Week 1 (9.22-9.26)
Group work: Inspiration
We want to work on a topic related to Alzheimer’s Disease and how the character (the viewer) initially thinks of themselves as a child and realizes that they in fact, are old. It may also deal with complex family relationships and dynamics for a person with Alzheimer’s and can provide a complex yet moving story for the audience. Combining the story with the famous ABBA song Slipping Through My Fingers as a metaphor or even reference for the topic, a moving, engaging and emotional XR story is aimed to be achieved.
group discussion records
- An idea was came up with Ashiwin and was inspired by the song of ABBA, which interpret family relationships via lots of diverse moments slipping through the fingers.
- I added another song which contents were related to the song mentioned. Meanwhile, there was a new perspective about world in the elderly with Alzheimer’s disease jumped in the brain of Sam and I. Therefore, we thought about using interactive film to show family relationships and growth in eyes of the Alzheimer’s patients, and we took the plot twists and the use of cinematic techniques into account at the same time.
- Orange gave other cases to support us and Sam did the finally summary to organize our train of thought.
- We named our group GG Bond lol.
Cases study
GAME REFERENCES
<Spiral>
You’ll take on the role of Bernard Panfield, a writer deeply devoted to his craft and profoundly reflective. As Alzheimer’s disease strikes, Bernard battles cognitive decline—his consciousness begins to fragment, memories fade, and once-familiar surroundings grow alien. Your mission is to guide him through this challenging journey, helping him find inner peace and reclaim the fragments of memory eroded by time and illness.
<What Remains of Edith Finch>
Eddie Finch, the last surviving member of the Finches, is haunted by an ancient curse that claims young lives through bizarre and unexpected means. Returning to their ancestral home in Washington State—a sprawling, cliffside mansion perpetually under construction—she sets out to explore this abandoned structure. Her mission? To uncover her family’s dark past and ultimately reveal the curse’s true nature.
FILM REFERENCES
<NAPO>
With the aggravation of his disease, an old man moves to his daughter’s house, where his grandson reinterprets old photographs into drawings, helping him to regain lost memories.
MUSIC REFERENCES
<“I am a Mother, I am a Daughter”>
<Slipping Through My Fingers-ABBA>
Week 2 (9.29-10.3)
Individual Work: Reading & Thinking: The differences between narrative in VR and Other Medias
OVERVIEW
The article points out that VR requires a narrative theory independent of traditional media. By comparing it with traditional narrative media such as literature, drama, or film, it clarifies the significant differences in VR narration and the reasons for developing a “participatory, process – oriented” narrative paradigm specifically for VR narration. Based on this, the author believes that for VR/XR designers, defining behavior rules, world reaction mechanisms, and character motivation systems should take precedence over designing plot and presentation forms. In addition, in a theoretical sense, the article elevates VR from a “technical platform” to an “independent narrative medium”, expanding the boundaries of traditional narrative theory in the digital age.
VR Narrative = User Actions × System Processes × Real – time Feedback
Thinking:Is interaction necessary for VR narrative to be established?
Week 3 (10.6-10.10)
Individual Work: Research & References on Alzheimer’s Disease
I organized and analyzed materials from several aspects, including cognitive symptoms, mental and behavioral symptoms, psychological problems, as well as social status quo and dilemmas, to gain a clearer understanding of the possible states and real feelings of Alzheimer’s patients. Subsequently, these insights will be applied to the design of subsequent plot and shot languages.
Week 4 (10.13-10.17)
Group Discussion
This is the overview of our first – edition story. However, after that, we had a full – fledged discussion and overturned our previous thinking. Based on the discussion, I summarized the following questions:
About the main character:
We need to have a more detailed analysis an design of the first-person old people in the film, like:
What do those children do/ what about their personality?
How old?
What kinds of experiences does he/she have before having Alzheimer’s disease?
What was her/his personality like before Alzheimer’s disease?
How does she/he live in daily life after having Alzheimer’s disease?
The composition of her/his family members(who usually takes care of her/him)
How many children does he/she have?[1]
[1]If there are two children, one is a girl and another is a boy. They take care of the old people like parents but also maybe have some contradictions and differences in the process. In the ending there could be a reversal that they are not mother and father, they are just daughter and son.(it was one idea given by teacher which i think is very interesting and meaningful)
About the event and conflict in drama:
We need to consider what make the drama happen, like:
Where are the other family members when things happen?
What makes things and plots different from usual?
Where is the old person?/Where dose the story begin? (in their own house? Or their children’s house? Or nursing home? Or hospital? Etc.)
Do something dangerous happen?
[2]Instead of setting and limiting the gender of the character with Alzheimer’s disease, think of them as a group to consider their similarities and common difficulties they face. Because audiences in different gender will experience the film in the first-person perspective, if we limit the gender, it will affect the sense of involvement and immersion in the other gender’s concerns, making it less powerful.
Individual Work: Reading & Thinking ：Key Factors in VR Film
This paper explores the uniqueness of virtual reality (VR) narrative, especially understanding the narrative from the perspectives of embodiment, spatiality, and participation. Through the theoretical frameworks of cognitive science and phenomenology, it proposes that VR narrative is not just about telling stories but a dynamic construction process of body – space experiences and perceptions.
This paper supplements my thoughts on the sense of space and the audience’s sense of presence in VR narrative design. For the elderly with Alzheimer’s disease who serve as the audience’s avatars in our film design, although they don’t move, the audience should still feel the existence of their own physicality and the rationality of the space they are in. And also the concept of ‘embodiment’ plays very well as we can simulate the confusion and overwhelming experience of the disease.
Week 5 (10.20-10.24)
Group work: Tent version of the script[1]
Week 6 (10.27-10.31)
Group work: Some inspiration, discussion and tent version[2]
Week 7 (11.03-11.07)
Individual Work: Partial storyboard drawing
Plot modification and discussion
I was having more detailed thinking about the plot, so I sent my revised part in our group chat and had discussion with Ashiwin.
Week 8 (11.11-11.14)
Individual Work: Scene layout sketch
I drew a sketch of the room layout and a preliminary arrangement of character positions based on the written script.
Based on the layout sketch, we built the first room model in ShapeXR.
Week 9 (11.17-11.21)
Group work: Tent version of the script[3]
We adjusted some details of the plot and organized it into a more formal script format.
Week 10 (11.24-11.28)
Individual Work: Ethical consideration in VR design
In <Virtual Reality: Ethical Challenges and Dangers [Opinion]>, about 15 categories of ethical considerations were pointed out, including user informed consent and autonomy, data collection, privacy and tracking risks, mental health and immersion impact, protection of vulnerable groups, inclusive and fair access, boundary between virtual and real and identity ethics, safe experience and physical risks, behavioral norms and community ethics, ethical governance framework and policy guidelines, etc.
In our film, we mainly take three points into account. Firstly, misrepresentation vs artistic freedom. We wanted to avoid misrepresenting the disease while also trying to add in our own artistic thinking to it. This was done by taking certain symptoms such as Time Slipping and showing it as cuts in the film. Another example is showing faces as a blur representing the difficulty in facial recognition in patients. Secondly, psychological burden. While we want to overwhelm the users in certain moments of the story, the aim is not to scare them but to make them aware of the disease and how patients really feel. Last, accessibility. Given the way the film is made, users aren’t required to move around or use their controllers to interact. We also will be using subtitles for users with hearing problems.
Week 11 (12.1-12.5)
Group work: final version of the story and the storyboard
We wrote the full event list, made all the screen shots in Shape XR and put them into the event list.
My parts: from scene 1 to scene 3