Interactivity

we have now been given the second project brief which focuses on the idea of interactivity, there are many ways that new digital media can be interactive for example the Nintendo wii and its motion sensor controls. as i primarily focus on film making i need to come up with clever ideas that will captivate the audience whilst utilising their skills etc.

In a previous post i mentioned the idea of making a 3D film that uses the red & blue 'anaglyph' glasses, the concept of these glasses is that it allows the viewer to be fully immersed in the movie. I also draw inspiration from theme park attractions like 'Pirates 4D' at Thorpe Park and 'Honey I Shrunk The Audience' at the Epcot centre in Orlando Florida. These attractions are effectively short films with a running time of around 15-25 minutes, housed in an auditorium/cinema and require the use of 3D glasses but the difference in these rides is that they have other aspects going on around you that effect your other senses.

A good example is that on the 'Honey I Shrunk The Audience' attraction there is a part when on screen, hundreds of rats are accidently set loose towards the audience. The audience get more involved in this sequenece in two ways, the first is that in viewing the scene in 3D they feel like they are actually there, the second is that sensors & wind machines strategically placed on the floor activate so it feels like all the rats are running right by your feet which effectively adds a fourth dimension to the attraction. It is tempting to consider making an interactive experience like these rides but it would take a considerable amount of time & money to create and will most likely be a lot of hard work, it is however definetly worth investigating.

There is also the task of creating the 3D film and seperating the colour fields to red & blue, I have experimented with making a 3D anaglyph film in the past but only used footage shot from a single camera, ideally you need to use two cameras (placed on a board) alligned exactly with each other with a marginal gap between them. Then through the wonders of editing you can set about making the images red & blue, there is also an effect called '3D Glasses' on after effects. on the gadget show this week they were testing a webcam that had two lenses with a marginal gap between them which was built for the making of 3D films so it may be worth researching that item.