Week Six Assignments

1: Watch the “Week 6: Web Native Storytelling Planning” curriculum video and explore the pop up resources

2: Sketch a Basic Schematic and Make Design Decisions

This summer, you will create a web native film AND build a fully functioning website. You’ll need to figure out the structures of these two pieces and make decisions about content. Create a storyboard and schematic for your Popcornified video.

3: Divide up the Production Tasks

Make a list of all the content that needs to be produced. Decide who is responsible for what.

4: Create a Presentation

Prepare a presentation of your topic - you’ll find it an invaluable way to crystallize your concept. If you feel comfortable, share it with the larger Story Camp group via video conference. The presentation should include:

• the draft project narrative
• the motivation for selection of your theme
• a description of your project’s target audience
• the hierarchy of your site (structural tree)
• a plan for using page elements (what kind of logo, headlines, graphics etc)
• a plan for your Web Native Film

Prepare a 10 minute presentation. You can make a slideshow, pdf, video, etc. You can even create an online presentation depending on the skills your group members have.

5: Individual Blog post

Tools: Social Networking and Sharing Sites (eg Twitter, Facebook, etc)

Summarize the production plan on your project blog.

Schematics: Be open to your creativity

There’s no one way to organize information or a right way to create a schematic. You just have to think about how a user will experience your story. Where do they go first? What do they do there? What do they see and hear? Where could they go next? How do YOU draw that out so that you can both understand it and help others understand your vision?

The image above shows the most basic schematic for websites. It is simply showing the hierarchy of pages. In the sidebar are a couple of other types of schematics from various real world projects. Notice how they are different, notice how they are the same.

Each drawing represents the creators thought process in how her project should be structured to meet her vision. These are very basic drawings, but they can become as complex as you need them to be. Schematics can be incredibly helpful when figuring out your ideas and when explaining an overarching concept to people.

Storyboards: Sequencing For the Win

A Storyboard shows each scene of a story in sequential order. They can be detailed down to the nanosecond or they can serve as a rough outline for how the story is going to visually unfold. Laying out the story this way will help you keep focus. You can also add a layer on top to indicate user interactions or additional information you’d like to bring into the story.

Animatics are Storyboards laid out on a timeline. Chris Milk created a very cool Animatic for the Wilderness Downtown, and we recommend checking it out.

Storyboards, like everything we do to plan and prepare a project, usually go through a series of iterations. Your initial Storyboard might very well be a scribble on a scrap of paper (what we refer to as a “napkin sketch”).

Make Both!

Both Schematics and Storyboards can be as complicated as you need them to be. Remember, there’s no right way to do it, no single solution, but creating schematics and storyboards will help you focus on and iterate your Story, Vision and Tech.