Interaction Evaluation

Choosing a Brief

Before the summer we were told about the recycling project and given some exercises to get us thinking about recycled materials and responding to briefs. We had to make various items from cardboard, like a chair, a CD rack and a child’s play tent. Then we were introduced to four potential partners: Oxfam, The Scrapstore, B&NES Council and Bath College. We were given briefs from each one and were to decide which partner to work with. First up was B&NES Waste Management who told us about their Love Food, Hate Waste campaigns and their plans for new recycling bins being introduced. They wanted us to produce some kind of promotional material for either one of them. Then we saw Lynne Scragg from the college, who explained to us about the college’s excuse for a recycling program and how it needed to be more publicised. We all went to a new Oxfam boutique where the manager said he wanted us to create an accessory from unwanted clothes that get donated. I liked the sound of this project, as after spending a lot of the year making posters on a computer, I wanted a more practical project. However I have no I idea about textiles or how to make anything from them, so I was holding out for the Scrapstore to deliver another practical brief. We all went on the train to meet John Pendlington from the Scrapstore. He told us about the company and then held a brainstorm with us about ideas for a brief. We came up with a whole list of ideas that he emailed to us:

• Advert about reuse and recycling and Scrapstore
• Chain reaction advert about reuse and recycling and Scrapstore
• Domino effect film using scrap materials
• Theatre, play about the journey of some scrap materials into play creations
• Clothes bins in colleges for dressing up clothes
• Leaflet for businesses about reuse and recycling and Scrapstore
• Posters for businesses about reuse and recycling and Scrapstore
• Social networking – make a page and advert for businesses
• T shirts – to advertise and raise profile and issues
• Schools – show them using the scrap materials
• Big 3D project in town centres with sculptures and collages made of scrap materials
• Model made of scrap materials
• An interactive sculpture providing a message
• Visit PlayPod for project background, stories, pictures etc.
• Flash make Art
• Dance project to market reuse and Scrapstore
• Lo Fi film using scrap materials
• Series of images for the Scrapstore website
• Facebook page for Scrapstore, scrap materials, re-use
• Live Twitter service

A group of us then decided to work on the project with the Scrapstore, and we went away to develop some ideas to pitch to John when we met with him again.

Ideas

I expanded on an idea from the list: the “Chain Reaction Film”. My idea was to make a filmed advert using scrap in a big chain reaction, drawing inspiration from a famous Honda commercial. I found out this was called a Rube Goldberg Machine. I drew up my initial plans, which I added to my blog:

I was thinking of contacting a local primary school and get permission to film for a morning there. I would then design and build the machine myself beforehand and introduce it to the kids, where they could add their ideas. During the shoot the kids will interact with the machine and hold up signs portraying the advert's key messages. I thought this is a good idea to carry the Scrapstore's message of inspiring creative and constructive play.

We went back to meet with John and discuss our ideas. When it came to talking about my idea, although I had a clear view of what it was, I perhaps didn’t explain or sell it well enough to John, and maybe that’s why I felt disappointed with the compromise that we reached as a group. That idea was to all go away and think about combining our ideas into one filmed advert for the store.

In the meeting I had with the group and our tutor, I voiced my ideas and we came up with a proposal for a project that let us create our own individual aspects, but still get a final group outcome. As I could see that my idea was already very ambitious I decided to cut it down by not involving a school. I wrote a proposal for my project and have published it on my blog:

What I am going to do is build a Rube Goldberg Machine from Scrapstore materials. I have decided not to do it in the school due to time and complexity difficulties. I will instead do it all here at college, whilst the other films from the other group members will take place at the school. My film will link them with the machine.
To Do:

• Get materials from the Scrapstore
• Find a room I can use
• Build and Experiment
• Get a camera
• Film the machine
• Capture + Edit the footage

Practical Work

I started the practical side of the project when we returned in September, and I started sketching plans for possible devices. I also managed to find some Scrapstore materials that the college had stashed away, and I began building some rudimentary experiments. I enjoyed the problem solving element of this stage, and as a result I was able to make a fairly wide variety of devices, but I also found it quite frustrating being limited by materials. This was because there was difficulty securing access to the college minibus to get us there and back. I got round this by making use of the Scrapstore materials I could find in the college whilst I was preparing ideas. This worked out all right as there was a good variety of materials of varying weights and sizes to experiment with. In retrospect if I had made my own way there a bit sooner to collect scrap, then I would have been more prepared for the final shoot.

When it came to setting up the final machine, I included some ideas from my earlier experiments, and some that I had come up with from looking through the new materials. I was able to build the individual segments in between helping the other students with their productions.

I set the machine up and began filming it, but first time round it didn’t go very smoothly. I wanted to film the machine originally in one take, but it quickly became obvious that it wasn’t going to happen. None it would really work, even the parts that had gone perfectly up until now. Eventually it was getting late; I was working alone, had burnt myself and was getting very frustrated, so I decided to leave it all set up and continue next morning.

When I came back I made the decision to “cheat” and film each part separately. I made some changes to the machine so it would work and then started recording it. It all worked quite well this time, but when I finished I realised that I had forgot to press record for one of the parts, but as I had stored all the materials away I made plans to re-film that section after I came back from work experience.

Unfortunately after a week I came back and found that the store cupboard had been tidied up and all my materials had been thrown away. From this experience I have learnt that I need to label all my things.

So, I couldn’t include that part of the film, which is a shame as it added a real dynamism and change of pace to the machine.

This was the main problem I had when editing: trying to work around the missing sequence. I did this using keyframes to crop in and digitally pan across the next shot, a technique I learned by looking online. I made it look like the string pulled by the records was attached to the brown jar, when in fact it pulled something else.

I emailed John with a link to the film, and he emailed me back a short evaluation:

This is a good quality film which is very creative and fun to watch. It delivered the waste message in an ingenious fashion using some Scrapstore materials. It is well structured and held the attention whilst showing the creative value of re-use and recycling. The storyline, like the paint, brought out the messy play ambitions in all who watched it. It kept loosely to the brief yet delivered Scrapstore's message

Overall I think my final film is successful in that combines with the other films from my group to represent the creativity that can be inspired by the Scrapstore. Through the interaction project I learned a lot about working with an external partner. I learned that although you may have strong ideas, you need to listen to your partner's opinions and needs, and must be willing to change them accordingly. I also found out that you should follow your partner's advice, as they probably know their own field better than you.

Editing

On returning from work experience, I wanted to re-film the section of the film that was missing. Unfortunately all the materials and devices I used have been thrown out, so I have no other option but to cover up the hole in the editing. This is a great shame because that section, where a jar spirals downwards and knocks a domino trail of video cassettes, added a unique dynamic and pace change to the sequence. I started editing by transferring all the footage, along with the rough sequence I'd put together, onto another computer so another student could edit her footage. My priority then was to try and seamlessly stitch the two sequences where the other one was missing. To do this I found a Youtube tutorial about keyframes, which I used to zoom in and pan across the piece of footage digitally. This crops the right hand side of the film out so it looks like the string has directly pulled the jar, when in reality there was another sequence in between. I then set about creating an ident to use at the end of mine, and the others', films, which I did using the text features on Final Cut. I also made the end of the film blur out so the text stood out. Here is the finished film:

Filming the Machine

For the last few days I have been helping the other group members with their films, whilst building and preparing for mine. I set it up yesterday and this morning I was ready to start filming it. I quickly realised that it wasn't going to work all the way through, and if I wanted to film it like that it would take forever. As a result I decided to film all the individual sections and edit them together. This is NOT cheating, as the machine definitely does works as a whole, in theory. It went as smoothly as I could have hoped for, but the most hit and miss sections were getting the pipe to roll straight, and getting the cassettes to knock the record off balance. I transferred the footage over to Final Cut to begin arranging them, and noticed a setback: One of the sections was missing where I forgot to press record. Next week I am on a work experience placement, and the week after is deadline week, so I hope to re-film that section then.

Scrapstore Materials

Today I went to Scrapstore to collect all the materials I need for my machine. I collected a good selection of materials, including long tubes, books and tapes to act as dominoes and little objects like corks and bottle tops to use as weights. Whilst we were there we arranged a date for a final meeting with John, the 5th November. When we got back I began experimenting with the new materials. One thing I got was a plastic container with valves on the lid, and I noticed that if I dropped a heavy object on it, it could fire a bottle top quite far, although it was very hit and miss. I also created a rolling object from two vinyl records, and I rigged up a system to get it rolling, but as you can see it's not very accurate.

Today I made a sequence of five or six devices, using some techniques I have already experimented with. As you can see it works well, and was pretty consistent each time, although the jar that falls through the pipe got stuck a couple of times. I particularly like the device at the end with the rolling bottle.

Today I wanted to make a more impressive see-saw for my machine. The problem with my last attempt was that the card was too floppy, so I found some stronger pieces and glued them to two jars to create my see-saw. I attached a piece of fabric to the one end. The idea would be that the fabric unfurled releasing the rolling jar inside. It worked well and also stopped the jar from rolling in the wrong direction. I stacked up some larger bottle-tops which would fall through a pipe when they were toppled. This worked, although later I was able to find a way of balancing them so they would all fall through, and this made it easier to manage the weights needed to trigger the next part of the machine.

I then started to set up a few devices in sequence to create a small Rube Goldberg machine. When the bottle-tops fell came through the pipe they would fall into a pot, and using the system that I created on Wednesday, the extra weight would pull another pot up, which in turn would knock another see-saw. In theory it worked but the weight needed to pull the pot was quite hit and miss, and it wasn't heavy enough to push the final see-saw upwards. I could counteract this problem by either using heavier objects instead of bottletops, or using lighter materials for the see-saw.

Today I did some more complex experiments. Firstly I made a way to topple an object inspired by a part of OK Go's machine. It worked although the bottle I used was probably not heavy enough to work in the way I wanted.



I wanted to make a see-saw so I glued two jars to a piece of card, with another jar acting as a pivot. When I poured water into one jar the see-saw toppled, but the card was a bit floppy, especially when it got wet.



I wanted to take the idea of using water a bit further, so I rigged some paint pots up to a basic pulley system, using easels as supports. This worked well with the water, but in the context of a whole machine I thought a solid weight would look better, so I placed another easel to feed a jar into one of the pots.



I found some sections of pipe in the classroom and I wanted to find a way to make them roll. I set up the tables at slants so the pipe would speed up and slow down at certain points. I used a swinging jar to start it going as I could use this in the final machine.




I saw a technique on a few videos where a swinging weight uncoils around a pole. I tried it with a poster tube I found, as this is definitely the kind of thing I could find in the Scrapstore. I used a wooden board as an example of how the machine could be carried on.