Meredith Silverman

My thesis presentation is in 10 days. I’m done with everything else I need to do for my classes, and now I’m just tying up loose ends on my thesis. I’m still adding a few animation sequences, and I have more sound to incorporate.

Changing the framerates on my animations didn’t work. FlashPageFlip seems to dictate a framerate, not multiply the framerate of each swf. So I had to go into each of my animations and sub-animations and add more frames into each movement. This was a big and mind-numbingly stupid job, but I had to do it. Pacing is very important.

I succesfully transferred all my click-animations into mouseover animations. That was another big job!

My in-class thesis presentation went OK, but left lots of room for improvement. Nancy and David suggested that, instead of summarizing the plot and then showing some of the storybook, I talk about the plot while guiding the viewers through the storybook. And my classmates insisted that I not give away the identity of the characters who stay secret for most of the story.

Sharleen stressed the importance of fluidity. When I go from my PowerPoint presentation to the web, I should either include a link from the PPT, or Alt-Tab to another program. The last thing the audience needs to see is my desktop background, or me mistyping a URL.

At least it’s not the eleventh hour.

I just uploaded a new version of Rigatoni, with animations. Not because the animations are done, but because I wanted to see how a final version would look. I ran into a couple of problems:

• I couldn’t figure out how to make pages that combine animations and text.  For now, those pages just have text.
• Mouseover animations work, but clicks don’t: FlashPageFlip treats on-page clicks as attempts to turn the page. I’ll have to either get into the guts of FlashPageFlip, or make all my animations mouseovers.
• On the two-page illustrations, no single animation can span the centerfold. I’ll have to rework at least one animation from each of those instances.
• All the animations are sped up: FlashPageFlip must control the framerate.

In the next week, and quite possibly down to the deadline, I’ll be working on these issues and also adding sound.

My thesis paper is now at 1500 words. Sharleen suggested I add the required 500 more by talking about my intended audience and my choice to present the work online instead of on a CD-ROM. Getting close!

I wanted to put in a solid couple of days on animation and sound this weekend, but I was sick on Saturday and Sunday.

Below is a record of what I’ve completed in each animation, and what I have left to do. I’m in OK shape to finish everything I’ve listed, but if I had more time, I could really refine it.

1. Page 3: Tony and Marley on the bike. Tony remembers the fateful performance.

• Mouseover: the scene and the motorcycle move as if they were driving
• Click: dream sequence shows Tony’s memory of the performance
• Mouseover: Tony pulls a rabbit out of a hat, but it hops away (Needs work. Change to click?)
• Mouseover: Marley spins and dances
• Mouseover: audience cheers and throws roses

2. Page 5: Hal drives and daydreams in his truck, thinks about what he saw a week ago.

• Mouseover: truck begins moving (Move image down in frame: white space showing.)
  
• Click: dream sequence switches scene to “a week ago”
• Mouseover: a car with a person waterskiing off the back (She could wave or laugh.)
  
• Mouseover: a huge frog with a ribbon in its mouth jumps across the road and says “ribbons” (Needs sound)
• Mouseover: the Mystery Mobile from Scooby Doo, a headless ghost driving

3. Page 7: Penny at the circus, remembering Tony’s performance.

• Click: Penny remembers Tony and Marley in same scene from Tony’s recollection
• Mouseover: Tony drops a rabbit into a hat, waves his wand, pulls it out, then it hops away and is eaten by the lion
• Mouseover: Marley attempts a pirouette but falls
• Click: a kid’s voice in the crowd says, “Mom, can we go home now?”

4. Page 9: conjoined triplets

• Click: they turn around and hurry offscreen

5. Page 10 & 11: Penny and the circus folk. Outdoor scene shows faraway circus tent, trailers.

• Click: Conjoined triplets scurry into scene
• Mouseover: Sword Swallower sneaks a bite of a sword (Could use sound.)
• Mouseover: Bearded Lady gently strokes her beard
• Mouseover: Penny sighs and produces thought bubble of Tony and Marley on bike
• Mouseover: Tattooed Man flexes
• Mouseover: Acrobat guy clears throat
• Mouseover: Acrobat gal stretches (Animated but not working.)
• Mouseover: Elephant moves trunk
• Mouseover: someone comes out of the trailer — fat lady? Midget?
• Click: circus music comes from tent

6. Page 13: Tony vs. Hal part 1. Tony and Marley are about to get hit by the truck.

• Mouseover: bike drifts toward truck (Should this stop or keep looping? Change to click.)
• Mouseover: road is moving, Tony snores, Rock-a-Bye Baby plays
• Click: Marley barks urgently
• Click: Hal honks horn

7. Page 15: A pickup truck spews flowers onto the bike.

• Mouseover: entire scene animates, with truck, bike, and background moving
• Click: truck dumps flowers on bike (It’s animated but not working.)

8. Pages 16 & 17: Pulled over by the side of the road, Tony and Marley confront Hal.

• Mouseover: Hal rubs his eyes and says “not real, not real, they’re not real”
• Mouseover: Tony drops his helmet (Could go faster, he could look down at it.)
• Click: Marley barks and runs around Tony in a circle
• Mouseover: truck makes idling engine noise
• Mouseover: flowers fall off the motorcycle

9. Page 20: The speech in the dark. The whole screen is black, but you can make out eyes. There’s a crowd assembled around a speaker, who stands elevated.

• Mouseover: crowd jumps up and down and shouts, “freedom, freedom, freedom!”
• Mouseover: speaker says: “Join with me: fleedom, fleedom, fleedom!”

10. Page 23: The restaurant. Tony is seated at a table with Marley underneath it. Lulu is standing, ready to take their order.

• Mouseover: Lulu scratches her head with a pencil
  
• Mouseover: Tony knocks over the salt and pepper
• Mouseover: Marley barks
• Mouseover: a customer walks in and says, “Mister, your dog smells terrible!” (Needs sound)

11. Page 25: The protest. It’s the same scene, but more crowded, and now there are placards.

• Mouseover: eyes jump up and down, crowd sounds
• Mouseover: each placard is yelled out loud
• Mouseover: the speaker leads the crowd in a call-and-response: “What do we want?” Fleedom! “When do we want it?” Now!

12. Page 27: Tony and Marley investigate the cardboard box.

• Tony: picks up the box and shakes it
• Mouseover: Marley wags his tail and sniffs (Needs sound.)
• Mouseover: box jumps a little

13. Page 29: The last leg of the trip. View through the truck’s windshield from Tony and Marley’s POV.

• Mouseover: the road animates
• Mouseover: radio plays a short clip of music or some static
• Mouseover: air freshener spins and goes “sniff sniff aaaaah” (Needs sound.)
• Mouseover: Tony scratches
• Mouseover: Marley scratches
• Mouseover: little dial spins around

14. Page 31: The fleas’ new life.

• Mouseover: each of 7 fleas displays some brief activity

15. Pages 34 & 35: Tony and Penny are reunited. Tony and Penny stand together on the circus grounds, the truck cab open, Marley sitting in the driver’s seat.

• Mouseover: Tony hugs Penny
• Mouseover: Penny laughs and smiles
• Click: Marley jumps out, sits next to Tony, and scratches
• Click: truck honks

16. Page 37: Martha and Hal’s flower shop.

• Mouseover: Hal pulls out a bouquet, sneezes, smiles (No sound.)
• Mouseover: Martha holds Hal’s hand
• Mouseover: door opens and a bell jingles
• Mouseover: open sign turns to closed and sky gets dark

17. Page 39: Flea removal. Tony and Penny sit in the bathroom, Marley is in the bath with bubbles on his head.

• Mouseover: Tony reaches out to touch Penny’s hand (Should be faster.)
• Mouseover: Penny scrubs and giggles
• Mouseover: Marley pants happily, shakes off bubbles

18. Pages 40 & 41: The grand finale. Tony and Marley are dressed up in clown costumes. They give a successful performance.

• Mouseover: Tony trips and the crowd laughs
• Mouseover: Marley chases his tail and the crowd laughs
• Mouseover: Penny smiles and claps
• Click: The words “The End” fill the screen and a flea jumps across them.

I chose to write about Flock.com, a new browser that won the community award this year at SXSW.  I used Flock as a jumping-off point to envision the future of the web.  Read it.

After getting some valid criticisms in class, I decided to go a different route with my final project. I created an ITP Slam Book here. This week, I got a few friends to log in and prepopulate it. Today, I put an invitation to participate on the student list.

The look and feel of the site were important to me — it had to feel like a spiral bound notebook so that people will interact with it like one. I want it to plunge those of us who’ve used paper slam books back into that angsty, junior high school mentality.

I downloaded Firebug, the Firefox plug-in that lets you play around with the CSS on a page while you look at it. It was a pleasure to use and absolutely essential to this project.