Alexandra Kostromina – Reflection

Project Transmedia Storytelling

A Whole New Team – Alexandra Kostromina – 410473

For the last 3 weeks I was working on the project for the United Nations with the team of ANT students.In the beginning the assignment was not completely clear,but I liked the idea itself.I was looking forward to create a project for children about unusual fairy tales.I also did not like my first team for several reasons and expected troubles in it,so I switched my team as soon as possible and I enjoyed the new one.

In a couple of days the assignment got more clear and we created a nice concept on which everyone loved to work.We were meeting with a team every day from 10.00 till 16.00 (sometimes even longer) and worked hard together.To organise our work we decided to use online board “Trello”,which is more useful,convenient and easier to use than physical scrum board.We divided big tasks,so each member of the group was responsible for a part of the project.

My tasks:

My responsibility was to created a 2D design of the piggy island and the three little pigs which have not least role in our game.So,I also  created the content and made drawings for the mini-game about piggy island,where the player help the pigs to clean up.The player meets them in the mini game for the first time and they help the hero during the rest of the game.I also worked on some animations like Aladdin flying to the pig’s island,all the characters flying to the Hansel and Gretel Island and a lamp flowing away in the treehouse video.Then I worked on the intro title with the name of our team and a voice over for the final movie.All my problems and choices that I made can be read on the blog.

While doing all my tasks ,unfortunately,I did not learn completely new technical issues and did not struggle with unknown programs.But I worked a lot in Illustrator and After Effects,which allows me to learnt a lot of new features of these programs and improve my skills.Now I feel more confidence and comfortable using Illustrator.During the process we helped each other a lot,so I also learnt from my team members.

The team:

I really enjoy working with my team,the group is amazing.I love the idea of mixing international and dutch classes together even though in the beginning it was a bit unusual,we got well together really fast.We took all the decisions together,discussed all the problems in a calm way and everyone agrees quite fast.We always gave feedback to each other,what was helpful to every one and saved a lot of time.During all three weeks we were helping each other and learning from each other.In my opinion,the most important is that everyone was interested and involved in the project,everyone was willing to work for the good final result.It is exactly what I wanted in my team.We also have fun while working on the project.

But the teamwork is not the only thing for me which went good.I also like the assignment and it was good experience of working with a client.I also appreciate that we got a kind of freedom to do,what we want to do and work on the stuff we would love to work.It allowed us to implement great ideas with great pleasure.Although we got the feedback from the client a bit late,we tried to take it in account and change what was possible to change.

Can be improved:

The only thing that bothered me is time pressure.If we have more time for this assignment,we could do greater project and improve it .We would have more time to think about our target group preferences, pay more attention to actually teaching the kids about world’s problems and improve the concept in this way.In my opinion,we achieved a lot in a small amount of time and the great result is visible.But I also feel that we could do a way better and bigger project for this topic if we would have more time.

Overall,of course there are small tips that can be improved,but I enjoyed this project,my team and the assignment.It was a great experience and I would love to work with team like this one in the future.

Portfolio Video

Tip: Watch it in HD!

Title for the final video

Diana and me worked on the intro title with the name of our team for the final movie. The first idea was to use smoke and make the name of our team appear from the smoke. We chose smoke because there comes smoke out of the magical lamp. We did this animation with a transparent background, so we can use the background we already had in the final video.

Animations #2

Another day I worked on some other animations.I used the content which my teammates created like pictures and characters in Illustrator files and made a small animations of them in After Effects.

The first animation shows Aladdin flying in the trunk to the Piggy island and this animation is used in the our big game to show the journey to the player.

 

The second animation is about the lamp floating away from Little Red.This animation is going to be used in the final Treehouse video.

Animations

Combining the content that I created and drawing from my team member I created small animations .These animations are going to be implemented in our game .The player will see these animation when he travels from one island to another in our journey.The first animation is used when Aladdin and The Three Little Pigs are flying to Hansel and Gretel Island to help to them.The second one shows their landing in the forest.

 

Feedback from the client

Wednesday morning we got a mail from Mark with the feedback of the client in it:

• Aladdin illustration – I’d stick away from stereotypes (Aladdin’s pants) and modernise his dress as hipster, skinny jeans. Maybe its too late to change this but perhaps there is a way to tweak.  
• Concept: represent ISIS through RRH! Not sure about this. Is this visual representation? Very risky.
• Concept: Lamp has been translated at money/power. I think, from the book, its best to leave everyone’s interpretation to each individual? More mysterious.
• Full story: Is game only being released after book? Otherwise it gives away that RRH is the evil character. We would not want to spoil the surprise.
• Really like the Augmented Reality Idea.

What did we do with the feedback?

• Aladdin illustration: Unfortunately we couldn’t change the appearance of Aladdin anymore because everything was done already. But we understand the idea and we would have liked to do it.
• Concept: We never wanted to represent ISIS through our story, Little Red and the lamp represent the evil itself and not an organization.
• Concept: We decided not to mention anything about money or power in the story so we leave it to the imagination of the people.
• Full story: The map comes with the book. It’s folded inside. If it wouldn’t come with the book nobody would understand the characters and names.
• We love to hear you like the AR!

Flying Pictures

I worked on flying pictures and details for them.First of all,I created a wave board for Aladdin,because according to our story his trunk crashed and instead he will us a flying wave board.I also made one of the pigs in a sitting position,because we need pictures of Aladdin and pigs flying together.

 

I also used Aladdin and made Mole pig and Aladdin stand together to put them on wave board later.

I also tried to create a picture of all characters flying together to the Hansel and Gretel island.I did some choices about the colours to use,I made a sky pink and orange to create a feeling of sunset.The blue sky also did not fit in this image.

We did not used this picture in final game,because I also created another picture.In he new composition I  used the drawing of my team member of Hansel and Gretel Island which fit better to the style of the fairy tale.I also added some filters in Illustrator to the picture in order to create the feeling of flying.

Landing Picture

I made some pictures for our game.I created a picture of Aladdin crashed with a trunk on the Piggy Island.I used Aladdin and a trunk ,which were already drawn by my team member and content which I created for the Mini Game.

Content for the Mini-Game

I continued my work on the content for the Mini-Game on the piggy island.The main idea of the game was that a player help pigs to clean up the island and blow away all the trash from destroyed houses.So,I kept working on pigs characters and drew them in blowing positions.First,I looked up for some blowing poses of a wolf just as an example.

After exploring the possible poses I started with my own characters. I used the three pigs standing which were already done and used the same colours and some details from them.I did some sketches of the pigs in blowing positions and then created the characters in Illustrator.The final step was to add  a small air cloud to each of them .

 

.

To finish my work with the little pigs characters I also made their heads from the back view,which will be used in a Treehouse video for a final battle.

Narrator voice over

We wanted someone suitable to be our narrator, but not someone from our group. We asked Margrit Driehuis who would have a suitable voice, she gave us a few options. So we looked around for Tim Roosen, Stefan Brandenbrug, Ruben Sinkel or international students. (Boris Slaghuis is already the voice of Old Lad). Nobody was around and the only teacher we found was Ruben Sinkel. After we asked him the rest of the group didn’t agree with him being the voice over. So in the end we had no one the do it. Because it is already Thursday we need to have someone before tomorrow. In the end Stefan in our group did the voice over, he is from the international course. So Alexandra’s and my search was not needed in the end…