Interactive VideographicCollaborative PROJECT

CollaboratorName: Reginald AscottAge: 32Career: FiremanYears in the brigade: 12 yearsWhy did you choose to become a fireman? Don’t want to do the normal 9-5 desk job

Why is it different? Firefighters have immediate turnouts. We are, I think, more likeable

What do you like about your job? Its different every day, as everyday can not be expected to be the same as the other day.

What challenges do you face day to day? Every job poses its own element of danger. Even automatic fire alarm. We never know what to expect it might be burglary or fire or suicide.

What have you learned in your field? Don’t take life for granted, just grasp the moment and live without fear. Just be glad we got out full faculty.

If you were not in your field right now what would you have been? Armed forces, police force, joining the airforce - almost got accepted, but decided that university is not for me. Can’t really tell if I have regretted it, but hey

How important is training? Training is VITAL, regular training. We do drills by the book so we know it inside out, though life isn’t a textbook. It is up to us to strengthen our weakness. “We work as a team, you are only as strong as your weakest link.” Once every four days and also go to the HQ for annual trainings.

Would be an informative video be beneficial for training? Yeah I think so, but what would be good is a documented idea. We can do a storyboard -”This is how we want it to run, then we can compare how we planned it to how it actually happened. So then we can compare both and we can determine what went wrong. That will definitely enhance our performance. It’s nice to see yourself from a third person, just to see your action as you never get to do that in this job.t

ProposalMy collaborator and I have gone a few issues and how

we can work out a mutual beneficial objective. Allowing for both parties to gain something for their own personal use that would improve each others performance in their own field. An objective that would help gap between theory and practical.

Issues we have gone over in both our fields: Health and safety - How we can improve trainingCutbacks - An eye catchy way of advertising a career in the fire serviceCommunication - As a firefighter communications is essential. Looking at firefighter’s lingo or a firefighters language - codes and symbolsRoles of firemen - Knowing what roles during an incident how firefighters prepare.New Media - How interactive graphics help delivers informationRole of a collaborator - What is collaborating in the real world?

We have to come up of an idea that would help improve training exercises and experience. Considering good theory based platform - selling it as a simulator (interactive programme). This way both knowledge and skills in our own respective field will be used.

ApproachHaving a brief talk about the fire brigade, its role in

the society, the way you do your work, the people/team, and short explanation of why you joined the fire brigade. The objective of this project is to improve on performance through new ways of doing and reviewing training. This can be developed into a useful information such as a informational graphics. Conceptual design with your knowledge about the profession. I will be recording you and your team doing the training as part of my primary research. To document my collaborator as they do their training with the storyboard we have both developed. This video footage will then be made into an interactive videographic that will give information on what is happening during the training. This can be used in the future for trainees.

Interactive Video

Failing my first proposal to a spatial designer I have to change my approach on the field of study. Though collaborating with a fire fighter, I have learned valuabe lesson about organising and time management and also things sometimes never go the way they are planned, just like their job no two days days are the same.

One of the problem/issue that my collaborator has raised is the merging of technology in our own respective practices/fields/job/career. As a practicing GDNM I wanted to explore the interactivity. Engaging the audience and also learn more about user interfaces. Videos has been a very good medium to show ideas/intentions/messages and entertainment. Youtube for example had their annotation features that allows the producer to create videos and attracting the viewers to participate in the experience.

My collaborator finds it interesting how different/similar our work is. He wanted to know how it feels like to be a designer in a fireman’s perspective. As part of the brigade they undergo training every month to refresh their knowledge and always to keep on top of physical exercises, well, just to be on their top shape and just so that they’d know what to do when their in the incident. He collaborated with me to make a project that would combine a new media of recording their training and how this project could be beneficial for both of us.

“We work as a team, you are only as strong as your weakest link”

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StoryboardThis is the joint input of both my collaborator and I

showing how the scene would progress with capturing all the possible angle for the different roles of fire fighters.

Wirewax StudioThis website is the youtube if interactive videos.

Allowing people to turn their videos into interactive. Mostly used for V-commerce. I used wirewax as my main media to create the interactive video. The images are from BBC’s interactive documentary.

VideoHaving problems tracking the movment of motion I had to make my own tracking points. Colour corrected the video as it was too dark an insufficient lighting. Having to shoot it at night loads of editing and taking out noise for a smoother quality of the video.

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PlanningAfter doing all the planning between me and my collaborator we moved to briefing the rest of the crew. As my collaborator said once before in this job, you can never expect whats going to happen next. And so during the set-up they had a real fire and had to do their job and left me at the station for an hour. Still, after their hard work they still managed to continue to do the shoot.

Reggie showing me what they do during their routine checks

How he would like for the camera to pan and showing me the best angles during the training

One of the actions in the shoot where they before they go inside the building they do temperature check

Reggie explaining the scenes to his colleagues.

FinalThe final video is the result of a collaborative knowledge of Reggie

(firefighter), my collaborator, and me a practising Graphic Design New Media. The video shows the training of the firefighters capturing the best possible shots to focus on each individual role. I then processed the video to wirewax studio to select points in the video where information is needed. This video can then be proposed as the theory and practical. Where the crew can give feedback on their own performance and show this as an interactive training tool to further enhance their performance and for the future firemen.

Link: http://www.wirewax.com/7004633/