Thesis Paper

THESIS (UNTITLED)YVONNE ROMANOTHESIS 1 / FALL 2012 / INSTRUCTOR: JUN SASSA

CONCEPT STATEMENT

My thesis is an interactive digital narrative that raises awareness about where our food comes from and how it is manufactured; alternatives to consider when buying; and best ways to handle food once you get it home. It will take a fresh, playful approach to sharing insight about our food choices and how to keep the foods we consume, and ourselves, safer.

The components of the project will be structured in a website with accompanying animated shorts.

CONCEPT STATEMENT

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I was fascinated by the documentary Food Inc. and started with the premise of doing my thesis on food. I researched other documentaries, organizations, books, statistics, ways information about food is displayed, and what exists in terms of informative online content. I wanted to create a project that brought food into a playful context, liberating it from “cold” numbers and facts, cryptic spreadsheets, and text-heavy represen-tations, in hopes to create a less intimi-dating, easily digestible, and most of all fun, healthy relationship with food aware-ness.

IMPERATIVE

IMPERATIVE

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IMPERATIVE

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RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: TONE

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RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: TONE

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TONE

What struck me during my initial research was that information about food is often presented in a very serious and dry manner, especially when looking at resources like the US. Food and Drug Administration, Nutrition.gov, United States Department of Agriculture, as well as books on the subject. Even with sources like food blogs and other organi-zations, information is presented in a blunt, clinical, not-very-approachable way.

I did, however, �nd some interesting examples that countered this pattern.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT

Michael Pollan’s book Food Rules, was released in a new illustrated version, making it more appealing and friendly. Another example is Chipotle’s commer-cial, Back to the Start, a stop-motion animation that offers an interesting view of our food system today and playful insight into the growth of the commercial food industry and call to return to less industrialized methods of farming. Although unrelated to food, I also looked a lot at Creature Comforts, admiring their use of dialog, subtle humor, and clever narrative structure. A combination of these examples is what I want my project

to embody: not so much of an infographic or text-heavy approach, but something that takes “food” with an approach of child-like amusement and playfulness, yet still provides essential information.

INTERACTIVEAs a starting point in conceptualizing a web narrative, I examined different web formats, looking at parallax and vertical scrolling sites such as:

Spelltower, http://www.spelltower.com

Big Apple Hotdogs, http://www.bigapplehotdogs.com

WWF Foodstory, http://assets.wwf.org.uk/custom/foodstory These are Things. http://thesearethings.com

Since there is so much information I wanted to present, simplicity would have to be key, and keeping with a simple vertical scroll with minimal dynamic elements such as icons, illustrations, etc., would in my mind, be effective.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: INTERACTIVE & VISUAL STYLE

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VISUAL STYLEI wanted to take a simple approach stylistically as well, making it fun, color-ful, and engaging. Looking at vector illustrations, solid planes, no de�ning outlines, and playful colors.

Included here are illustrations by Danel Frost, Ryan Todd, Owen Gatley, and Luke Best.

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RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: INTERACTIVE & VISUAL STYLE

ORANIZATION

I organized my gathered data in a �ow chart to begin to de�ne the main topics I wanted to address, and decided to split the information into three categories: 1] where your food comes from before you buy, 2] what to consider for when you are actually in process of selecting the food you buy, and 3] once you’ve bought your food home, how to deal with proper storage.

These will be the three main categories that de�ne the content structure and �ow of my digital narrative.

Topic 1 will include illustrations contrast-ing how our food system worked before vs. the industrial commercial food system now.

Topic 2 will give insight into food “in-season“ and include a seasonal diagram. It will also discuss the bene�ts of buying from “local” providers. Lastly, it will examine the merits of “organic” food and include a diagram of the Dirty Dozen, (foods found to be most contami-nated with pesticides).

Topic 3 will address proper storage and placement of food items through a diagram of a fridge, as well as informa-tion on shelf life and dealing with lefto-vers.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: ORGANIZATION

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RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: ORGANIZATION

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ANIMATION

Continuing with this idea of a narrative, I wanted to enhance each of the three major sections with related animated shorts. The animations will be in the same visual style as the rest of the site.

RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: ANIMATION

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RESEARCH AND VISUAL TREATMENT: ANIMATION

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Initial wireframes, and styleframes.

Topic 1:

Topic 2:

Topic 3:

PROTOTYPE:INTERACTIVE

PROTOTYPE: INTERACTION

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PROTOTYPE: INTERACTION

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PROTOTYPE:ANIMATION FADE IN:

EXT. ON THE FARM - DAYOn a farm, scene of a cow and a stool. Farmer with a bucket walks in from the right. He walks over to the cow, sits down on the stool and starts milking, thenleaves.He comes back with a syringe and pokes the cow with it. The cow Stands up, buffed up with mus-cles, and shoots milk out of its utters at the farmer. The farmer gets shot off the screen.

CUT TO:

CLOSE UP:COW

(worried)Wow. Yeah.. um..

There is a pause as COW looks to the right, and looks back at the camera)

COW (CON´T)I don’t know what happened… I just..

I.. I couldn’t control myself.

THE END

STORY #1

Looking at the commercial food industry and what an industrial agricultural system has done to our traditional sense of food. A humerous, subtle, satire on the topic.

PROTOTYPE: ANIMATION, STORY 1

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TOM (CON´T)The plumber said that sewage iscoming up through the drains.

Water seeps out of BROCK’s mouth.

TOM (CON´T)Lucky for you i was here. Youpotentially just drank poop.

BROCKI´ve been drinking it all day…

There is a pause.

BROCK (CON´T)(grumpily)

How was your day?

TOMI swam in the lake, and laid out in

the sun all day…

(TOM smiles)…Au Natural!

THE END

STORY #2A subtle play on commercial and organic produce.


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INT. IN THE DINING ROOMClose up of a piece of broccoli on a plate. A fork comes down, pierces it and takes it up off the frame.The broccoli in front of a mouth opening. BROCK chewing. He is wearing a disheveled broccoli suit,bags under his eyes, sunken in face, and unkept facial hair. TOM, in a tomato suit, eating tomatoes. He is blonde, and handsome, and can bounce a nickel off his abs.

TOMYou don’t look so good.

BROCKYeah well I got pepper sprayed,

couldn´t see, and then stepped in somepeepee. Not to mention I think I’m

coming down with the �u.

BROCK reaches over and picks up a glass taking a sip.

TOM(hastily)

DON’T DRINK THAT WATER!

Brock keeps the big gulp in his mouth, cheeks puffed out).


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INT. FRIDGEView of the fridge door from the inside. Milk hops into view, and perches next to a hot sauce.

HOT SAUCE(looks over)

Condiments only.

MILK ignores the comment. Glances over, and looks back.

HOT SAUCE(clears throat)

I said… Condiments ONLY!

MILKHuh?

HOT SAUCE(frustrated)

Condiments only! You can’t be here.

HOT SAUCE tries shoving milk off the screen, MILK is tooheavy.

MILKAlright, alright. I’m leaving.

MILK tries to slide back in, the HOT SAUCE looks overangrily, and the MILK slides back off the screen. The MILK walks back in dressed as ketchup. HOT SAUCE gets �red up, his eyes bulge, and sweat dripsfrom his forehead.

HOT SAUCEGET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!

The MILK walks away. STRAWBERRY passes him.STRAWBERRY is walking along the bottom of the fridge.He smells something funny. He tries to locate it. Snif�ngto the left, snif�ng to the right. He starts losing hiscolor. Panting. As he looks off to the left of the screen,he notices BANANA, chokes, turns grey, coughing, startsgrowing fuzz balls and collapses. BANANA, wide eyed, �ees the scene running. CARROT the cop tumbles into the scene, gun pointed at BANANA…

CARROTFREEZE!!

STORY #3Looking at the importance of proper food storage through humerous interactions of food within the fridge.


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BANANA puts his hands in the air, worried.

CARROT throws BANANA out of the fridge.

INT. THE CABINETBANANA is sitting on a bench in a dark cabinet, next to him is ONION. ONION is round, big, and tough: Tattoos on his outer shell, and scars. He can make anyone cry.

BANANAThey threw me out.

ONION(sighs)

Me too.

THE END

INT. FRIDGEView of the fridge door from the inside. Milk hops into view, and perches next to a hot sauce.

HOT SAUCE(looks over)

Condiments only.

MILK ignores the comment. Glances over, and looks back.

HOT SAUCE(clears throat)

I said… Condiments ONLY!

MILKHuh?

HOT SAUCE(frustrated)

Condiments only! You can’t be here.

HOT SAUCE tries shoving milk off the screen, MILK is tooheavy.

MILKAlright, alright. I’m leaving.

MILK tries to slide back in, the HOT SAUCE looks overangrily, and the MILK slides back off the screen. The MILK walks back in dressed as ketchup. HOT SAUCE gets �red up, his eyes bulge, and sweat dripsfrom his forehead.

HOT SAUCEGET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!

The MILK walks away. STRAWBERRY passes him.STRAWBERRY is walking along the bottom of the fridge.He smells something funny. He tries to locate it. Snif�ngto the left, snif�ng to the right. He starts losing hiscolor. Panting. As he looks off to the left of the screen,he notices BANANA, chokes, turns grey, coughing, startsgrowing fuzz balls and collapses. BANANA, wide eyed, �ees the scene running. CARROT the cop tumbles into the scene, gun pointed at BANANA…

CARROTFREEZE!!


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BANANA puts his hands in the air, worried.

CARROT throws BANANA out of the fridge.

INT. THE CABINETBANANA is sitting on a bench in a dark cabinet, next to him is ONION. ONION is round, big, and tough: Tattoos on his outer shell, and scars. He can make anyone cry.

BANANAThey threw me out.

ONION(sighs)

Me too.

THE END


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For the most part, I think my project has

developed pretty smoothly with some

minor adjustments for my animated

shorts: playing more and including more

dialog in my scripts, playing with differ-

ent perspectives in shots to heighten

action, adding additional interactions in

my third animation to make it more

dynamic and cohesive, and also adding

more of an overall narrative within it,

altering it to make it work better. Also,

some stylistic changes in character

design. In addition, there have been

some adjustments for my web portion of

my project: placement and order of

topics, working on transitions to make it

�ow more, and adding a menu for easier

navigation.

FEEDBACK

FEEDBACK

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I received some positive feedback at the

end of the semester from our external

critics: Paul Imperio from Suspect, Tibo

Charroppin from Flickrlab, and Magnus

Atom from Omega Darling. With back-

grounds in animation and motion, they

were there to look over our scripts,

storyboards, and styleframes.

Paul liked the humor and dialog of my

animations and suggested the actual

animation compliment the dialog: making

the movements just as eccentric. Tibo

and Magnus had different opinions. They

compared it to South Park, where the

animation can be really simple and

ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

choppy, where it doesn't take away, but

rather puts emphasis on the humor.

For my third animation about proper food

storage, Tibo suggested an alternate

ending with more “oomf”that brought all

the characters together, but after a

sidebar discussion among the three of

them, decided that the subtleness of the

humor in the ending already worked just

�ne.

They said all three of my animations were

short and sweet, that my styleframes

looked great, and that i had created a fun

world.

FALL 2012 SEMESTER

Interactive: Completed wireframes,

stylegrames, and mock-ups.

Animation: Completed storyboards,

styleframes, and character designs.

WINTER BREAK

Interactive: Gather assets. Basic HTML,

and CSS set up.

Animation: Gather and organize assets.

Drawing. Initial set-up in AE.

SPRING 2013

Interactive: Add interactive elements

using JQuery and Javascript.

Animation: Obtain sound. Start compos-

iting and animating. Edit. Finalize.

PRODUCTIONSCHEDULE

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE

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