The Street, specifically, serves as the initial foray into applying The Concept. This project is the practical application of The Concept's approach and goals. Our team never loved spending a ton of time concepting and endlessly writing documents in pre-production so we decided to dive right in. It's hard enough for us to explain our ideas to each other, let alone in proposal documents. Storyboards and flow charts seemed to confuse people even more.
For better or worse, we went ahead producing and concepting on the fly. Although it's been tough and frustrating we've gained a perspective we wouldn't have with a more traditional approach to media production. This past year has shown us the benefits of both traditional pre-production and new methods of creation and conceptualization. We are still more comfortable with our "let me show you rather than tell you" attitude.
So what do we expect the final product to be? What will we have to show for a year's worth of work? Foremost we intend to have the experience in bringing a unique idea from concept to fruition. The technical skills, work flow and various to problem solving that we have all gained are invaluable, personally and professionally. Whether they show through in the final version of Episode 2 or we decide to start over with a new story line remains to be seen.
- Brian 4/17/03
Release Notes by Version
Version 3.0 Lite Notes
Version 3 of "The Street" is a leaner more simplified version of our end vision. This "Lite" version contains all of the functionality and experience of the full version but with fewer paths to follow. We decided that a "lite" version containing final artwork, sound, and functionality would be more effective than presenting the entire vision with stand in artwork and rough edits of sound. This also serves as a valuable user testing piece while we are working on completing the full version. It also helps convey basic concepts and the overall aesthetic when we try to recruit more talent to help finish the final edit.
- Finalized cinematic introduction including soundtrack and sound effects.
- 3 of 5 deciders completed.
- 7 of 15 strings complete with final art, soundtrack and sound effects.
- Removed any and all elements that do not contain finished artwork.
Version 2.5 Notes
- More finished artwork included.
- Fine tuning sound transitions. The last of the music that we don't have permission to use has been changed out.
- Removed the ending screen opting to have it loop back automatically.
- Rough animation ideas added to thumbnails.
- More complete, if not final sound tracks added.
- more work on the loader bar.
- still working on clear and concise instructions.
- Feedback form simplified.
- Packaging improved.
Version 2.0.1 Notes
- Fixed minor sound problem that caused doubling the tracks when the crossfade wasn't finished executing.
- Dropped a revised stand in for the first decider to accomodate a more accurate transition into the Driver's first scene.
Version 2.0 Notes
Version 2.0 represents a leap forward in the evolution of the project. This version features the first complete rough in of the entire episode. Utilizing stand in artwork, all of the paths through the episode are present and navigable. This serves as the skeleton to build on, and flesh in. The main programming for the piece is finished so that attention may be turned to focusing on custom programming to accomodate various parts of the experience.
Upgrades from v1.5:
Complete rough in - All "deciders" are present in the form of stand in artwork. 90% of all panels are represented with thumbnail sketches. The visual "world" is fully represented and illustrates the relationships and their progression through time.
Soundtrack - 99% of the soundtracks for each scene is included. Transitions and sound levels remain rough.
Support Site / Packaging - the credits page is updated. Created a feedback form for informal user testing.
Priorities for next version:
- Increase visibility and clarity of the instructions for using the piece.
- Finished Black and White artwork
- sound quality and transitions
- implementing sound effects
- animation rough ins
- dialogue
- Transitions between deciders and story mode
- Finished introduction and graphic layout of ancillary screens
Version 1.5 Notes
The goal of this version release is to present an extremely rough iteration of entire project. Until now we have presenting disparate pieces of the different sections. This attempts to bring these sections together to illustrate their relationships to each other and the movement between. The The focus of v1.5 is more function and relationship as opposed to visual proofs. Again this is a very rough version, some pieces only represented by stand in graphics.
Specific Components:
Intro - The intro adds a skip button to go directly to the episode. We've removed the "flying panels" from the introduction, deciding to redesign the intro. The remaining fly-through will stay but since the panels were removed the intro is rather brief and has a startling transition to the start screen. We are working on replacing the music with original material or material used by permission.
Episode Start Screen - includes a working rough of the loading bar, placeholder graphics and text in place of redesign graphics and presentation.
Episode intro - simple story boards representing the panels for the episode introduction. The movement
between panels appears as intended in the final piece.
"Main Nav" - The starting point for entering the various storylines. There is updated artwork to reflect the various choices and basic sound loop for the ambient soundtrack. Movement within this frame needs to be refined but is functional. Various
Strings/Storylines - All strings are made up of simple storyboards reflecting the panel-to-panel presentation of the story. Functionality and basic behavior is presented as intended for final piece. IMPORTANT, the spatial layout of the panels, how the relate to each other on the "page" is arbitrary in this version. Due to time constraints, Nathan's intended layout was not implemented. We are busy work on v1.6, which will present the real physical layout of the panels. At the conclusion of any one story line the user is presented with a choice to return to the Main Nav to begin another string.
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