Due Saturday, May 12.
Background
The fifth and final assignment offers the chance to pull together everything you've learned this semester in a single work of design prowess, intellectual experiment, and imagination. Aside from the usual technical details, there are fewer constraints and specifications on this assignment than on any of those preceding.
Options
Option A: Portfolio Piece
Develop a project that demonstrates your mastery of multimedia concepts and related design skills, including animation, use of sound, and ActionScripting. Your audience is a potential employer. The project must contain several substantial navigation paths (i.e., links that diverge in various directions, leading to extended or developed content) and it must show appropriate integration of form, content, and technique. The obvious solution here is probably an interactive CV or personal hypertext; try to go beyond this familiar terrain. Good questions to ask yourself: What new skills have I learned this term? Which ones seem most impressive? What techniques or approaches have I not tried yet?
Option B: Memory Palace
In the classical world, a Memory Palace was an imaginary building orators visualized to help them remember the various parts of their speeches. Builders of virtual environments have modified this concept to apply to simulated spaces that serve as visual indices or structures for written or symbolic records. Using Flash, build a navigable structure in which images, animation, sound, and other media represent some set of records which (a) you find memorable, and (b) fit together in some logical or evocative way. Consider both the way in which you will represent space and the means by which the user will navigate that space. Note: you do not need to use a realistic or representational space (such as my inevitable Bryce worlds). You could instead use abstraction or some other system of metaphors (say, images of the body).
Option C: Theory Into Practice
Develop a Flash project that applies, confirms, tests, or calls into question some major assertion made by Janet Murray or Scott McCloud (or possibly some concept from La Jetée, Watchmen, or one of our Flash examples). For instance, do you think it is true that "all successful storytelling technologies become 'transparent'"? Or: are there properties of the computer as medium that Murray has not considered? Or: is it really necessary, as Scott McCloud implies, to present information with visual simultaneity in order to draw attention to the concept of time? Your notes for this project must indicate the concept you have chosen and how your project works with it.
Technical Details
Submit a 1-2 paragraph description of your project by Saturday, April 21 (you may do this by e-mail if you like). You must obtain approval for your idea.
Concerning the project, there are no specifications for screen size or aspect ratio. The 2 MB object file size (.swf) is a recommendation instead of a requirement this time. In the interest of streaming, keep files as small as possible and consider dividing your work into linked components.
No matter which option you choose, play length and complexity are up to you; generally speaking, greater is better in both respects. Try to sustain the user's interest as long as possible.
You are not restricted to a single movie. However, the starting point of your project must be a Web page named yourLastName.assn5.htm, which should include your initial movie. All source and object files must be contained within your Assignment5 directory on Crow.
Create a representative thumbnail graphic of your project, size it appropriately, and include it on your Crow index page. Link the thumbnail to assignment5.htm.
If you like (and as required in Option C), include notes on your index page.
