klipfontein project

The interactive documentary that Karen and I will be doing, will be targeted for adolescents, primarily between the ages of fifteen and seventeen. We want our documentary to be centred on the youth of Klipfontein road, past and present. Our aim will be to try and educate today’s youth of the happenings on Klipfontein road, which affected many youngsters in the eighties, and we also want to take a look at the young people working and living on the road today.

I think one of our main traits that will be a strong feature in the documentary will be the use of photography and how we can incorporate images to create an interactive story, which will be helpful for the kids who will be using our project.

Our recurring theme will be the juxtaposition of the past with the present. This will be echoed through our images, the look and feel of the documentary and the stories that will be told.

Think I will try and visit Klipfontein road during our vacation and take some pictures. Just to help me get a better idea of the environment and the people.

lately iv been thinking about my SRP. mainly about the kind of users that would be potentially using my site. im quite happy with my idea of having a UCT sports site. i think it would be of great use to the various sports clubs. 

obviously my target audience would be the sports students of UCT, and in particular the ones from the clubs that would be featured on my site. 

in terms of my site strategy, mainly to make it easier to be a part of a sports team/club. Organising games, matches with other clubs, as well as incorporating a social calendar, would be possible to do with my site. i think a main feature on the site would also be the invention and discovery of a potential UCT mascot. 

the look and feel will be fresh, with a new kind of UCT flavour. incorporating the UCT colours - to energise some university spirit !

the first steps of my research was going onto the UCT site and searching for the various sports clubs and the information they have available for their users. the majority of the clubs don't have a site available, nor do they have any information accessible. the squash club has a site which only includes a homepage and does not allow you to navigate through it at all. so very pointless. i play league squash and actually had no idea this exists! not that it helps anyone anyway...

i am impressed by the tennis club, who have created their own blog. 

the netball club, like the squash club have their own site, with quite an interesting logo and the only thing accessible on the site is the gallery which consists of 5 pictures. 

 - this has made me very excited to get my project up and running - 

i plan on interviewing some key figures within some sports clubs to get their opinions on my project and if they think it will be of use to them and their clubs (i hope so!)

onto another project, karin and i have formed a partnership for our interactive documentary project on the history of klipfontein road. i will talk about this project in more detail in another post. at this stage, we have been researching like crazy. spent a couple of hours in the african studies library today looking at newspaper clippings from 1985... really cool actually. 

we have a couple of ideas right now, so we just need to narrow them down and then focus on a main aspect. 

oh - there is a documentary which we were shown in class, its done by the centre for popular memory, which is actually located on the UCT campus and its on youtube! no surprise there! its about klipfontein road..if you can, check it out. 

 

Centre for Popular Memory Documentary - Klipfontein Road

don't throw roses on my path. i walk barefoot

a new assignment we have at the moment is to analyse an interactive documentary thats on the web, which is really cool because the sites are just amazing. 

iv been so torn between which site to write about because they are quite a few which are so great. but its probably going to be the HAIKU FORGE site.

www.haikuforge.com

so the essay is basically going to be based on the user experience of the entire site. how the site represents time, the character of the site, the events they portray and what it depicts. 

this is a screenshot of haiku forge.
when visiting the site, the user is faced with three words, moments, lost and time.

these three words act as menus that allow you to choose from a selection of animated numbers, which displays a random photograph (which is stunning in its natural depiction) along with a random poem, which leaves you to ponder for a while until you move to the next number, presenting the user with another arbitrary piece of writing. 

the snapshot like animations go along with the simple elements of the site, as well as the theme. haiku-style illustrations accompanied with the grey scenes, depicting black birds flying into a rainstorm. the mood conveyed by random bits of sound, placing the user in a truly unfamiliar environment through its captivating interpretation.