREEZE!!

PROTOTYPE: ANIMATION, STORY 3

BANANA puts his hands in the air, worried. CARROT throws BANANA out of the fridge. INT. THE CABINET BANANA is sitting on a bench in a dark cabinet, next to him is ONION. ONION is round, big, and tough: Tattoos on his outer shell, and scars. He can make anyone cry. BANANA They threw me out. ONION (sighs) Me too. THE END

PROTOTYPE: ANIMATION, STORY 3

FEEDBACK

ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

For the most part, I think my project has

choppy, where it doesn't take away, but rather puts emphasis on the humor. For my third animation about proper food

developed pretty smoothly with some

I received some positive feedback at the

storage, Tibo suggested an alternate

minor adjustments for my animated

end of the semester from our external

ending with more â&#x20AC;&#x153;oomfâ&#x20AC;?that brought all

shorts: playing more and including more

critics: Paul Imperio from Suspect, Tibo

the characters together, but after a

dialog in my scripts, playing with differ-

Charroppin from Flickrlab, and Magnus

sidebar discussion among the three of

ent perspectives in shots to heighten

Atom from Omega Darling. With back-

them, decided that the subtleness of the

action, adding additional interactions in

grounds in animation and motion, they

humor in the ending already worked just

my third animation to make it more

were there to look over our scripts,

fine.

dynamic and cohesive, and also adding

storyboards, and styleframes.

more of an overall narrative within it,

They said all three of my animations were

altering it to make it work better. Also,

Paul liked the humor and dialog of my

short and sweet, that my styleframes

some stylistic changes in character

animations and suggested the actual

looked great, and that i had created a fun

design. In addition, there have been

animation compliment the dialog: making

world.

some adjustments for my web portion of

the movements just as eccentric. Tibo

my project: placement and order of

and Magnus had different opinions. They

topics, working on transitions to make it

compared it to South Park, where the

flow more, and adding a menu for easier

animation can be really simple and

navigation.

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE FALL 2012 SEMESTER Interactive: Completed wireframes, stylegrames, and mock-ups. Animation: Completed storyboards, styleframes, and character designs. WINTER BREAK Interactive: Gather assets. Basic HTML, and CSS set up. Animation: Gather and organize assets. Drawing. Initial set-up in AE. SPRING 2013 Interactive: Add interactive elements using JQuery and Javascript. Animation: Obtain sound. Start compositing and animating. Edit. Finalize.