Final Project: BOM (Building of Materials)

What is the story concept?

I wanted to make a 'choose your own adventure' style narrative, but more for grown ups.  The main character, Christine, has two choices from her search on Tinder, will she go on a date with Steve? or Jared?.  Ultimately the individual watching the video gets to decide.  There are also multiple ways that the dates can end ---each has 4 different endings --- Jina and I will be shooting all the scenarios.  Ultimately the the individual watching the short film will be able to  decide what happens in the movie by moving the small wooden Christine piece on the map of New York in front of them:

Why am I creating this project?

I like the concept of turning the rains over to the viewer to decide how a story turns out.  I love being a storyteller and I find it interesting having the option to help others be storytellers as well.

Building the physical map/board

We will need to have a magnetic sensor and paths that light up when the user chooses a particular path. The wooden Christine piece will have a magnet on the bottom so that when the individual moves the piece from one node to another, the new scenario will be triggered.  We are also wanting to light up the available paths with LEDs so that the user knows what choices are available to them.

BOM:

14 Magnetic Sensors

13 LED strips or multiple LEDs per path

Wooden enclosure for interaction box

acrylic top

transparency film for colorful map

wooden player

TV screen

ICM + PCOMP final proposal

I am really interested in creating a non-linear story that gives the user the ability to choose what happens in the story, ultimately affecting how the story is told. Below is what the installation will look like for the user:

11111

As for a title, I was thinking something along the lines of "London Effect".  I haven't finalized this, and need to discuss it further with my partner.

Roy London has a method of acting technique that I studied in the past for many years. Where the choice of the actor as to what they were to do next in the scene was driven by impulse, as long as it works within the context of the story and scene. Instincts are a very important aspects in this type of acting and when a user interacts with this installation, I want them to be forced to quickly choose the direction of the story moving forward to then dictate how the end of the story will be.

Assignment 2: Make 5

For our second class in Introduction to Fabrications, we were asked to create five identical items using the tools that we learned about in our second lecture. The lessoned to gain from this concept is to form an appreciation of guides, jigs and an understanding of how to use these procedures in creating multiple version of the same item.

Since I needed to make five of something, I wanted to build an items that is usable so to avoid it simply being thrown in the trash after the class was finished.

I'm an individual that is driven to create visual media and stories and I feel that the ascetic in this form of expression is very important.  With that said, about a month ago, I went to ITP's equipment room to rent out a camera, tripod and tripod dolly to document one of my assignment.  To my surprise, our equipment room didn't have any dollies.  This made me sad, because I really like a moving shot in the scene.  It adds elegance and complexity to a shot --- something that a static shot can't always capture. Here's an example shot where a dolly is used, if you are unfamiliar with what a dolly shot might look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSa63M5z1B8.

When I heard about this assignment, I thought this could be a great opportunity to create something that I can use for myself and then donate the other 4 to the equipment room at ITP.

I started looking online and found this amazing folding tripod dolly.

I thought to myself that this would be an easy project to replicate, but adopt slightly.

The short of the story is that  it turned out to NOT be an easy project, even with the guide from that website. It took many days of work and rethinking to pull off the five tripod dollies.  Below is my documentation of the process:

Creating the Tripod Dollies

Equipment:

Sanding belt

Drill Press

Mitter Saw

Day 1: Cutting and Gluing

Cut wood for 5 dollies

gluing the feet at different levels so that the dolly can collapse for easy storage

Day 2: Finalizing the legs

These are the 5 tripods cut out and sanded.  I realized that each piece needs to have a small gap, as seen this in picture, so that the legs can swing out from their collapsed state.

When I added the gap between the different legs, as you can see in this image, the legs no longer line up.  I didn't take into consideration the gap when I first cut the pieces. Mistake #1 for this project.

I explained my issue to a classmate, Lindsey Piscitell, and she mentioned that I should simply cut two pieces of wood that would create the gap needed between the legs when stacked and then cut the ends with the Mitter saw so that they line up.  This photo illustrates that concept.

After cutting the legs, I used the drill press to drill a hole where the legs will rotate to open up into the triangle shape.

Day 3: Hardware

I couldn't find bolts that were the exact size that I needed for the dolly.  I needed 3.5" bolts and all I could find in hardware store around NYC were 3" or 4".  So I used Ben Light's tutorial on how to cut these to size.

I ended up using washers in between each leg, on the top of the dolly and on the bottom to help with the longevity of the pivoting hole.  My initial concern was that if I simply have a regular nut at the underside of the dolly, that it would become loose and the dolly wouldn't be as stabilized. I picked up some wing nuts so that the user of the dolly could tighten the pivoting joint or loosen it to collapse it. 

Here is mistake #2. When drilling the wheels in with a hand drill, it split the wood on the feet of the dolly

I'm not sure if this issue occurred as a result of (1) because I used Pine which apparently a wood that splits easily, or (2) becuase the wheel plate holes were too close to the edge of the foot, or (3) because I used a aggressive drill to insert these screws, or (4) because of a combination of all of the above, but I needed to troubleshoot this issue quickly because I had already spent 2 days making these.

Luckily, I only attached the wheel to one of the legs as a test, so I only had to fix one leg as a result.

I traveled to a hardware store near by and picked up a smaller wheel and decided to pre drill the holes and screw them in with a hand-held screw driver to avoid the issue from above occurring again.

This ended up working really well, so I got to move on the drilling the sunken holes in the top of the dolly legs where the tripod feet would rest.

I used a Forsner bit to create the sunken holes.  I drilled one hole on each leg 1" from the end because that was the perfect length for the tripod to be stabilized on the dolly. I also drilled a second sunken hole on the legs, closer to the center so that a smaller tripod could also be used on the dolly.

This is what the sunken holes look like on the legs

The end result

After a lot of sanding, this is what I have to show...

collapsed dolly

A short tripod using the shallower sunken holes

An extended tripod using the outer most sunken holes

Animating in After Effects

Over the next couple of weeks we will be using Adobe After Effects to animate a character in a 1-3 minute animation.  I have paired up with Grant Henry to create a story around dream of a small lamp that wants to make it big in New York City.

Story idea

A small lamp toy, that you might find at a souvenir store, has come to New York City to try to be in a Broadway play that he has always dreamed of being in. Since he was a child we has wanted to be the lamp in the show Aladdin. He currently works in a lamp store, lives in Central Park and goes to auditions to try and make sure dream come true.  This piece is going to be shot in a documentary/interview style in Central Park where the lamp reminisces about his experiences so far...

Our initial shot ideas are listed here

Character

dude

Storyboard:

Brightness Theremin

Since starting at ITP, I have really enjoyed creating different musical instruments.  In physical computing, I created a theremin and I was excited to try to attempt to create one in p5.js. This past week we were working with sound and video, so I felt like this was an appropriate class to work with webcam input to create a sound.  My sketch is compiled of a oscillating sound that changes the frequency when your hand gets closer to the webcam. The sketch is is ultimately using brightness to change the frequency and the background color.

As your hand gets closer to the webcam, the brightness of your hand increases the frequency. If you completely cover the webcam, allowing no light to pass, the tone stops.

I worked with Shiffman's video about a brightness mirror that detects individual pixel brightness and this sounds oscillator example in the p5.js references to create this sketch.

Here's the sketch.

And here is the code:

var video;

var vScale = 16;

var cols = 48;
var rows = 64;

var osc;
var fft;

function setup() {
 createCanvas(400,400);
 pixelDensity(1);
 video = createCapture(VIDEO);
 //video.hide();
 video.size(cols, rows);
 osc = new p5.Oscillator();
 osc.setType('sine');
 fft = new p5.FFT();
 osc.start();
}

function draw() {
 var bright = 0;
 video.loadPixels();
 for (var y = 0; y < video.height; y++) {
 for (var x = 0; x < video.width; x++) {
 var index = (video.width - x + 1 + (y * video.width)) * 4;
 var r = video.pixels[index + 0];
 var g = video.pixels[index + 1];
 var b = video.pixels[index + 2];
 if (r && b && g) {
 bright += ((r + g + b) / 3);
 }
 }
 }

 bright /= (cols * rows);
 background(bright/2, bright, 255 * log(bright));
 osc.freq(bright * 3);

var waveform = fft.waveform(); // analyze the waveform
 beginShape();
 strokeWeight(3);
 for (var i = 0; i < waveform.length; i+=100) {
 var w = map(i, 0, waveform.length, 0, width);
 var z = map(waveform[i], -1, 1, height, 0);
 vertex(w, z);
 ellipse(w, z, 20);
 }
 endShape();
}