Final video

This is my final video, taking into account the feedback that I received and with some other minor tweaks.

Feedback II

Feedback from a non programmer and my responses:

"I also like the b&w better.

One question: why do you say the loop finishes? In my point of view (a non-programmer one, I admit), he has not got his keys and therefore he should keep looking for them. I mean, what is the "while loop" here? while he does not have the keys, he looks for them? He has not got the keys at the end, so he should continue to look for them, chasing the guy in the car. If the loop is while not knowing where the keys are, then it would be different, but I think the loop is about not having them, since he was going to go out and he needed them. It would be different if he were going to bed and then noticed the keys weren't there."

I made the end to hopefully give it a bit of humour and a more interesting one than him just finding the keys. So I see what your saying in the fact that he doesn't actually have the keys himself but he knows where they are, so you aren't going to keep on looking for them as you know you aren't going to find them.

"As I understood it, the process would be like this:

Getting ready
IF clothes not on THEN put on
IF shoes not laced THEN lace up
IF (etc)

Getting the keys
IF keys not in place THEN look for them
WHILE keys not found = [what? Look everywhere? Look in house? Check not left somewhere else?...]

Going out"

The getting ready isn't really part of the loop, it's there to show the viewer that he's getting ready to go out and to set the scene but I see what you are getting at, but it does seem like you are kind of understanding what a while loop is which is a success as this is the whole point of the film.

Feedback

I have received some feedback about the two short films.

The general consensus is that the black and white one is much better than the colour one.


From someone who knows about programming:
"Although WHILE in English expresses a continuous state, in programming it represents a repeated set of actions. That is, one asks the question: is it true that I don't have my keys? If it is true, we carry out the key search routine. Then we ask the question again. So, I wonder if there is some way of conveying the repeated nature of the task, a series of short repeated searches rather than making it look like one long search activity?"

I thought that this was a good idea and would give a better sense of the loop, but it makes the film a bit boring and unvaried. In my film, I do have a lot of similar scenes, he's either looking through drawers or along the top of benches, I have tried for the sake of the film to vary the shots each time that he searches one of these places, so it is repetitive searching similar places but it's not exactly the same thing multiple times.


"Finally, I was a bit puzzled as he seemed to already know where the keys were at the start -- weren't they hanging up?"

The ones hanging up were the house keys, he was looking for his car keys. I tried to make the sign with the little logos obvious, but clearly not well enough (although why he's leaving without his house keys is a bit of an error on my part...). I will try to make this more obvious. 


"Also, I like the B&W better than the colour. Or maybe you could change to colour when the loop finishes? (Or should that be the other way round???) "

I love this idea, like you say it gives a sense of completion when the loop is finished. Definitely going to try and implement this in the final version. 

Here is another attempt at using the 'Times' video technique of multiple frames. This time I tried to lose the negative space because before there was so much of it that it over powered the visuals and emphasis on the story was lost. I think that it looks much sleeker but it's very difficult to do and time the clips together.

Also it isn't quite how a computer works, a computer doesn't do the same thing at multiple times which I find that this video is suggesting. So although it looks much more interesting and is quite different I don't think that it works in this scenario unfortunately.

First version minor colour edit

 Here is another version of my last post but this time with a bit of colour to see what I like more.

I have to say that I like the black and white version better.

First version

This is my first attempt at editing all of my clips together into one cohesive narrative of someone searching for their keys.

Untitled 8 Rough Mix by J.K. Wiechert

I found some music which I think will suit perfectly, the track gives a feeling of urgency and worry that the main character was feeling as you lose your keys thanks to it being in the minor key. The heartbeat repeating sound so you empathise with the character as his heartbeats gets louder and louder and it repeats itself as that is the nature of a while loop. 

Although the loop itself is resolved at the end, the actual dilemma of losing his keys hasn't been resolved and I have had it suggested that I finish the music on a happy note but I don't think that having some sort of cadence or a happier tone would suit the film and the result.

I have been looking for music, it's very hard to find some instrumental music which suits the mood which I am looking for. This is an instrumental version of Mammoth by Interpol:



I quite like it and it could work, it has a sense of urgency about it, it's quite lively and I can picture someone worried to match it quite easily.

Another similar test to the last one but with Black and white instead. I think that black and white is better as it is more like a computer - binary.

Test

Finished filming and I am now trying to edit it all together. Here is a test that I just made it was just to see if I could get the multiple frames working and to help me remember how to use Vegas again.



I think that it is quite effective and makes it more interesting.

Final Explanation

The movie is a metaphor for a while loop.  A while loop is a basic computer programming coding feature.

The metaphor used to explain what a while loop is, is comparing it to someone who has lost your keys. When you lose your keys, you look for your keys until you have them, once you have them you stop looking. But you wouldn’t search in the first place if you originally hadn’t lost them.

The main features of a while loop is that a Boolean condition (a true or false statement) is evaluated first. In this case it is the question of “do you have your keys, true or false?” If you have your keys, then you don't search for them (complete the actions/code within the while loop). But if you don't have your keys , then you search for them until you have found them (you keep on evaluating and working your way through your action/code until the initial Boolean condition changes) and through completing this process you change the original Boolean condition of “do you have your keys” to true. Once you have your keys then you stop searching for them and this is the finish of the while loop.

In pseudo code:

while (You don’t have your keys) {
    search new room;
}

Investigation of vimeo

Waiting for the End of the World from Lee Deaville on Vimeo.

Another short film I found on Vimeo, it relates a bit better to what I hope to achieve than the Times video as it has more of a narrative which it is telling.

One of the things that stood out was the atmosphere of the film, I found myself empathising with the main character and feeling his boredom and loneliness. I think that the music has a large roll to play in this effect along with his monotonous voice and the repetition of similar shots. So I am going to have to pick suitable instrumental music, which hopefully gives a sense of urgency and a bit of fear that he has lost his keys which isn't going to be easy.

Another thing was the shot of him looking under the shelves and you have the shot looking out back at him which is also the thumbnail (at 1:06 - 1:09) it's quite an interesting shot and brings the viewer into the environment instead of just observing the scene from some omnipresent view. Hopefully I will be able to incorporate some shots similar to this in my short film.

Investigation of video techniques

Isenseven - TIMES from Vincent Urban on Vimeo.

I really like this video Isenseven - TIMES by Vincent Urban. It has been shot beautifully but what stood out the most apart from the quality of the filming was the grided form that it was presented in. I love this idea having multiple shots of the same or similar things, it gives the user a reason to watch it again and doesn't present the veiwer with all of the information in one veiwing. It also makes it stand out form the normal one scene at a time viedos and sure is effective in making me remember this particular video.

If I can manage to find a way to try and use this technique in my video effectively rather than just including it because it's coo and hopefully bring in multiple story lines and perspectives on the one simple event of finding an item.

Time management plan

• By the end of the weekend, I will have chosen which idea I will go with out of the movie, game or posters.
• Wednesday 18th I will have a concept of the story and/or a story board along with a draft of my explanation.
• Saturday 21st - Sunday 22nd,  is time to get stuck in and actually start and hopefully finish any drawing/coding/filming needed.
• Friday 27th, finish editing any final details or bugs.
• Sunday 29th all minor edits and tests on users will be completed taking into account what they say. Which leaves me with Monday to spare as something always go wrong.

Top three ideas

My first idea to go with my metaphor of losing something is simply - a video.

A video illustrating someone searching for some lost items. I think that this method could be difficult to convey the idea of the boolean condition and the repeating block of code/actions. I could possibly have a map of the path taken making the path a computer like iterative route.

The only costs associated with this short film idea would be getting the help of other people out help me act it out and shoot it, which would probably just require me buying them lunch and dinner for the day. I already have a camera and a computer with editing software to edit the film on.



My second idea is a game. The game would involve the user to try and find something, it would be quite repetitive not exactly the same each time but similar enough to get a feeling of looping around. This could be quite effective as it's interactive and could be quite interesting. It does break the idea of a while loop a bit though as at any time the user could choose to leave without finding the item which changes the boolean condition and break out of the while loop which isn't how the while loops work unless you have a break statement in them.

There wouldn't be any costs involved, but it would take quite a lot of time to create a game which is visually pleasing and interesting enough to interest users initially and then keep them playing the game.


My final idea is a series of posters, Where's Wally-esque. So for example three posters, with Wally or some item in one of the posters. I would have users search for the item, people would search through each poster looking for it, looping around through each poster because I find when I am doing  Where's Wally I end up looking in the same place multiple times before finding him. One of the draw backs to this idea similar to my game idea is that at any time the user could just give up and leave without changing the initial boolean condition of actually finding the item which defeats the purpose and the idea I'm trying to get across.

There would only be the minor cost of the paper as I already have any other materials I would need. However the time I would have to invest would be quite a lot to make it effective enough to have people searching for a while and make it busy like Where's Wally which could take a long time.

Real life metaphor

You are looking for your wallet. You keep on looking around until you find your wallet.

The key features of a while loop is that a boolean condition is evaluated first. In this case it is the question of do you have your wallet, true or false? If you have your wallet, true, then you don't search for it (complete the actions/code within the while loop), obviously. But if you don't have your wallet, false, then you search for it until you have found it (keep on evaluating and working your way through your action/code until the boolean condition changes), changing the original boolean condition of do you have your wallet to true so you no longer repeat your process of searching for your wallet.

So it satasfies the fact that a boolean condition is evaluted before the execution of the code/action - do you have your wallet. It keeps on repeating itself until the original condition changes - you find your wallet.

In coding terms:

while (Do you have your wallet == false){
    search bag;
    search room;
    search car;
    search under couch;
    etc...
}

My initial idea

My initial idea (in one of my previous posts) was just an idea I had while reading over the brief. I have since gone off doing something quite so literal and abstracting my idea a bit more to something which people can relate to plus I need to have a metaphor. Because computing and the terms can be quite difficult to learn when you have them in front of you to play around with it's going to be even harder to teach to someone who doesn't have any previous knowledge and the opportunity to test it out and play around with it. Because of this I am trying to relate my metaphor and installation to something that most people can relate to and have experienced or seen.

While loop definition

In most computer programming languages, a while loop is a control flow statement that allows code to be executed repeatedly based on a given boolean condition. The while loop can be thought of as a repeating if statement.
The while construct consists of a block of code and a condition. The condition is evaluated, and if the condition is true, the code within the block is executed. This repeats until the condition becomes false. Because while loops check the condition before the block is executed, the control structure is often also known as a pre-test loop. Compare with the do while loop, which tests the condition after the loop has executed.

Definition from: http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/while.html

Visualisation of how a while loop works:

A code example of a while loop in Java/Processing:

int counter = 5; //The number of times the loop will execute

while (counter > 1) //the boolean condition, must be true for the while loop to execute

{    
   System.out.print(counter + " "); //this code and the next line are repeated until the boolean condition becomes false

   counter--;

}

System.out.print("end"); //proving that the loop does finish

Will give the following output as it loops around a prints out the numbers: 5 4 3 2 1 end

Initial ideas for Assignment 3

Explaining a while loop:

• One idea for the installation is possibly, having a box which has a handle which the user turns. There is also another control which limits the number of times the handle can be turned around. At the moment it's only a simple initial idea, but one which I think explains it quite simply with the handle being each iteration/repitition of the loop and the control being the limiting factor in how many times the loop repeats itself. 
• What I could do is have a piece of string or something being wound up as you turn the handle until it gets used up and you can't turn it anymore and the control changes the length of string available.
• Have it so that nothing else is able to run at the same time that the loop is repeating itself

This is just my initial idea, I didn't want to lose it so I put it up here.


I like the idea of creating an object because it gets far away from the virtual computer subject. Here are a few cool examples of sculptures which I managed to find on youtube which all had some nice qualties.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dehXioMIKg0 -  Reuban Margolin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg5ZASTWvzM&feature=related - Light sculpture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FRlOhmE0Nw&feature=related - kinetic sculpture