{ The Fantasy Fight }
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{Introduction of the Interactive Film}
{User interaction demo of the Interactive Film}
{Ending of the Interactive Film}
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1. Concept
The Fight is an interactive film controlled through punch gestures. The participant takes the role of a boxer in an amateur fight. Winning or losing activates different trajectories in the narrative, thus the strength of punches relates to the strength of the participants desire to give the fighter a break in his pathetic life. It’s a fight for dignity in the face of life’s adversities.
Where did it come from?
We wanted to create a satisfying and meaningful way to interact with a film narrative, a meaning we found was lacking in the field. In our research we found that the norm for interactive film is to give the participant meaningless, surface choices – pressing buttons to choose the characters next action.
Our goal was thus to create a more meaningful form of interactivity in film. We decided to research how immersive environments and gesture analysis could be harnessed to create an interface that would move beyond goal based and meaningful interaction to an intuitive, meaningful and ultimately satisfying form of interactivity.
Our interface analyses the strength of the participants emotional evolvement in the story through the strength of their punches. Will you emotionally connect with the character? Will you activate a happier existence for him? Or punch him further into misery?
Where will it go?
The Big Fight is a research project. It’s a unique concept that’s never been tried before. We hope that the successes and mistakes of our brave journey into the future landscape of storytelling can be built upon by other innovative creatives. This is the first step on a journey towards a new kind of interface that will combine non-linear storytelling with gestural inputs in an immersive environment.
We hope that this project will be helpful for researchers in the fields of gestural interfaces, interactive film and gaming. We envision a gaming environment in which the meaning of the story takes precedent over goal based models of interactivity.
How does it work?
Touch sensors and an accelerometer measure the direction and force of punches and calculate a winner between the two participants in each fight. These inputs are fed into visual programming software, which responds with the ‘desired’ film segments.
Who are the crazy people who came up with this game/film/strange experience?
Sheena Bouchier – Project Management & Hardware Programming
Weixuan Zhao – Interaction Design & User Experience Design
Jerry Li – Interface Design
Natasha Shen – Usability & Programming
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2. User-Centered Design
the goal of embedding interactivity into narrative plot is to involve users into character’s role. the product is not only let users to experience the character’s destiny, discovery and explore stories in the non-linear narratives. it offers user’s a chance to control and navigate character’s destiny by linking user’s physical interactive boxing effort to character’s destiny. Simliarly to game logic, winning boxing match is the key motivation for changing characters’ destiny, win and lose the game directly influences the ups and downs of characters’ life.
2.3. what a interactive narrative storyteller need to consider
embedding interactivity into narrative :
theme : In our case, it is quite hard to solve problem of linking user physical interaction with narrative stories, mainly, let user use the body gesture to interact, explore,control and enjoy in narrative space. We solve the difficult problem because boxing story not only fits to embed interactivity into narrative stories but also fits for design physical action for users interactive with narrative space.
2.4. interactive narrative storyteller need to understand the whole interactive narrative structure before he/she filming the narrative. whether the narrative story fit for embed interactivity, what is the key motivation for user interaction. what is the user input and output, whether the logic, sequence can link to each other. in our case, it is like the game logic, boxing match need to have a loser and winner, which means it need to prepare happy and sad events as a kind of encourage and punishment to match the logic and sequence of the stories. the destiny of character depends on users’ physical action effort, which means the interaction outcome need to match users’ mental model, user try their best but always see the sad event and can not change the characters’ destiny will lead to user frustration. so that is why, i modify the narrative structure and navigate the filming process after i saw all of them are sad events. that is the difference between traditional filmmaking and interactive filmmaking logic, we should consider the user interaction outcomes instead of subjective decide where the plot should go. we should think about how user feel and what they want to see after interactive effort rather than we decide the character’s destiny.
2.5. interaction freedom:interactive narrative storytellers need to have a User Centred Design logic, offering the maximun interaction freedom. non-linear structure, free user path and different outcomes, etc. traditional narrative director have the power to decide the character’s destiny, who win in the boxing match, but we need to offer two, four options, and consider all the possibilities. we do not know who will win the game, but we offer four version for each winer and loser, we do not decide characters’ destiny, but give this power for users to play and control. involving them into stories by offering maximum freedom instead of passively receive the results.
2.6. different between game and film–change passive film to interactive film, change third person the first person logic
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3. Interactive narrative design
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Description
- narrative fragments loop can be played randomly (blue/ red node can be moved parallel)
- user punching effort lead to win or lose of the match, which directly trigger the sad or happy events of the characters: win the match triggers happy flashback events, lose the match trigger the sad flashback events
- there are three sections of boxing match and four sections of narrative in a entire narrative loop
- boxing match can be considered as an input information, the narrative events can be considered as an output results.
- both of the boxing matches and narrative events are cost 1:30’, the entire narrative loop costs 8 min’ – 10 min’
- Ending of the story
there is no real loser and winner in both the boxing match and their real destiny, boxing match can have lots of sections just like life itself has lots of ups and downs. One must try his best in each section to be a real hero.
Life is about taking punches.
There are no winners and losers in this fight,
only those who take punches with dignity and throw them with compassion.
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4. Information architecture
4.1 information architecture for programing the whole system
- introduction video (1:30 min)
- user interaction section (1: 30 min)
if user stop punching — play default ready postion videos
user can see his competitor’s ready position:
weave & mispunching (3 videos) / offense (8 videos) (11 videos go randomly)
if user keep punching with fast speed—play keep punching videos (2 videos go randomly)
punch left weak(13). punch left strong(14), punch right weak(5), punch right strong (11)
score: weak +1 strong +2
compare player A’s and player B’s score
winner / loser trigger different events from narrative database ( each video: 1: 30 min )
4.2 Information architecture of user interface
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5. User Interaction Design
5.1 User interaction feedback of boxing match
- visual feedback
punching protagonist:
transfer user punching action (left/right hand punching) and power levels (weak,middle, strong) into protagonist’s gesture feedback (video clips)
visual effect feedback:
punching area (hotspots), highlight color (highlight protagonist’s punching gloves and cloth during punching time)
2. information feedback
punching score (power level,numbers)
lose/win hint (video clips/ symbols)
Countdown time
audience cheering score (+1)
3. sound feedback
pouching sound: real time feedback (embed into video clips)
5.2 User interaction flow analysis:User physical action input & virtual protagonist’s gesture feedback
5.3 User interaction description of boxing match:
1. system measures user’s punching power level (weak, strong) and recognise user use left hand or right hand to punch, then transfers user punching gesture action and power level into protagonist’s gesture feedback (video clips). The virtual protagonist on screen interface responses user action in real time.
2. The protagonist’s gesture feedback (video clips) can be played and triggered as a entire repeat loop, but follow the punching power level as well as real boxing punching gesture rules and logic.
3. Then two players interactive action influence each other in real time. which likes to watch double counter in a real boxing match.
4. system records and compare the quantity and scores of the two players and hint the loser and winner
(weak punching — 1 score, middle punching — 2 score, strong punching — 3 score, )
5. system responses the bell to hint stop of this boxing heat and triggers the sad or happy events.
5.4 From filming footage to interaction feedback footage
1. Starting as a linear filming footage of shooting user interaction feedback.
2. Cutting, editing, analysis of each reaction in the linear footage.
3.Re-assembly of these reaction as a new linear interaction footage
4. Allowing randomly jump to each correct feedback through Macmsp coding
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6. User Experience Design
6.1 User Immersive Experience Design in Interactive Narrative Space (From plans to reality !)
user immersive environment description:
Assuming the real boxing match immersive experience environment
Engaging and involving of two players
Reducing external environmental interference
Installations in space
- Dark room
- light: players and audiences can see installations clearly
- Boxing ring
- Two TV
- Two boxing gloves and punching balls
- computer, two headphones
- Acoustics equipment
6.2 User journey
Players
- Watch introduction on screen interface
- Pick up headphone & wear boxing gloves
- Punch the punching ball, watch protagonist’s gesture feedback (video clips), listen the punching sound
- Two players interactive action influence each other in real time, try to be the winner
- Keep boxing within 1 minute until know win/lose the match and explore the whole story
- Punch three section of boxing match and watch the end of the story
- Leave the glove and headphone, change roles by change space or hand over to other player
Audiences
- Watch introduction on screen interface
- Watch one player punch the ball, participant in the boxing match and explore the stories,
- Listen the two version of narrative stories together. (sound)
- Move place to watch the two version of narrative stories. (vision)
- Cheering, shouting, Applauded, to see the shouting score on the screen
- Go into the boxing ring to be player
6.3 Auditory immersion Control
1. Allocating the two speakers at two opposite conners and play two version of film simultaneously. Audience can be naturally separated as two group in the space as they stand in front of the screen to watch the videos. The speakers are allocated two opposite conners that makes sure audiences can focus on their side of sound, but also can have multi-hearing experience of two version of narrative.
2. Players wear headphones in order to reduce external sound interference
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7. Interactive Film R&D process
Weixuan_Zhao 