For the first part of the blog I want to dedicate a couple of paragraphs to a reflection on the feedback receiving after the audience experienced during our Sound Walk. It was very interesting to see how people were interacting with our audio and specially with the printed instructions. The fact that we delivered a printed material and most of the classmates left the papers in the class caused huge stress among the team members.
We knew that the instructions were necessary but at the same time it was very interesting to see how the class figured out a way to follow a person with the instructions and be able to complete the sound walk, maybe not in the way that we expected, however, we wanted our audience to feel lost therefore what at that moment we interpreted as a problem, might have caused a different experience that we didn’t even planned.
It was interesting to listen to people reacting to the feeling that the sound walk evoked, the uncertainty and the urge to find their way back was something that we wanted to build with the sound and as a team we believe that we accomplished it.
For this week we formed new teams and received a new assignment specifically for Video production. Me and my team met during the week and started a quick brainstorming session to define the subject of our video. We had already discussed that we wanted to create something with meaning and not to create just something funny or fake marketing therefore we focussed our ideas thinking about a final result that would have a positive effect in out audience.
As part of our research process we started talking about wellness approaches to our story and we started discussing about mental health and how to deal with the classes and work stress and anxiety. We talked about the fact that there are counseling services within NYU but normally nobody talks about it and we stated the theory that students might not even know how to book an appointment or where to go when a mental crisis occur. We walked up to the 12 floor at Tisch to the counseling services office and we did a quick interview to one of the counsellors who explained to us how the process works and gave us some forms and brochures that are used to rise awareness in NYU (none of us had previously seen that material).
We realized that there was definitely a story to tell and that it was worth to give it a shot. We were asked to create a small paragraph about our initial idea:
“We want to start with a number of horror movie shot homages detailing various stressors and unpleasant parts of being at ITP/at NYU grad school in general. Using a horror movie voiceover, talk about feeling trapped (long zoom shot of someone looking terrified in the 12th floor hallway, constant sleeping (shakycam catching someone sleeping on the floor), insomnia (vertigo-style closeup of somebody terrified in bed), constant distraction (shot of the back of someone's head in front of a screen, using sonic cues to show distraction, then cut to a clock moving rapidly), overeating (violent closeup of someone chowing down on a slice of pizza), fidgeting (sped up shot of someone's eye twitching, general fidgeting), culminating in being cold (shot of someone on the floor frozen like Jack in the Shining). We then cut to the wellness center - warmly lit, peaceful music, and list its services and benefits in a peaceful voice (mindfulness, therapy, etc.).”
Forms and brochures provided by the counseling office at Tisch
The most important element in our research resulted to be the admission form that the students need to fill in the first time that they arrive to their previously arranged appointment. It contains a list of all the anxiety and depression triggers and the student needs to select from a range which number reflects their current situation. After looking to this page we knew that we wanted to find a way to represent those triggers in a way that the students could identify and at the same time create conscience that there are ways to find help and they are closed than what we might think.
Low fidelity storyboarding using the form as a guide for our scenes
Team Work generating the storyboard.
The team work finished by generating bigger images for our storyboard and assigning numbers for the order that we wanted the scenes to appear in the video. The idea for next class is to receive feedback and validation from our classmates and make the necessary changes to move forward with the next phase of the project.