Scene 1

Now that my storyboard is solid and caters for Ibook Authors restrictions I have started drawing up my scenes. This is the first scene that I had drawn on my storyboard.

This has then been redone in Photoshop using the Cutout effect and the ripped paper themed that I decided would look good after crit feedback, to this piece I also added a laptop so that the photos of the dogs could be played as a slide show rather than static images on a small paper.

However after having asked feedback from the class once this was complete they decided that the ripped paper effect didn't look right and it would be better without that and to have everything in the cutout effect. So here is the finished mock up of page 1 without the ripped effect.

I think it was the right choice to get rid of the ripped effect and am very pleased with how this looks. I will now continue to make the scenes I need for my book with no ripped effect and only using the cutout filter.

Storyboard take 2

With the feedback from crit I realised that I needed to try and work my story around the fact that Ibooks Author does not let you have anything that Auto plays, which means that whatever audio or video you have, it will need to be clicked first before it plays, to sort this problem I have come up with a new storyboard that has scenes that have clickable/playable items rather than the whole scene being a video. 

The first scene shows a kitchen counter with an open news paper showing the news report with photos of the dogs in the shed, a calendar that shows the date and year and a radio which says "click to play". When you click the radio the audio from a news report on the dogs being found is played and the key words from the report come out of the radio to highlight them from the rest.

The second scene shows a telephone by a front door, above this is a quote from my mums interview, this scene is a still scene.

The third scene is of the same phone as the second scene however this time when you click the phone you will hear the conversation my mum had with the lady from Kit Wilson, there is also a quote from my mums interview.

The fourth scene is of the front of the Kit Wilson building, when you click the automatic doors on this scene they will open and play an animation of my mum going to select a dog, when the animation is over the doors will close again .

The fifth scene is the same as the fourth however when the doors open it will play an animation of my mum taking the other dogs to meet Archie, as the scene before once the animation has finished the doors will close again.

The sixth scene is of my mum taking Archie home, in this scene you can see her walking him to the front door, this scene will be still but will have a quote from the interview.

The seventh scene is of our front door, when you click the door, it will open showing Archie at home in 2006, it will show him not being able to play or be touched and when the animation has finished the door will close again.

Very much like the seventh scene the eighth scene will be of our front door six years later, this time when the door is clicked it will open and show how much Archie has changed, it will show him playing with a ball and enjoying his life, and as before as the animation finishes the door will close again.

This storyboard has left room for Ibooks Author demanding that things are only played once they have been clicked on. My next job is to start drawing up the scenes so I know how big my animations need to be.

Pitch Feedback

Having pitched my new story to the class, the feedback was positive.

The tips that I have been given about my animations are to stay away from anyone walking as this will be extremely difficult to make look good and I have also been advised against drawing Archie as a moving cartoon at the end, it has been suggested that I have a series of still photos or a video of him playing with the ball. 

This idea then lead to the discussion of having the cutout effect in the background but having the important parts of the scenes as real images on torn paper to make them look as if they had been ripped off of a photo or a magazine and placed onto the drawn background. This can then be used with the sequence of stills so that my walking scenes can still be done but are deliberately choppy and not smooth, in a similar way to the title sequence for Russell Howards Good News as you can see here

The other thing that the class and I got talking about was the restrictions in Ibooks Author, as there is no auto play, my scenes would all have had a large play sign over the top waiting for the viewer to click them. I have now decided after some discussion to redesign my storyboard so that it works around this issue. I am planning on either making scenes that have clickable items rather than the whole scene being played or making a main page with options to take you to separate pages or animations.

So these storyboards will be next on my list so I can start building my story to suit Ibooks Author.  

Drawing style

For this piece I wanted a style that could blend my photos, videos, animations and drawings together to make them look seamless and all one piece. To do this I decided that I would need a style and having looked around on Photoshop to see some styles that I could replicate in drawing and the effect I came across that does this perfectly is the "Cutout" effect. This effect will be used on all of my photos and images and I will be drawing to blend so that it is very difficult to tell the difference between photo and drawn, this is what the cutout style looks like.

Storyboard and Animatic

Now that I have my interview fully edited I can start my first draft of the storyboard and from this create a simple animatic. 

Here you can see that my opening scene will be the news report from the radio with the key words coming out to highlight them and then switch to the news paper which will show photos and quotes from people that rescued the dogs. 

This will then go to the first scene which is of my mum ringing Kit Wilson, in this scene you will see the phone sitting on the side and then my mums hands dialling and picking up the phone to talk. 

The next scene has a question mark on it as im not sure if showing this scene will be upsetting and limit my audience, but if I were to keep the scene it would have quotes from the news report such as "basically wild" with photos of the dogs in the condition they were found in along with my mum elaborating on how horrible the contions were and how they made her feel. 

The third scene is the lady from Kit Wilson ringing my mum back, for this there will be a woman in the Kit Wilson reception dialling a number on the phone and as it rings the screen will split and my mum will walk to the phone in her house and answer it.

The fourth scene is of my mum walking into Kit Wilson, for this she will walk towards the double doors and they will open as she walks through.

The fifth scene is of my mum picking up one of the dogs and them turning around to put his nose on hers.

The sixth scene shows my dogs meeting the new dog at Kit Wilson, this will involve them walking towards each other and interacting.

The seventh scene is of my mum taking Archie home, in this scene she will be seen getting him out of the car and walking him on a lead toward the front door of the house. 

The eighth scene is showing what Archie couldn't do when we got him home, this will include not being able to walk up stairs and not knowing how to play.

The ninth scene is showing Archie six years later, where he can do all the things scene eight shows he cant for example you will see him chase a ball and run upstairs. 

The last scene will show that Archie is now happy and fits in perfectly with the family.

With this storyboard and a few extra drawings, I have created a simple animatic to show how these types of images will work along side the interview. 

Interview

Changing my mind on a story this late into the project has left me with very little time to collect information and all the assets I need to make my pitch any good, however because the story is so close to home I have been able to record and edit my interview already, this means that the next few steps should be done in time for pitch.

My interview was recorded on a Zoom H1 which made checking the levels very easy to manage. I edited my audio using final cut pro as I was familiar with the software and only needed to make small changes to the way it was originally recorded. Here is my edited interview ready to build my storyboard around.

Ibook story take 2

I have been brainstorming for a new story after the issues with my last one. This story needs to be easily and quickly accessed so that I can get all the information I need as well as photos, videos and interview done in the next two days. 
The story that suits this criteria is about my dog Archie. This story starts in 2006 when 204 yorkshire terriers were found in a breeders shed after she died of a stroke. Three pet rescue centres were sent out to help rescue the dogs from the horrific conditions they had been found in. Most of the dogs had been living in the shed without human interaction or light so a lot of them were blind and wild. Some of the dogs were also inbred and had many health problems. 
The dogs were rescued and thats when my mum rung up Kit Wilson which is our local pet rescue centre and asked to be considered to have one of the dogs. Because we had already had a dog from them before, we had already had the checks and home visit so we were accepted and my mother was allowed to chose a dog she wanted. 
When we got the dog home we named him Archie, he didn't know how to do anything from eating nicely, walking up the stairs to playing and being touched. He had a lot to learn but because we had the other dogs he picked up how to behave reasonably quickly. 
We have had Archie now for six years and he is a completely different dog. Out of the four we have he is the most attention seeking, he loves being stroked and played with and looking back we can't believe that it actually happened to him. 
This story is interesting and very accessible as all the information I need is in the news reports online which all include photos of the dogs in the shed and for the images I need to animate, I can use Archie himself. The interview will be done with my mum as she will be the main character in my book. I am feeling much happier already about this project and although I have to pretty much start from scratch, I am pleased that I have changed from my Nan's story.

Family fun

Like most families, mine have multiple opinions on issues that come up, although in this case it seems to be just my Nan against the whole family.
As I was putting the audio together I asked for my mums opinion on how it sounded, unfortunately the response was different to what I had imagined. My mum refused to listen to the interview as she said it was upsetting and was bringing up family issues that go back several years. After having spoken to her I realised that she wasn't the only family member upset by me picking this story. 
Although I would love to write all about the reasons this story is an issue, I don't think the family would be pleased about that either so unfortunately I will have to just say due to family issues this story will have to come to an end here and I will need to come up with a new story that has no chance of causing arguments. 
We have our pitch in two days so I will need to come up with my story, interview and rough look and feel as soon as I can.

Interview

Last night I spent a few hours round my Nan's house trying to get all the answers to my questions to build the foundations of my story. This is a task that sounded a lot easier than it was. When asking her questions the first time she would answer them perfectly naturally however she would tend to go off track or blend sections together throwing off the structure of my book. Because of this I would ask her to either repeat sections or say something like "thats great but if we can say that again without mentioning the other section as well" she would do exactly that but sound like she had eaten a robot! All of my second takes were more practical structure wise but sounded stale and rehearsed. I know that she has never had to do an interview before and she was nervous but when we got the the last section, we did almost six takes every time getting more stale to the point where she got annoyed and the last take sounded snappy and angry. All in all I can say that the interview didn't go as planned! However I have been cutting up what I have and trying to put it together so it makes sense (which is harder that you imagine!).

Here are the first two sections cut together to tell the story.

Layout ideas

Before I do the interview which I have planned for tomorrow, I need to decide how I want this to look so that I can make sure the audio is not going to feel like it has been thrown over the top of my design. I have come up with three ideas that will give all of the sections their own part making sure that the story is not too confusing and to show that between sections time has passed. 

My first idea is to have a photo album theme, with this I could have captions summarising photos to match the audio so they do not look out of place and also have the option to say either my Nan's age on the sections or the year so the viewer can see that time passes between each section. Here is a rough mock up of what this could look like.

My second idea is to have a table with scattered photos on it, this would work nicely as a main page and each photo works as a link to their relevant page. It would start as a large pile of over lapping photos and when you select the photo you want to see you click it and the other photos move outward leaving this photo in place and the camera zooms in giving you a page layout with your chosen photo, other photos, drawings and animations around it with a heading telling you which section you are on and text explaining the story. In this you would also have a back button to make the camera zoom back out and the photos to move back in so you end up back at the first page again. Here is a drawing of what the first page could look like.

My third layout idea is to have all of the events and sections on a timeline, this will work in a similar way to the second idea in that it is a main page which takes you to separate parts of the story as you please. However what this idea will do that the second didn't was build a strong structure to represent time and order to the sections of the story so the viewer will not come across my nan leaving St. Annes before she has even arrived there. Here is an idea of the sections that I have divided along a timeline. 

The key thing that I have learnt from all of my designs is that I need my audio to work as a story but to be clearly split between my sections so that when you start on section two it doesn't sound like it starts half way through a sentence but also doesn't repeat what you have already heard in section one. I will have to try and make this clear when interviewing my Nan.

Interview sections and questions

It has taken me a couple of days to get through my Nan's life story as it has taken some decoding. Some of the story touches on family issues that are best not to be spoken about as it could cause serious family arguments and upsets, because of this my Nan decided when writing her book she would change everyones name and the names of places the story takes place. This works fine in the interest of keeping the family happy but has made my life particularly difficult as I have had to go through this book with a tooth comb and then try and piece the story back together with real names and places. 
However its done now and there are lots of points that I have pulled out that could be very interesting, here is a break down of the sections I will be using and the questions I will be asking in the interview about each section.

10 days old
      Explain about being given to Mrs Bowden and how your father didn't know you were there
      Why did your mother do this?

Split up
      Explain how your father found out about Mrs Bowden and how he reacted
      Where did your mother go after the break up? Did she keep the house?
      Please tell us the quote on the divorce papers

Age 3
      What is St. Annes?
      Talk about being put into St. Annes, how did you feel?
      Why were you put there? 

Moving to the "big ward"
      How old were you when you moved to the big ward
      Talk about moving from the baby ward where you were happy
      How did the big ward change when christmas came?

Playing going home
      How old were you when you played this?
      What is "going home"?

Dinner in St. Annes
      What was dinner like in St. Annes?
      What happened when you didn't eat your dinner or tried to give it away?
      Tell the story about you being given a laxative because you refused your dinner

Start of the bombing
      What was the start of the bombings like? Were you scared?
      Explain why the robin sitting on the sacred heart was significant 

Evacuation
      Talk about the damage the bombs had done to the home
      Where were you evacuated to?
      Were you excited or nervous to be evacuated?  

Going to stay with mother and new husband
      Explain the meeting between you and your mothers new husband
      Did you get on with your mother at the time you stayed with her?
      Did you like her new husband?

Punished for ruining shoes
      Explain how you were always ruining your shoes and having to get them repaired
      What happened when you ruined your favourite red shoes?
      How did sister act after the incident?

End of the war
      How old were you then?
      Were you pleased to be back in Brighton?
      Did the home look different?

Sneaking into the cinema
      Why did you sneak into the cinema, and who were you with?
      Talk about being too scared to watch the films
      why were you so scared to watch them?

Fake leaving
      Talk about pretending to leave the home and then finding out you were actually leaving
      How did it feel to know you were finally leaving St. Annes?
      Did you feel ready to go?

End
      Talk about going to live with your mother
      Explain  how it was the end of one section of your life, but opened doors for the next part.

Collecting more

After deciding to stick with my Nan's life story I realised that I needed to go back to hers to collect more photos and information. When I went round she had written out yet more stories on bits of paper, envelopes and she also gave me her life story which she has written in the style of a book. This has given me a lot to look through so I will need to start reading through the book pulling out interesting parts to put in chronological order, from this I will be able to write up some interview questions and keep her on track to talk about the right things! 

Change of plan

After deciding to base my Ebook around the story of my Auntie finding out the truth behind her family tree, I went into lesson to discuss this with my tutor. I started by telling them a few of the other stories that my Nan had given me which I felt were all too short to stand as a story on their own, However when I was telling these mini stories to my tutors they suggested that the story would be extremely interesting if I used most of the stories together to tell a full life story of my Nan. Once they had suggested this, I couldn't quite work out why it hadn't been my idea! 

So I have now decided to scrap the story of my Auntie and do a story of my Nan's childhood. Luckily she has boxes of old photos stored away which I will be able to look through and she has also written a book about her life which I have access to and will be able to take sections out of. 

My next steps with this new story direction is to gather the story and photos together as quickly as possible in order to prepare the questions that I am going to ask in the interview. After this is done I will start doing a story plan, record the interview and hopefully have a good idea of what my Ebook will look like, with some good mock ups of the colours and themes for the pitch. 

Accidental Story

While my nan and I were looking through her old photos and reading the stories she had written me, we came across a photo of my older sisters christening. The lady holding her looked very much like my auntie but my nan told me it was my Great Auntie Jenny.
When I mentioned that she looked like my Auntie Debbie, my nan told me a story about how funny it was for me to mention that.

Jenny had been my nan's next door neighbour when my nan and granddad moved into a house in Crowborough in August 1964. From that moment on, my nan and Jenny became best friends, and Jenny got promoted to an Auntie. Many years later my Auntie Debbie was sitting with my nan talking about all of her aunties, but when she came to Auntie Jenny, my nan shook her head and explained that she was not her real auntie, she was just a very good friend.
Debbie didn't take this very well at all and cried for ages because she really wanted my Jenny to be her real Auntie.
A little while later, Jenny was looking through her family history to put together a family tree and found that Debbie's Great Granddad's sister was Jenny's Great Grandma, so they are actually related, which could possibly explain why they look so similar!

Jenny holding my sister, 1992

Auntie Debbie holding Ava, 2012

This is such a simple story with a happy ending, but has a lot of elements that I could use to turn it into a book. I will need to keep searching through the family history to make sure that I have all of the correct information and possibly find some photos or possibly some video that I could use for this piece. But I feel that with the family tree creating the basis for this story, It could come out very well.

Family Stories

Knowing that my nan has lots of old photos and family stories I asked her to have a think about a few stories that she has photos to compliment. I then went round to her house to find that she had written seven different stories which she had written on envelopes that had photos inside. So we sat down and went through the stories to see what she had come up with. Here are a few of the stories she has given me...


Story 1:

"Mother and I on one of her visits to Mrs Bowden, whom she gave me to when I was 10 days old. Though she had to take me back when my Dad came home on leave. Some one told him what was going on and he filed for divorce and I was put into care at the age of three"


Story 2:

"Mother and I ages about three and just before she put me into St Annes, having been made a ward of court and actually given to my fathers custody, but he being in the army, agree to have me put away. He then abandoned me. At least my mother kept in touch, she didn't want me, but didn't want anyone else to have me. My cousin, Gino, told me , she'd planned to leave me there till I died, which happened to some of the girls, if their family didn't come to take them home. Some only went home when they were 14 and old enough to work and giving in another wage to the house and I know some who were sexually and physically abused by their fathers. Others put into service to scivvy for the rich and Dr family. Some, to escape became nuns. And perhaps to dish out the abuse, they themselves had received. Where I was left until I was about 17 years old, was where the word "care" did not exist"

My nan, with her mother. Aged three

Story 5:

"My mother and I, taken in Trafalgar Square. I was 18 years old and although you can't see them, she made me wear boys shoes and long grey boys socks and you can see, she still made me wear ribbons in my hair, this was before she took me to an Italian barber and told him in Italian, to give me short back and sides, I came out looking like a boy. She hated me and was jealous of me or maybe my youth and kept me dressed as a child while I lived that one year with her. I think my stepfather, Cescene was afraid of her, he left her 6 months after he made her take me out of St Annes, he was 12 or 14 years younger than her. Many times I heard her beating him up in her bedroom. Not very happy in this picture." 

My nan, with her mother and aunties. Aged 18

Ebook?!

First things first, what on earth is an Ebook?!

An Ebook is an electronic book or a digital book that can be read on multiple digital platforms including the Ipad.

"Ebooks can be anything from the digital version of a paper book, to more interactive content that includes hyperlinks and multimedia"
www.planetebook.com/mainpage.asp

After the class digging deeper into what we need to do for this project, I realised that the one bit I am stuck on is visualising what the finished product is going to look like, and I think this comes down to calling it an Ebook. When I first heard that it was an Ebook I instantly thought of a text heavy page which you turn to get another text heavy page with the occasional picture. This however is not the case with what we are doing, from what I have gathered from looking at other example of Ebooks (even though there are no accurate example for this project as we are doing something quite new in the field) I gather it will look more like a picture book with animation and video tied into it so that it looks seamless and becomes interactive. I have been shown a little on how to use Ibook author which is the software we will use to create the Ebook once we have all our elements together and I have started to see how we are going to make it work. We have also been shown a tutorial on how to make a photo seem more 3D which was really helpful and inspiring. After these few lessons on options we can use in our Ebooks, I have a much better understanding of what it will look like, however I don't think I will have a complete idea until I start using Ibooks more or maybe even until I start putting my project together in it!
So until then I will need to really get thinking about what story I am doing to give myself the best chance of being able to build it well. 


Some examples



This is an advert for "The Beatles Yellow Submarine", this book is available on the Ibooks store and while this book is coded and hugely complex, this gives a good idea of how you can take the Ibook away from being a normal plain book. This book shows how interactive and interesting the Ebooks can be. This has really got me thinking about what I can make my book look like and what I can make it do. 

Here is an example of documentary animation that I found very useful for this project.
This animation uses mainly photos which apear to have been cut out leaving a white edge which shows they are photos. The colour scheme is quite de-saturated which I think also really works well here and the important objects seem to be a lot brighter making them stand out from the background.
Although there is no audio telling the story in this piece the message is clear and I think works perfectly without spoken audio.

In this documentary animation the use of spoken audio is very strong, the animation would not work without it. From start to finish we are spoken through a story, with the passion of the words spoken it makes the whole piece seem more real. The colour scheme in this animation mainly suites the book keeping an orangey brown town, but the odd colour is thrown in to make the scenes work. This animation is very effective and tells a real story from start to end. What this animation also has is a credit roll at the end where it thanks the people taking part. I think this is a great idea and I will try and use this in my book.