A decision needs to be made about which scenario to choose. There was the option to take the scenarios to users, but this has been decided against as the stop motion animation itself would be presented to users to spark further ideas and discussion.
I decided to choose the 'Teddy Share' concept due to the existence of similar technologies and the general appeal of the concept. I feel it is one of the more powerful concepts and that users would be able to immediately identify the necessity of such a product to the context it is in and then apply it to their own lives. Some of the other concepts have possible preferable alternatives i.e. using a mobile phone for 'The Chair' scenario to keep each-other updated.
To make the stop motion animation I am using an SLR camera, a lamp, paper and some purple plasticine. It's something i've never done before and I am building on general modelling techniques from tutorial sessions in the first and second years. This is an interesting tutorial on the infrasturcture of more complex models. I am going to be using very small models with little or no facial animation-mainly body animation so internal support is not necessary especially as i wont be reusing them.
The first stage is to build the background.
I used two stock images from the internet and edited them slightly. This will save time as they backgrounds are purely illustrative and what happens in from of them is what is important.
The next step is to make the characters. I would imagine that it would be two parents, child and two interactive objects. I will use teddy bears as in the cartoon strip.
Scene A: Child in bed, being tucked in by mum
Scene B: Dad away from home sitting on the sofa
The advert is not specific as to the reason why the parent is away from home. This will encourage users to appreciate the fact that it is an open concept.
The backgrounds were folded so they stand up by themselves. I put a piece of blank white paper into the scene as the floor. I used black and white backgrounds in to help the models stand out and also to create a cartoon feel.
The scenario was acted out with the plasticine characters in a very similar way to the cartoons. Doing this immediately brought up new options for tactile interactions i.e. squeezing an ear to play a certain track. Feedback was also important: should a display show what is actually being played. Is there another way? Another problem that was identified was whether the other parent would want their partner object to be a teddy bear at all? The set will be reused for user testing tomorrow and they will be able to quickly model their own alternative devices and possibly show how they would use the device.
The stills were edited using windows live movie maker.
It was decided not to do a 24-frame stop motion animation and instead do a key frame animation which is like the scenarios done before, but with more detail. It illustrated the concet just as well, but saved a lot more time.
The advert was not storyboarded as i had the general cartoon strip to refer to. Doing it this way allowed me to explore new ideas as the situation occurred. One of these was the idea that the parent could squeeze the teddy bears ear to play a particular song. This would have to be noted down somewhere. Another option is for the other parent to hold up the storybook that the parent is reading from to make it a more visual experience.
This was successful in illustrating the concept and will be introduced to users. The set will be used as a scenario prototype and also be introduced to users who can then manipulate the set easily and model their ideas. This will be recorded on video.
The next stage is to make a full-sized working teddy bear prototype. A teddy had been ordered from Amazon and should be large enough to hold the wiring. It will arrive tomorrow.
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