260 Further research

Locations

The end location needs to be inside and somewhere comfortable, like a living room or pub, this not only gives the players a chance to interact with the character on a personal level, but also gives them a chance to unwind and think about their day in a comfortable, easy going setting.  They are also more likely to be friendly and talkative in this environment, so I would ask for feedback on the project; how they have enjoyed their day and what they feel they have gained from it. I am having a hard time figuring out where to place the clues and story giveaways for my project. All of the stories I have looked at about Coventry’s involvement in the first world war have been scattered all over the city, which would make it very difficult for people taking part to get from one location to the next. If people have to drive to a different location, it will completely take them away from the game and instead of walking through the city and looking at it in a new light, they would be looking it in the same way they would if driving home from work, or picking children up from school. They may also have more difficulty finding locations. It would completely take away from the magic of the journey, ironically. This does leave me with some tough decisions to make. Maybe the locations themselves do not need to be specifically associated with the First World War, but just with Coventry’s history as a whole. Then the story could still stay true to World War One. Another area of interest, which slightly links in with World War One was the London Black Taxi Cab factory, which would have been a good location, but as seen in the map below, this is too far a walking distance from the city centre to use as a location.

My project will be split into 4 different locations, these are Coventry Cathedral, the town gate, Coventry Transport Musuem and Whitefriars Pub.

Areas of Coventry that are of interest: Coventry Cathedral, The town gate, The Transport Museum and The Whitefriars pub.

At the first location, players will have an introduction to get them used to the project and familiar with how it is run, the information here will all be on readable formats, with hidden letters from our character Tom Willis, who will have wrote the letter to a loved one back home. The will be actual hidden letters around the location, which can be spotted by tokens. There will be 3 different parts to the letter that need discovering. At the second location, a QR code will link to an audio file. This file will be Tom talking through the letters about the World War. The next location will have photographs of Tom from different points in his life, 5 in total. These will go from his birth, to his time in the way and finally ending with him as an elderly gentleman. The third spot will have video clips of Tom, played on the Big Screen outside of Coventry Transport Museum, which will give details about the final location. To get the video to play, players will have to send a selfie to the hashtag discovercoventry, it will then be played on the big screen before the video. The final location will be the Whitefriars pub in Coventry. The character of Tom at the age of 20, wearing army gear will be at this location, where the story will end and players will have the chance to ask him questions about his time in the war.

Actors

I really want my idea to be personal to those involved, and make it seem as if they are in touch with a real person, who has been through the world war, but I also want a video of Tom as an old man, to show how he reflects on his time in the war. I will put up a casting call on star now for older actors to take part in a short video piece, and also a young actor, playing a WW1 soldier, who the players will meet at the final location. I decided to use the young version of Tom int he final location as the experience will be fresh in the characters mind, it would also logistically make more sense as all soldiers from WW1 have now passed away.

Prototype of casting call for both Tom Willis’, male actors:

Experience

I have contacted Warwick Arts Centre, who are involved in the Fortnight project to see if I would be able to get some volunteer work during the project. Although the assignment will be over by then, I plan to carry on this project and release the finalised version by late August, given me a full 2 months to solidly work on it with no other distractions. The experience with Fortnight will be perfect for me to learn how other projects are carried out but instead of it being from a players point of view, I will be part of the team and can ask questions on how they went about finding ideas for locations and experiences, as well as funding. This is something that thoroughly excites me and cannot wait to get stuck in and start asking questions! Below are the emails confirming my volunteer work.

Posters

I am going to create a poster to display in public areas around the city of Coventry. This idea was bought to my attention when speaking with Fortnight, as they have done the same. The idea is that the poster will attract attention, but only enough to create a vague recognition of the product or brand. This will then lead to a trailer being played on social media sites and hopefully I will get a few radio spots to further promote the project. But the poster will be the thing that people will remember the most, as it is the first thing they saw about the project. To understand more about what type of poster I need to create, I did a quick google image search. As seen in the images below, event posters are very different to project posters.

Event posters:

Project posters:

The main differences are seen in the text, colour and layout of the two posters. The text in event posters is minimal with only specific details like venue, time and date shown, whereas project posters are crammed with information about the project, what issues it is raising and why. Again, the colours contrast completely, with event posters being very vibrant and bold, and project posters being light and subtle. The layout is also very different, with a picture most prominent on the event posters and text taking centre stage on the project posters. After comparing the two, I definitely know I need to be creating an event poster and will look into these in more detail, specifically concentrating on my project area. My project is quite hard to condense into a few words, so this may get mixed results. I will look for game based events and community events.

I chose these three posters after looking on the internet as they are the ones that stood out to me the most, all for different reasons.

The first poster is actually advertising a company that make posters, so this was used as an example for a poster. It has so little information on it, it is very hard to ignore! The bright green colour catches your eye instantly, while the egg at the centre of the image gives the only bit of detail on what this poster might be advertising. I like the idea of having one central image that doesn’t give everything about the project away.

The second poster was for a exhibition for computer and video games. This poster stood out for the opposite reason of poster 1 in the fact that it was a dark bold colour. The E3 was big and made me want to find out what it stood for, much in the same way the egg in picture one did. It gave the relevant information like date, venue and project but left the rest out. It has a very game-like font, which obviously fits in well with the exhibition.

The third was a food event with mobile food vans giving out food. This was different to the previous 2 with the amount of text and the colours. It was black and white but still intrigued me by the way the words fit into the bus, which was the key feature of the event. I do feel however there are too many words, which is something I will take into consideration when creating my poster.

Looking at these three posters gave me the idea to use one key image on my poster, and centre the wording around this. This image needs to be significant to the First World War, which could be a gas mask, a boot, the Wipers Times paper format etc. It also made me think about which font to use to suggest what might be happening in my project. The font should be something that fits in with WW1 or could look hand written due to the amount of letters people sent home. I will draft a few paper version of different ideas before creating a digital version.

Above are three very rough sketches of poster designs. The first (incase you can’t tell what it is) is a World War One gas mask. The text would go over the mask and the mask would fill the poster, making it look as if it were staring at you from a distance. The second is a simpler design but something everyone associates with war: a poppy. The red of the poppy would stand out in contrast to the background of the image. The third photo was based on a design of a tank. Although this is the less obviously associate war image, I like how the text can be written in the vehicle, like the poster from above of the bus. I have asked a small group of people which of these images they like the best, with the majority of people felt the poppy was more thought provoking and striking on first glance, but the people suggesting this were women, so this may have influenced their decision. People then began to change their mind when looking at the gas mask picture, with it becoming clearer what it was and what it symbolised. They felt it would be striking from a distance and look like a face staring at you. They weren’t as keen on the third poster, as tanks weren’t invented until later in the war and the image wasn’t as clear. There suggestions made me think about creating a more coventry specific poster, with bullets or grenades on the cover, because of Coventry’s heavy involvement with the making of ammunition.

I asked a few of my peers what they thought of these fonts, with the majority of people preferring the second font (8 out of 11), because they felt it was more unique and “different to everything else I’ve seen.” People felt the type-writer fonts seemed “a bit too conventional.” Someone else commented that they liked the second font, but it didn’t feel very world war like. And another comment suggested that fonts 1 and 4 didn’t really fit the description. This has left me with the choice of font 2 or font 3. I really like font 2, but feel I would need to edit the 9 cents sign from the image, as my project is not American.

The above are two different designs from the same mask, I prefer the dirty, sketched look of the second image, but feel the text needs to be changed to font 3. This mask looks more like a Second World War mask though, I did try and look for a creative commons gas mask but they are very rare to find. I will use this as a prototype only, when creating an actual poster I will try to draw the mask myself, or will ask an art student to help me.

After playing with fonts and colours, I am much happier with the final poster. I will experiment with the poppy poster to try two different themes and see which people prefer.

I quite like the image above because of its simplicity. The poppy is copyright free under a creative commons license, so on the finalised poster I will credit the photographer near the bottom of the poster. I decided on font 2 as it was so original and went so well with the poppy.

Most people I asked preferred the poppy poster, because it is a lot brighter and lighter, whereas the gas mask photo is very dark, which suggest the project will have dark connotations, which it doesn’t. I will be using the poppy poster when advertising my project.

Prototype of website:

I wanted to keep the website as simple as possible, with just a simple video placed on the home page of the trailer. This will still keep viewers interested, whilst not giving too much away. I feel the poster will give enough away about the project. This idea came from Fortnights website:

Things left to do

• Make a character profiles for Tom Willis’:

Character profile Tom Willis (78)

Character profiles Tom Willis (18)

• Make a sound script for the audio files:

Audio Play

• Make a video script for the video files:

Tom Willis video file

• Make the letters, (laminated)

• These are sample letters, which will help me when creating the real letters.
• Tokens for players to find:

This token will be shown at locations involved in the game, they will also help in finding the clues to the story. This token will be laminated.

• Contact the Big Screen to see if they would agree to play my video, which, if applying for the heritage fund they may be more willing to help.

Pre Visuals of locations:

This project will be run for a few hours at the weekend. I felt having it only run for a day, instead of people coming back over a longer time period will allow them to fully immerse in the project at one given time, and it eliminates the risk of them not returning the following week. Having said this, the project will be run over a period of a month, but the project will be the same each weekend for 4 weeks. Only 3 different groups can take part in the project and need to book in advance via the website. They will pay a small fee of £5 per person and groups can be no bigger then 5 people. The reason for the fee is to cover acting costs, printing costs and prop costs. This fee will be taken out if I can get funding from the Heritage Lottery fund.

Geeky Swedes. (2010). “BURP” A new community event. Available: http://www.myballard.com/2010/04/20/burp-a-new-community-event-on-may-1/. Last accessed 22nd Feb 2014.

Minuteman Press. (2014). Print problem solved. Available: http://minutemankent.wordpress.com. Last accessed 22nd Feb 2014.

http://www.dafont.com/old-press.font?text=Discover+Coventry. Last accessed 1st March 2014

http://www.dafont.com/buy-more.font?text=Discover+Coventry. Last accessed 1st March 2014

http://www.dafont.com/1942-report.font?text=Discover+Coventry. Last accessed 1st March 2014

http://www.dafont.com/veteran-typewriter.font?text=Discover+Coventry. Last accessed 1st March 2014

http://www.ehow.com/how_5092912_draw-gas-mask.html. Last accessed 1st March 2014

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aigle_dore/6906665986/sizes/l/. Last accessed 1st March 2014

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_v1l24hLE2pQ/S-m1leIR2iI/AAAAAAAAEhE/-PwLaQk6K_w/s1600/Letter1.jpg. Last accessed 3rd March 2014

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fportraitsofwar.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F03%2Fehtanallen018.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fportraitsofwar.wordpress.com%2Fcategory%2Fpostcard%2F&docid=Wb1gD6TBI_-_jM&tbnid=ghFNvNRvCUwTjM&w=2733&h=4415&ei=3GMYU720G8PxhQeW84DACA&ved=0CAMQxiAwAQ&iact=c. Last accessed 3rd March 2014

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2013%2F01%2F22%2Farticle-2266445-1715D37B000005DC-817_640x992.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fnews%2Farticle-2266445%2FArthur-Greg-WW1-British-Soliders-letter-discovered-mill.html&docid=VkrEuoQXYoR1YM&tbnid=_FHaFmTc5XGm6M%3A&w=640&h=992&ei=8mMYU-2AH8WqhAfcroHABQ&ved=0CAIQxiAwAA&iact=c. Last accessed 3rd March 2014

http://www.coventry.gov.uk/contact. Last accessed 3rd March 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bigscreens/. Last accessed 3rd March 2014

260 Funding Research

Because I knew the BBC and other programmes are focussing on the First World War at the moment, (been 100 years) I knew there would be some funding in this area. I had a look at the Coventry City Council Website, and they mentioned the Heritage Lottery Fund, who are offering different pots of money for different projects. These can be anything from rebuilding derelict buildings to introducing the history of the First World War to primary school students. I would be looking at the Sharing Heritage fund, which offers £3,000 – £10,000.  I have contacted the West Midlands department to see if this project would be applicable for my project, applicants take 8 weeks to process.

“This grant programme is for community projects that focus on the First World War, with a whort application and quick decision.” My project fits into this brief nicely. They also give out useful information on digital technologies used for the project

 

I will also look at more local ways of funding, so I will contact the Herbert Art Gallery to see how interested in my project they might be. Even if it is just for advertisement purposes:

 

I will also contact the Warwick Arts Centre:

References:

Funds available to commemorate 100th anniversary of First World War. Available: http://www.coventry.gov.uk/news/article/791/funds_available_to_commemorate_100th_anniversary_of_first_world_war. Last accessed 4th March 2014.

http://www.theherbert.org/news/first-world-war-object-donations. Last accessed 4th March 2014

http://www.hlf.org.uk/HowToApply/whatwefund/firstworldwar/Pages/Grants3-10.aspx#.Uxcs-lwdUds. Last accessed 4th March 2014

http://www.hlf.org.uk/HowToApply/goodpractice/Documents/Using_Digital_Technology_Good_Practice.pdf.. Last accessed 4th March 2014

260 Secondary Research

treasure hunt

noun

a game in which each person or team attempts to be first in finding something that has been hidden,using written directions or clues.

Safety Not Guaranteed

Safety Not Guaranteed is a film about an advertisement in a newspaper. A magazine decide to investigate further into the advert to try and find out who posted it and if it was a practical joke or something serious. I liked how the simple story developed into a more complex narrative. It made me think about my own film and how I could do a similar thing, that might get people’s attention and get them involved in my own project. I could write something like this, leaving an email address or website or QR code at the bottom, which would go to a trailer for my project. I could advertise it in the Coventry Telegraph or the Metro, which is given away free on public busses. This would be a great way to advertise my film and get more people interested.

Elements included in my idea:

“Hybrid reality games (HRGs) employ mobile technologies and GPS devices as tools for transforming physical spaces into interactive game boards.” de Souza e Silva, A. & Delacruz, G. (2006).

ARG

ARG is Alternate Reality Gaming.

Alternate Reality Gaming is an interactive game playing experience with elements of writing, puzzle-solving, and team-building. There is also some role-playing involved. It uses several different forms of media in order to pass clues to the players, they then try to solve these clues in order to unravel  pieces of the story. Clues are passed through different digital formats like web pages, email, TV ads and then more physical or personal forms like film/music poster, newspapers and voicemails. The game is a very social one, where a community involved in a certain game will work together to figure out particularly difficult clues. The uniqueness of ARGs comes down to the internet, without it, people wouldn’t be able to communicate about clues on such a vast level and also half of the clue hiding material wouldn’t be available. It is literally the virtual world of treasure hunting.

(http://blackhollowproject.com)

The most popular ARGs were from 2001 to 2008. The most famous ARGs are generally attached to other media, like a CD promotion (Year Zero – Nine Inch Nails), TV series promotion (Lost Experience, Find 815 – Lost), or film promotion (The Beast – AI). This does not mean, however, that ARGs do not exist today, just that the big company branded ones are not seen so much. According to http://www.argn.com/now_playing/ there are 10 ARGs playing right now, one very similar to my idea, which might involve WW1, which is the black hollow project.(See link under picture)

Among the terms essential to understand discussions about ARGs are:

• Puppetmaster – The designer of the game.
• The Curtain – The separation between the puppetmasters and the players.
• Rabbithole/Trailhead – The first media artefact that draws in players. (Usually a website)
  
• This Is Not A Game (TINAG) – Players believe the main sentiment to an ARG is the fact that it isn’t really a game at all, more of an experience.

The Beast:

(http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2015/04/The-Beast-A.I.jpg)

The Beast was the first true Alternate Reality Game. It was set in the AI movie (Artificial Intelligence, 2001) universe but at a time about 40 years after the movie. In April 2001, a group of people came together, curious about the rumors of circled letters on the backs of the AI movie posters and the credit in the movie trailers for a Jeanine Salla, “Sentient Machine Therapist.”

The story that unfolded across thirty sites was written by Sunburst and World Fantasy. It was written by Sean Stewart, engineered by Jordan Weisman and masterminded by Elan Lee, both of Microsoft. The Cloudmakers maintain an exhaustive archive of the sites and pages found during play.

Sean Stewart

Sean Stewart started off as a novelist, but worked on The Beast and moved into other ARGS when this became a success. He worked on I Love Bees (Halo 2) and Year Zero (Nine Inch Nails). He was the founding member of Fourth Wall Studios, which are now working on http://rides.tv project, which use video based productions that use emails and phone numbers to communicate with their audience.

Lost Experience:

(http://static.flickr.com/56/139617115_be1c02f5b4.jpg?v=0)

The Lost Experience was the first of two ARG’s made for the TV series Lost. It comprised of 5 phases and lasted for 3 months.

First Phase

It began on May 2, 2006 in the United Kingdom with an advert that aired during an episode of Lost for the fictional Hanso foundation, a corporation mentioned on the show. The advertisement listed a telephone number which brought up fictional voice mail lines for employees at the Hanso Foundation. Some of these messages provided clues to be used in the Hanso Foundation’s website. Commercials for the Hanso Foundation in subsequent weeks directed players to other in-game websites, some of which are tied to specific sponsors.

Second Phase

On June 19, Rachel Blake’s blog is revealed in the source code of the Hanso foundation site, which comes to play a major part of the second phase of the game. Rogue investigator Blake posts videos of her traveling around the world to uncover the secret agenda of the Hanso foundation.

Third Phase

Another website is launched through a stunt at Comic-Con in July 2006, marking the start of the Lost Experience phase three. The website features open-registration accounts to a video sequence editor. By entering alphanumeric codes, new video segments can be added. New codes are expected to be released regularly — entering an invalid code yields a statement that the code in question does not work at this particular time.

The final sequence of video segments became known as the Sri Lanka Video.

Fourth and Fifth Phases

In late August 2006, Apollo chocolate barsbegan distribution through Forbidden Planet stores in the UK. On August 24 the web site was launched. Site users could upload pictures of themselves and an Apollo chocolate bar. The uploaded pictures now form the word “unite”. A certain number of Apollo bars are designated “golden oracle”, and contain special codes that can also be submitted to the site. A message from Rachel Blake promises that further instructions will be given “once enough of the world is watching”. Finally, the site reported that D.J. Dan would tell the full truth and finally shut down the whole thing on his radio show on September 24 at 8pm.

The final video (regarding the current location of Alvar Hanso) became known as the Norway Video.

Find 815:

(http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080102112919/lostpedia/images/4/4f/Find815_3.jpg)

Following the success of Lost Experience, Find 815 was released in December 2007. 

Pre-release

On December 28, 2007, ABC’s press website (ABC Medianet) uploaded a press release announcing the return to business of the fictitious Oceanic Airlines. The release contained a phone number, which when called, instructs the listener to visit http://www.flyoceanicair.com, which features a commercial for Oceanic. On December 31, the site was updated with a video of Sam explaining his situation intercut with flashes of the URL http://www.find815.com. The official Find 815 website contains more videos of Sam as he begins to uncover the truth of what happened to 815.

At Sydney Airport, the Seven Network placed a billboard near the exit, featuring a picture of an Oceanic Airlines hostess and the company’s symbol with the words “find815.com” ‘painted’ over the company’s name.

Find 815 is about a character who’s girlfriend was on the Oceanic flight from Australia to USA. It is about him trying to find her and find out what happened. This is done through clues and websites with videos and text.

I think ARGs are amazing in the way they bring people together to solve clues, usually it is around a shared passion or subject. I like the idea of using these within my idea, but not just making an ARG. I want my innovation to be more hands on and less internet based. Maybe it could start with a website, which leads to a very real location. I like the idea of concentrating my idea on WW1, as it has been 100 years starting this year since the war, there is a lot of interest in this subject especially in the film industry. I feel this gives me a place to start contacting local people who might be interested in promoting my innovation.

LARP

(Live action role playing)

A live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role playing game where the participants physically act out their characters’ actions. The outcome of player actions may be mediated by game rules or determined by consensus among players. Event arrangers called game masters decide the setting and rules to be used and facilitate play.

The first LARPs were run in the late 1970s, inspired by tabletop role playing games and genre fiction. The activity spread internationally during the 1980s and has diversified into a wide variety of styles. Play may be very game-like or may be more concerned with dramatic or artistic expression. Events can also be designed to achieve educational or political goals. The fictional genres used vary greatly, from realistic modern or historical settings to fantastic or futuristic eras. Production values are sometimes minimal, but can involve elaborate venues and costumes. LARPs range in size from small private events lasting a few hours to large public events with thousands of players lasting for days.

“How about making 2014 your year of fun and adventure?  If so, not only are you way ahead of 99% of the population, you’ve just uncovered one of live role-playing’s best-kept secrets.  If you’d like to escape the stress, trials or monotony of daily life, then perhaps it’s time to try something different – and unleash your inner hero!”

This event has several different sites where people can get involved in LARP. This community is bigger then I thought, with 10 events in the UK this February!

“Herofest LARP organise and run LARPing Festival live action role playing weekends.”

This LARP event is a lot more expensive then I thought, but that does include a place to wash and stay for 2 nights. It’s £60 to book before a certain date, and after that date it’s £70. This event is based in South Wales and is run for experienced LARP players as well as beginners. There are events that take place throughout the UK.

Burn Note

“We believe new technology should protect your privacy — not remove it. That’s why we built a messaging system that puts your privacy first. Burn Note gives you the power to control your privacy with our unique privacy features.” Burn Note (Date Unknown)

This would be a good app to combine with for my idea.

QR Codes

“Generate fully trackable QR codes in your account. Real-time tracking tells you when and how many people scanned your code, what kind of devices they used, and even where they were at the time of the scan.” Smarty Tags (Date Unknown)

I think it would be a good idea to get the “Smart” or “Genious” package after trial testing my idea and seeing how successful it might be. This would be a great way to get my idea across to more audiences.

As I have looked at each of these innovations, I have thought about my idea and developed it further. I feel the best way to create my innovation would be by using all of these different apps, like scvngr, foursquare, burn note and QR codes to help create an imaginary world in the city of Coventry. It would be a treasure hunt, where people are lead to different locations with things hidden there for the players to find, these will give out a little part of the story and help create a more concrete world in the players minds. This is a collaboration of all the ideas I have looked at, like Year Zero, Geocaching and Ghosts in the Garden.

Coventry History

I think it would be a good idea to have locations set in areas of Coventry that were affected by WW1. Like a building that was bombed or a factory that produced something for the war effort. I could include QR codes so people can access images of what the street or area looked like in that time. Focusing my idea on World War One will prove more difficult as a lot of people associate Coventry with World War 2, where the blitz took out most of the city centre.

Maybe I could change my idea slightly to be centred more around the second world war, so more people can connect with the project.

http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/postcards/gosfd-gn.php  This website has an article about a post card from the First World War from somebody in Coventry.At the end of the article, they go into a bit of detail about the old bandstand in Coventry. Someone has written in to the website of how they used to remember it.  From reading this I created the scenes in my mind. The description is such a different Coventry to the one people know now and I think it would be lovely to remember it in a positive happy way like this.

A History of Coventry

McGrory, D (2003). A History of Coventry. West Sussex: Philmore & Co. 254-256.

I found a book going into a bit of detail on Coventry and it’s involvement in the First World War. This has given me a lot of information to look up in different books and websites.

Locations:

• Hastings Road, Goring Road, St George’s Road and Severn Road (1914-1915)
• Red Lane Ordnance Works factory:

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/download/EPW001193

• Munition Cottages Holbrook Lane
• Whitley Abbey (Belgium refugees)
• St Mary’s Hall (Ancient valuables moved)
• War Memorial Park
• Stoke Heath Estate (1916)

Facts:

• Coventry produced Ordnance, quick-firing guns, aeroplanes, aeroplane parts, machine tools, ambulance trailers, aircraft engines, magnetos, gun and submarine parts, bombs, incendiary bullets and drop forgings.
• They produced 19,940,000 fuses, 9,880,000 grenades and 31,060,000 detonators. Coventry invented the incendiary bullet, 26 million were made and they were responsible all for but 1 of the Zeppelins shot down over English soil.
• 500 temporary wooden houses were built for workers.
• 800 houses built on Stoke Heath Estate.
• 30,000 workers were working at factory to keep it open day and night.
• The War Department spent over £40 million on Coventry’s factories.
• An estimated 35,00 Coventry men joined the forces, with 2,587 never returning.
• The War Memorial Park was opened on 8th October 1927 to a crowd of 50,000 people.
• Fear of raids meant the city’s ancient valuables were moved from St. Mary’s Hall to a safer location.
• In 1919, following the Godiva Peace Procession, riots broke out in Coventry.

This website is very helpful as it has specific information about Coventry. http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/virtualtour/tour1910.php this page has an area of the city centre from 1910-1920, with images for each red arrow you hover over. This is really useful for me as it gives me information about areas I could include in my project.

They also have a page of useful links to websites about Coventry: http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/main/links.php

Coventry Ghost Walks:

There is a company in Coventry that do walks through the city centre every Friday evening. These walks include tales of old Coventry stories related to ghostly sitings and mysteries. They are £7.50 and take about 2 hours. This is a community of people who believe in ghosts and enjoy the excitement of finding out about spirits. The tour runs every Friday, so must be quite popular with locals. http://coventryghostwalk.rezgo.com

World War One/The Great War

WW1 started in 1914 and ended in 1918. More than 9 million combatants were killed and it was the fifth deadliest conflict in world history.

The immediate trigger for the war was 28th June 1914. This is when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assisnated. He was the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. This set off a diplomatic crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the kingdom of Serbia.

John McCormick was a singer in the first world war, he performed the song “It’s a Long Way to Tripperary” which was written by Jack Judge in 1915. Other songs John McCormick performed were “Keep the Home Fires Burning” “There’s a long long trail” and “Roses of Picardy.” Other famous songs in the first world war period were “Pack All Your Troubles (In Your Old Kit Bag) which was written in 1915 by George Powell.

Films released just after the war were The Service Star directed by Charles Miller, Shoulder Arms directed by Charlie Chaplin, Hearts of the World directed by D.W Griffith, The Heart of Humanity Directed by Allen Holubar, J’accuse directed by Abel Gance and The Lost Battalion directed by Burton L. King.

Anthem For Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen

Dulce et Decorum Est

1 Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
2 Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
3 Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
4 And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
5 Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
6 But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
7 Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
8 Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

9 Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling
10 Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
11 But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
12 And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.–
13 Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
14 As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

15 In all my dreams before my helpless sight
16 He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

17 If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
18 Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
19 And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
20 His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
21 If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
22 Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
23 Bitter as the cud
24 Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
25 My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
26 To children ardent for some desperate glory,
27 The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
28 Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

Line 27 and 28 is Latin and translated means – “It is sweet and fitting to die for your country”

The Wipers Times

It was the brainchild of Captain Fred Roberts and Lieutenant Jack Pearson of 12th Battalion. Amidst the ruins of the heavily shelled city of Ypres (called ‘Wipers’ by the soldiers) they found a damaged but serviceable printing press. One of the pages was an advert to cure optimism.

The Football Game

An interesting event that is famous about WW1 was the football match on Christmas day between Germany and England. They had called a temporary truce, so they could collect their dead when a football was kicked from the british lines into No Man’s Land. They also shook hands and shared cigarettes. The football was played as a way to get past the language barrier and was meant as a light relief from the horrors of war. It showed how both sides felt at the time. Unfortunately this truce didn’t last and the war continued for a further 4 years.

“Raggie” The War Horse

Ragtime was a first world war pony. The story goes from his life as a pony in india to the battlefields of the first world war.

“I have seen much of the world. I have told you of war and of peace: of polo and sport. There does not seem to be much more to relate.”

Excerpt from ‘”Raggie” the War Horse: An Autobiography’ by Guy, Lord Middleton (1931)

It was written by Ragtimes owner, Lord Middleton who was reunited with his horse when there was a lull in the war.

Noel Evans

Noel Evans was a soldier who died just as the Armistice was about to be signed on the 11th November 1918.

“It has been the hardest week to bear of my life … It is such hard lines that he should have been taken at the very end of the war.”

Letter from Noel’s father, 15 November 1918

In June 1918 he was commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery (RFA). He arrived in France at the end of September and was posted to a battery in the 27th Brigade RFA, the unit in which his brother Morgan also served. Despite the hardships and privations of trench warfare his letters convey a spirit of optimism.

Noel and his comrades were frequently exposed to grave dangers. During his short time at the front Noel survived several near misses before his luck finally ran out. On 4 November 1918, a week before hostilities ended, a shell burst a few yards away from the dugout where he was on duty.

He appeared to be slightly wounded in the left thigh and right heel, and a tiny splinter was pulled out of the back of his head; his thigh seemed to worry him most, but the hit on the head had caused him to go temporarily blind …

Letter to Noel’s parents from his Commanding Officer,
6 December 1918

On hearing of his injuries, Noel’s parents went out to France to visit him in hospital. However, they arrived only to be informed that their son’s wounds had proved fatal and that his funeral was about to take place.

Noel was buried in a cemetery near Rouen along with 30 of his comrades. Against the backdrop of celebrations, his heart-broken family headed back to Britain to mourn.

To think that we shall never see his dear smile again. It’s all been so cruelly hard … all the horrible noise and crowds and rejoicing everywhere day and night, it has been a continuous nightmare and the journey back I thought never would come to an end.

Letter from Noel’s mother, possibly written on 16 November 1918

Going ‘over the top’

I always said a prayer before going over the top. Six times – on six occasions on some bigger attacks and smaller attacks for some reason or other. I always used to stand when we’re all lined up with us rifles and bayonet all fixed for going over with, over with the lads. Our heart would be cursing and there would be all sorts of stuff going up in fright.

But I always used to just stand still for a minute and just say this little prayer. I’ll never forget it. ‘Dear God, I am going into grave danger. Please help me to act like a man and come back safe.’ And that’s what I did. And I went over without fear. That little prayer seemed to save my life because I had no fear left, although there were shells and bullets and all the rest flying when we went over and I were never frightened of being hit. It’s real funny that that prayer put me where I am now. In this chair. And that’s true. And six times I went up and six times I said that little prayer and each time I went up and come back safe. And I thank God for it every time.

Deadly legacy

After war had finished, we were collecting old rifles and all war stuff. We were set off going across fields, picking up rifles and bombs and anything else to do with war. And two of our lads come across some shells that had had been primed but never fired. And they got all these shells and picked them up. They were coming to the dump, when one of them shells slipped off his arm and hit the striking pin, and the shell exploded. They were both killed. It were terrible, after the war had finished. It were disastrous for they were just doing a duty of cleaning the countryside for the French folk.

The unknown soldier

This was a way to think of everyone unidentified in the first world war. They picked a soldier at random and gave him a heroes burial, as a way to say that we would not forget about anyone who had fought to serve for our Country.

I feel the strongest way to connect with an audience, who would participate in a live setting would be to have a very strong possibly emotional real life story told of a young solider at war. This could incorporate letters home from soldiers, stories told years after the war and poems and songs associated with that era. I think it is important to use as many different aspects as possible to really create a sense of living in that time. These will also need to be quite Coventry specific. Maybe a song that was sung in the factories or a poem from a Coventarian.

I was reading an article about how digital media can be used to teaching and learning, there was a project in Amsterdam where young children were involved in a project “…taking place in the year 1550 in the medieval city, players were able to communicate with fictitious characters and receive information about the places where they stood in real time, due to their devices’ location awareness.”  de Souza e Silva, A. & Delacruz, G. (2006) I think this idea could work really well with my story, transforming the space in front of them into how it was seen years ago, and also by using GPS devices, so viewers can track their progress.

Moving forward

After looking at several different projects and element that could be included in this idea, I feel I have enough overall information to start defining my searches to more idea specific items, like Coventry songs and poems in the First World War. I also need to look at the technical aspects I will be including in my idea, QR codes are a must so it is important to inform players before their arrival that there will be a need for a smart phone and an app that can decipher these codes.

The Plough Inn

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/lifestyle/nostalgia/famous-marching-song-its-long-6722348

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01qmhqx –

German bicycle and motorcycle manufacturer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01qml2j

White and Poppies

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01qmksr

Leasowes Farm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01qmk6c

A schoolboy escape

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01qmhgf

Cutlery

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/coventry/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_9041000/9041847.stm

Look into black taxi cabs – could have a picture and find one and some activity involved in discovering their historical value to the city of Coventry – http://www.london-taxis.co.uk/history

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/warwickshire-soldiers-first-world-war-6379061 – letters from the front

Almost killed Hitler http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/private-henry-tandey-birmingham-soldier-5824583

Academic Research Paper

After reading this, I have begun to understand a lot more about the area and history of location based projects and interaction through mobile devices. This paper had a lot of useful links to other books on this subject.

References:

de Souza e Silva, A. & Delacruz, G. (2006) Hybrid Reality Games Reframed: Potential Uses in Educational Contexts, Games and Culture 1(3) pp. 231-251.

Unknown author. (Last modified: 2014). Alternate Reality Gaming.Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014.

Unknown author. (2002). history. Available: http://www.unfiction.com/history/. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014.

Michael Andersen. (2013). What is the Blackhollow Project?. Available: http://www.argn.com/2013/07/what_is_the_blackhollow_project/. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

http://blackhollowproject.com. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

Unknown author. (2008). History of ARGs. Available: http://www.argology.org/history-of-args/. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014.

Unknown author. (2002). The Beast. Available: http://www.unfiction.com/history/the-beast/. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014.

Sean Stewart. (Unknown). Behind the Fourth Wall. Available: http://www.seanstewart.org. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014.

http://42entertainment.com. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

http://fourthwallstudios.com. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

http://rides.tv project. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

Unknown author. (Last modified: 2013). Lost Experience. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Experience. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014.

Unknown author. (Last modified: 2013). Find 815. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Find_815. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014.

Unknown author. (Last modified: 2014). Live action role-playing game.Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_action_role-playing_game. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014.

Unknown author. (Last modified: 2014). Heroquest Events Calendar.Available: http://www.heroquest-larp.co.uk/larp-events.html. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

http://www.larpevents.co.uk. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

http://www.live-roleplaying.co.uk/live/action/roleplaying/liveactionroleplaying-herofest.htm. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014.

https://burnnote.com. Last accessed 23rd Jan 2014

http://smartytags.com/. Last accessed 23rd Jan 2014

Rob Orland. (Last modified: 2012). A postcard from Coventry. Available: http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk/postcards/gosfd-gn.php. Last accessed 5th March 2014.

McGrory, D (2003). A History of Coventry. West Sussex: Philmore & Co. 254-256.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Popular-World-War-1-Songs. Last accessed 14th Feb 2014

http://www.kingswoodresources.org.uk/history/20century/ww1/songs.htm. Last accessed 14th Feb 2014

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_I_films. Last accessed 12th Feb 2014

http://www.nam.ac.uk/collection/collection-news/wipers-times-soldiers-paper. Last accessed 12th Feb 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/0/23931340. Last accessed 12th Feb 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9758857/Christmas-Truce-letters-give-insight-into-break-in-WW1-hostilities.html. Last accessed 12th Feb 2014

http://www.nam.ac.uk/collection/collection-news/straight-from-horses-mouth. Last accessed 12th Feb 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/last_tommy_gallery_02.shtml. Last accessed 12th Feb 2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11710660. Last accessed 12th Feb 2014

260 Competitor Research

After discussing all three of my ideas with Pete, we both decided the third idea would be the most creative and innovative. The main idea is to mix the already existing geocaching experience with modern day twists, like videos and websites. Now I need to do some research into existing projects like this. Pete gave me a few starting points.

Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero

Nine Inch Nails are an American band, who were founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor. Year Zero is the name of their 2007 album, released two years after White Teeth. Year Zero is a concept album, concentrating on the United States Government’s policies, and how they will impact the world 15 years into the future from the release of the album. (2022) An alternate reality game was an add on to the Year Zero concept, expanding on the storyline. Fans who had bought tour t-shirts found that some letters were bigger then others. When they put these letters together, it spelled I am trying to believe, which was revealed to be an actual website, from here, more and more websites were found, 30 in total. On each website was a snippet of what Trent Reznor thought the world of 2022 would be like, giving fans a new and exclusive insight into the world of their idol and the world of the possible future.

Geocaching

Geocaching is a fun outdoor activity perfect for families to take part in. The idea is that people can go to places around the world and look for hidden treasures. They are usually placed in a tin box with a log book, a pen/pencil and trade items, which people can add to the box for the next set of people to find. This happens all over the world, with a network of 6 million people. This has been going on for 150 years and has been developing along the way. They have tried to bring it into the 21st century by adding an app, with GPS, which leads the user to a geocache co-ordinate. I think this is a brilliant idea and something a lot of people my age don’t really know about. I think this idea can be re-developed into something a lot more interactive, with videos and codes to use on mobile devices, this could become more of a treasure hunt from place to place which could solve a mystery or give exclusive content to the people involved.

The first image is of the whole of Britain. The green dots indicate geocaching locations, proving that there are many. The second is a close up look at the ring road in Coventry, with around 100 geocaching spots seen. This image surprised me as I didn’t know the geocaching community was so vast. I feel this is the perfect market to sell my newer method of geocaching to.

Foursquare

“Heading out? Foursquare helps you and your friends make the most of where you are. Join the over 35 million people who are already on Foursquare. Download the free app now!” Foursquare (Date unknown)

Foursquare is an app that connects with local areas, telling people where is best to go or what attractions are in that area. People can put up their comments on a certain place and it comes up in a map layout, with pinpoints on things specific to your search.

Svngr

“SCVNGR is a game about going places, doing challenges and earning points. You’ll discover cool new places to go, find fun new things to do and share your activity with your friends. Now with over 12,000 places offering rewards just for playing SCVNGR there!” Svngr (Date unknown)

It uses the GPS on your phone to find your location, then comes up with a list of places near this location. You can add friends and earn badges and rewards as well as seeing who’s used the app in the last 12 hours. This app is very similar to the one above, but this is with little exploration on my part. This app links in perfectly with my geocaching/treasure hunt idea.

Ghosts in the Garden

“Rediscover the Georgian Pleasure Gardens of Bath via game, soundscape and ‘Georgian Listening Device’.” Ghosts in the Garden (Date unknown)

I absolutely loved this concept and idea of bringing history to life but in a fun, interactive way. This is how I would like my idea to end up, but instead of one park across a whole city, with videos and pictures as well as soundscapes…

Fortnight

info@fortnightproject.com

“Fortnight is a two-week long, fully immersive, experience based in the interactions and communications of daily life. Up to 200 participants sign up to receive messages that are sent to their mobile phones, email, and home address; these messages contain a series of poetic nudges that encourage those participating to question their sense of place. Participants also receive daily invitations to visit locations throughout their city where they can pause to reflect on what it means to be here now.” Fortnight (Date Unknown)

Fortnight is an event happening in Coventry around the end of March. It sounds very similar to my idea, but unfortunately this module finishes on March 6th, so attending this event would not help me learn anything to include in my own project. This is why I think it would be a good idea if I emailed this company to ask some questions about the project, how they got it organised, how long it took to get organised, what type of audience they are looking at, how they have marketed and distributed this idea and why they have added a £20 fee. This project was created by Proto-type theatre, who are involved in live performances.

London Street Games

info@londonstreetgames.com

“It’s what it says on the tin – a chance to get out and have some fun in the enormous playground that is London. London Street Games aims to provide a number of interactive puzzle-based live-action games, each themed and structured differently, to give you and your friends hours of active leisure. Our games may feature immersive play, gadgets and apps, competition, treasure hunting and a variety of transport types. All are aimed at adults and some will be suitable for children to join in with too.” London Street Games (Date unknown)

This is a really exciting opportunity in London, I will email this company, asking when there next Saturday event is and also if they have any spaces available for work experience, as this is something that sounds very exciting, new and up my street. They may also be interested in helping me with my project in Coventry, as they already have experience at doing it. Here is the email:

Unlock the 007 in you!

This was a really cool advertising technique, which combined the new 007 film with Coke Zero. It involved people in a train station taking part in a 70 second adventure, with obstacles along the way. This is inspiring to me and a genius way to advertise. Everyone involved look so intent on getting to the end, like they were actually a bond agent, which is exactly how I want people to respond to my project. I liked the use of live-action actors and actresses and think this can work very well in connecting with the player..

The timing in this was perfect, with the violinist kicking the song off right as the timer starts to count down, creating this sense of action, and then soon after the beat boxers kicking in, again, adding this layer of excitement and action we associate with films. The timers were also good, so the person involved knew how long they had left, which would push them into moving quicker. I liked how the actress towards the start spoke to them all using their names, as this is something quite personal but something they all gave out at the beginning, without really realising it would be used in this way. The ending was also good, how they got the people involved to sing the theme tune, which is something people are normally quite shy about. It’s amazing what lengths people will go to to win some tickets.

This is another element I need to consider, will my audience be receiving anything for their participation? Or will I be asking them to pay ME for their participation?

Hide and Seek

Hide and seek are a company which create fun and unique games for people to play in public spaces. They started in 2007 and have worked with the BBC, Warner Bros, Film 4, Ebay and many more. They do things from apps to live events to games people can play with friends.

A Game of Crowns

http://hideandseek.net/projects/a-game-of-crowns/

A game of crowns is a game recently put together by Hide and Seek and some other companies. It is taken from the 1966 month long Christmas party held by King William 3rd. It was a way to bring those games played to the 21st century and make them immersive and interactive. You could tell by the way they spoke in the video that this project was flawlessly researched and planned, they knew their audience and the behaviour of their audience, which helped them create the games.

Treasures: The Hunt

http://hideandseek.net/projects/treasures/

This was a treasure hunt project in London which celebrated the Natural History Museums treasure gallery. People travelled the city of London looking for extinct animals, once they had found them they could scribble in a collection jar, which revealed the animal. This was a very traditional treasure hunt project, which stayed true to the original ways. There was no technology involved, just a clear explanation of what was needed and a sense of adventure.

Enact

Enact was a location based experience played with a mobile device. It ran in 2012 by a company called Ludic Rooms. They were given a set theme, which was “Peace and Reconciliation” and this was strong throughout the project. They had a set brand, with the main colours being pink and purple and used this throughout their project in hand outs given to the players. This made it easier to spot the token around town, as the people knew what colours to look for. My theme is Fogotten Stories of WW1, so I need to ensure my colours and brand reflect this, as well as making it run throughout the project on the trailer and posters and on the day on the maps and tokens. This means doing research into which fonts might work best and which colours will best demonstrate what the day is about.

Everyone was given a map, which is crucial when running a location based project, as people from outside of town may not know where they’re going. On the back of the map there were brief descriptions of the challenges, which just helps people understand what might happen next and adds a layer of interest and curiosity to the project. I definitely need a map when doing my project. I also need to think carefully about the areas I pick and why I have picked them. I will do some research into the best places to visit in Coventry and why they would be good for my project.

They are shown the token at the beginning of the project, which will help them recognise it around the town and are also given a passport to help document their journey. They are given a postcard at the end of the project which includes the tweets and photos they used whilst taking part in the challenges. This is a nice thing to remember the day by and remember the company by, as well as advertising the project to more people. I need to think about a way I could do this with my project. I could play with the idea of a ration book or something strongly linked to the war.

Playable City

Playable City was a scheme run last year that helped to turn the city of Bristol into something that could be interactive and fun for the citizens that live there. All applicants had to fill in the below cover sheet and there was also an optional application form applicants could fill in.

These ideas were then shortlisted to 10 of the best, which were all very different in their approach to the brief.. These 10 ideas were then judged by a panel of industry judges at the forefront of art, culture, media and technology. The winning idea was Hello Lamp Post.

One that links in closely with my idea is Jolly Brolly Mystery. (http://www.watershed.co.uk/playablecity/2013/shortlist/jolly-brolly/)

This is a murder mystery which would take place all over the city. When it rains, a “Clue Box” will be launched in a different location around the city. These clue boxes will give the player a clue to, which will help in solving the mystery. The brollies have a GPS device in, so as you pass through different areas of the city, you can check in and collect points. This idea was thought through very well, it sounds intriguing and exciting, with enough going on to entertain someone for a whole day. It is also a good way to make the rain seem less dull and depressing.

References:

http://www.yearzero.nin.com. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

http://www.ninwiki.com/Year_Zero. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

http://www.42entertainment.com/work/yearzero. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

http://www.iamtryingtobelieve.com. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

http://www.fortnightproject.com. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014

Unknown author. (2013). The Company. Available: http://proto-type.org/category/company/. Last accessed 27th Jan 2014.

http://www.londonstreetgames.com. Last accessed 17 Feb 2014

http://www.geocaching.com. Last accessed 28th Jan 2014

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching. Last accessed 28th Jan 2014

http://www.watershed.co.uk/playablecity/about/award/. Last accessed 17 Feb 2014

http://www.watershed.co.uk/playablecity/about/apply/. Last accessed 17 Feb 2014

260 Primary and Audience Research

Nesta toolkit

“Our enterprise resource toolkit contains tried and tested methods for teaching enterprise skills to creative individuals who are thinking about setting up a business.” Nesta

This is a guide to help new businesses take off, it include worksheets which help you think about what will make this business a success. I will use the Your Customers worksheet once I have completed some more research.

Facebook advertising

Facebook advertising helps you see if there is an audience for your product. You don’t have to complete the advert, but it gives a rough estimation of who, on Facebook, has interests in that area.

Google search tools

Google search tool works in the same way as the Facebook advertising

Instead of getting over 5 million results, you can narrow these down to specific areas, to see how long it has been since someone last searched or updated a page that would link in with your idea.

Surveys  and demographics

Demographics means statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within it. This can be split into class (working, upper, lower, middle), and socio ecological profiling.

Class is based around Class, Race, Age, Sex (gender), Sexuality and Handicapped. This helps us to see groups of people in a more factual way.

Socio ecological profiling is based more around peoples interests.

The segmentation criteria include:

The 4 main stages of life cycle

Dependent: mainly under 24 living at home

Pre-family: under 35s who have established their own household, but without children

Family: couples under 65 with one or more children in the household

Late: adults whose children have left home or who are over 35 and childless

Income groups (only under Family and Late groups above)

Better off

Worse off

Occupation groups (refer to the socio-economic groups defined by NRS)

White (collar) – or the A, B and C1 social groups (i.e., Upper middle class, Middle class, and Lower middle class)

Blue (collar) – or the C2, D and E social groups (i.e., Skilled working class, Working class, and Those at lowest level of subsistence)

Gender 

The scheme thus generates 24 groups of households.

Now that I have a clearer idea on my innovation, I can start to carry out research that will help me target my product at a certain audience. I will need to give surveys out to people who are usually involved in the geocaching community of Coventry and see if they would be open to this new geocaching experience. I can also the general population of Coventry to see if a new audience that might be of a younger age could be made.

Once I know my audience, I can start to think about how to get my idea marketed and distributed, as well as what software and content the idea will need to include.

There are so many online questionnaire sites I found straight away by simple typing ‘online questionnaire’ into google. The first being https://www.surveymonkey.com followed by a whole list of others, including: https://www.quicksurveys.com, http://www.keysurvey.co.uk, http://freeonlinesurveys.com, http://www.surveyshaker.com/shaker and https://drive.google.com. I am going to look at these sites to see which will be best for me to use when creating an online survey. I also need to consider a site that will allow surveys to be printed, so I can ask more people in my local area face to face.

Survey Monkey

Survey Monkey can either be used as a free survey maker or a  premium account which has access to more in depth survey making tools. I have sent a query off about finding an audience for my project and hope to hear back within the next few hours about how much this might cost and how I go about finding my audience.

Toluna Quick Survey

This site can be free, but to get online responses from “millions of global respondents” it will cost differently depending on the different elements in the survey. These are how many questions you ask, how many responses you want and how many target-specific demographic groups you choose. The pricing is credit-based, with 1 credit costing 20p, this can buy you 1 question and 1 response. Say your survey has 5 questions and you want 500 responses. That’s 5 x 500 = 2,500 credits, which would cost £500, which is pretty darn expensive for a student! Therefore I don’t think this website will be good for the type of survey I am looking for.

World App Key Survey

This site looks very professional and complicated to use just by looking at the home page. It also looks very expensive, but there is a 30 day free trial which would be perfect for the length of my project. After watching a small video about World App, I don’t think this site will be suitable for the type of survey and responses I need, they seem to be about big companies dealing with people in charge of Accounts, Legal issues and Global Sales.

Free Online Surveys

This is, obviously, a free survey and the website looks very convincing. Because it is free, there isn’t an option for other users to respond to your survey so all responses will have to be completed by people I know, which means I may not get a big enough response. This is a possible website, I will need to find out if it can be easily adapted to a printed version as well as an online version.

Survey Shaker

Survey Shaker has different prices for different budgets, there is a free option, with basic questionnaire defaults, lacking some of the more advanced features. But even the prices are acceptable, starting at £20 for a months service, which is all I would need to complete my survey.

GoogleDrive

Google drive allows you to make surveys the same as all the other sites, but using your google account details. Like all the other free survey making softwares, you cannot get responses through the website but have to collect them yourself. It does give good layouts for surveys and the layout changes if you want to print the survey, making it look better on both digital and paper forms. The only issue with this however is that all questions have to be thought up by yourself, whereas with sites likes survey monkey, they give you templates and commonly asked questions, making it a lot easier to think of questions relevant to your survey.

After looking into all the different survey websites, I have decided to go with Survey Monkey as I think it will be the most helpful for my questionnaire. However, I may make another survey in GoogleDrive which is exactly like my survey monkey questionnaire so I can print this and go door to door and try and get more responses.

I now need to think about what question I am trying to answer with my survey, what am I trying to identify? I think the main question I will be trying to answer is how many people in the Coventry area would be interested in a community based technology controlled project.

I will need to ask what age group people taking my survey fit into, so I know who my audience will be and also if they are male or female. I will ask if they have attended events in Coventry, what they think is missing from Coventry’s event scene and if they are interested in my project, just by a simple statement at the start of the questionnaire.

Questionnaire Results

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/32M65NR

I received a few results from my online questionnaire, and now need to analyse them to see who would be interested in this project. Having only received 21 replies, my analysis will be limited.

Question 1 was asking how many people would be interested in my project after reading this description:

“Discover Coventry is a very new innovation,which is set right in the centre of Coventry. It involves community participation to solve tasks, and find clues that will lead to the next task. You will be given a date time and meeting place, and from there will try and discover the secrets of Coventry’s past.”

As seen in the table above, most people (38%) replied with very interested. Only 5% with extremely interested and 19% with not at all interested. This means there is definitely an immediate interest in my project, but not from everyone. There was only 1 person in the 40-49 age group that said they were very interested, and the remaining 7 in the 18-20 age group. This means that mostly teenagers of a similar age are interested in my idea. This is slightly unfair however, as 62% of people answering my survey were 18-20.

The ratio of males to females answering my survey was 40:60, with 2 males and 5 females saying they were very interested in the project.

I next asked how often people attended events in the Coventry area. Nobody said extremely often, but my results came out quite close, with Moderately Often and Not at all Often both equalling 23%. The highest percent of people said that they attended events slightly often. (33%).

I also asked how strong the sense of community was in Coventry.  For the last three sections, my results were the same, with only the first to giving me more information about my audience. Nobody felt the sense of community was extremely strong in Coventry, and only 14% felt it was quite strong. This means people either do not hear about things going on in Coventry or the people in Coventry are unapproachable and do not want to take part in these sorts of events.

I asked what type of events people would attend in Coventry and got some very good feedback:

1. “Treasure hunts, outdoor activities, meeting people with similar interests to mine”
2. “Music festivals, sports events, historical events”
3. “Historical, music”
4. “Football, music”
5. “Geocaching, arts and music events”
6. “Art exhibitions, themed meeting with like minded individuals etc”
7. “exhibitions – anything as long as it’s fun and interesting”
8. “Theatre, art and media related.”
9. “Scavenger hunts and different little things like that.”
10. “Gigs”
11. “Music Festivals”
12. “music”

So, although most people put music events, there was a lot of interest in art events or scavenger hunts, which is very positive and clearly shows there is an audience for my project.

I then asked why people didn’t attend events in Coventry, and they came back with very mixed views:

1. “I’m not really interested in the events that are currently held in Coventry.”
2. “Coventry put on poor events”
3. “dont like the people”
4. “There aren’t too many really interesting and completely different activities. They are all standard events which you can go to a different city to attend, and possibly enjoy more!”
5. “No enough info, I rarely hear about anything that goes on in Coventry”
6. “What events?”
7. “Moved away from Coventry.”
8. “Time restraints”
9. “I don’t really know of many”

This shows me that a lot of people are just not aware of the events held in Coventry, this may be because the events are not targeted at them, but due to the majority of people who are very interested in my idea, this shows me they would be a good group to target. A lot of people also commented that they are not interested in the events currently held in Coventry, but said that they are interested in my idea, proving that there is a market of people wanting to take part in my project. I particularly like the comment “There aren’t too many really interesting and completely different activities. They are all standard events which you can go to a different city to attend, and possible enjoy more!” This instantly made me think that my project needs to be very entertaining and engaging, as well as well publicised and specific to the city of Coventry, so my audience cannot get this experience anywhere else.

A conversation with an industry professional

Having received this information, I now know a trailer would be the best way for me to spread my project to a wider audience and also to help explain it in a way that will excite and intrigue viewers. I could also contact local newspapers and radio stations, to see if they would let their readers/listeners know about my project, and give out a link to the trailer. It is important to start advertising as early as possible, so people have this project already in their minds months before it takes place. After slowly introducing people into the project, with posters around the city centre, about a month before the project takes place I will announce it on radios and in newspapers and release the trailer.

Feedback from Dom (23/1/14)

I pitched this idea to Dom, who gave me some more useful sites and information to look at, these were things like FourSquare, Scvngr, Gowalla and Burn Note.

Feedback from Steve (3/2/14)

After further research, I told my idea to Steve who felt the idea wasn’t original enough and was too similar to other games already available. He said to think back to what the core point my idea is trying to make, which was going from one place to another and bringing communities together. I thought of other ideas like something to do with a pub crawl or a shopping guide for women, but felt this completely deterred from my passion for bringing people together to share in an experience, so decided I would make my idea original by the story the audience will be discovering. If I can make the story unique, interesting and engaging, this will make my idea different to others of its kind.

Feedback from Dom (10/2/14)

After making my video pitch, Dom watched it and gave me lots of useful tips and ways to improve my idea. He mentioned doing Alpha and Beta prototypes as a way to get proper audience responses, he gave me links to similar project and a research paper which will help me think about my audience more. He also commented on my video pitch:

“Obviously this is a subject close to my heart. Your pitch is strong and well illustrated. You are right that this, to a certain degree, has been done before, but only the platform (in the loosest possible sense). You really need to start thinking about the story you will be telling. What are the challenges? Why are you challenging people to do that? What will they learn and why?

I absolutely agree with your approach, technology can be a fantastic enabler to allow communication and sharing in the real world, not just ‘virtually’ but you need to back that up with evidence. Good work so far, keep going.”

Here are the notes I took down in this feedback session:

• Hide and seek
• Enact – academic research paper
• Playable city
•  For inspiration:
• tedex youtube (search street games)
• seth priebatch – south by southwest game layer
• Drematurgy – helps shape the story
• Participation expert/consultant
• Vimeo.com/ludicrooms
• https://vimeo.com/43787835 – Enact
• Look at WW1 stories
• Find other companies that are doing funding for WW1
• Get free sim and do texting from that
• Prototype – good way to get audience feedback, do at least an alpha test.
• Iterative process – multiple iterations of the same thing – make a version test it. repeat
• Make trailer

References:

http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/creative-enterprise-toolkit. Last accessed 15th Jan 2014

https://www.surveymonkey.com. Last accessed 19th Jan 2014

https://www.quicksurveys.com. Last accessed 19th Jan 2014

http://www.keysurvey.co.uk. Last accessed 19th Jan 2014

http://freeonlinesurveys.com. Last accessed 19th Jan 2014

http://www.surveyshaker.com/shaker. Last accessed 19th Jan 2014

https://drive.google.com. Last accessed 19th Jan 2014

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/32M65NR. Last accessed 3rd March 2014

http://www.fortnightproject.com/about/faq/. Last accessed 1st Feb 2014

260 Research terms

Here is a list of search terms I will be looking into, this list will be added to as I found out new information on my project:

• Game-based media experiences
• Survey-making sites
• Geocaching
• Treasure hunting apps
• Coventry based treasure hunting
• History of community based games
• Survey-making sites
• Cheap SIM cards and phones
• Different email sites
• Live-action actors in West Midlands
• Street games
• LARP
• ARG
• WW1 stories
• Coventry history

260 Idea Development

Looking through the suggested innovation ideas on the brief has helped me to think of a few ideas:

After looking at these ideas, I felt the first one was innovative enough, so decided to leave that one and try to work on developing the other three.

Idea One:

Alternate routes. YOU decide what happens. Which road will the character take? What will happen when they take the route you pick for them? Was it the right decision? Alternate routes is a new filming experience, where the audience are in control of the characters decisions.

Idea Two:

Google News. Ever wondered what was happening in, lets say, China RIGHT NOW? Well, google news is a new way to get information from around the world FAST. When you click on the website, the viewer is presented with a globe. From this, they can access any country in the world, where people will have uploaded the latest news and information from their mobiles. This site encourages young journalists to explore their country or area more, giving insightful, up to date news pieces.

Idea Three:

A treasure hunt society for fans of a certain film/book/TV series. Viewers will sign into the website, where a video will be aired at a certain time, this video will have clues of a location and object needed to be collected, which will be significant in the next video. Gives fans the chance to meet in person and share an experience about their favourite show.

Feedback from a lecturer on my 3 ideas

After looking at my 3 ideas, Pete felt the strongest was the last idea. He explained that idea 1, the alternate routes idea wouldn’t be feasible because in order for it to work, there would need to be several different outcomes, which would put production costs up too high:

As seen in the above image, it would mean having 12 different outcomes, just for 2 initial options the viewer would face, so there would be a total of 15 different filming narratives taking place.

The second idea felt like it was similar to other things already created, like YouTube meets Google Maps, it didn’t seem original or innovative enough.

Pete liked the third idea of a treasure hunt for fans, but felt it could be mixed with the first idea, of people solving the story and finding out more as they go, but more on their own terms and in their own time. He told me to look at Year Zero by the band Nine Inch Nails, and also look into Geocaching to develop my idea further.

My final idea is a treasure hunting, geocaching experience, but with a more modern twists. It will use different media platforms to tell a story over a period of real time. Players will meet at a certain location and will be given a clue. This clue will lead them to another location and will slowly start to reveal a story.

260 Brief Breakdown

• A digital story that utilizes more than one media form (video, social media, interactive etc)
• An Interactive Documentary (iDoc)

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/the-6-most-innovative-interactive-web-documentaries

• A Web Series
• An experimental media installation
• A game-based media experience
• A ‘collaborative’/’open source’ film project

Meaning free distribution, so no fee or charge is made from the project. No profit.

• A social media campaign
• A community media initiative
• A multi-media/viral media campaign
• A transmedia storyworld

Fan based media, like Harry Potter story world, where the fans create art, trailers and a world behind the books and films.

• A digital publishing innovation (such as an Interactive Tablet Magazine or Interactive Book)
• An innovative use of technology such as a demonstrator or prototype for a new product or service
• An idea for an interactive television programme
• An innovative use of the ‘second screen’ or a Smart TV application idea
• An innovation in the distribution of media
• Development of a demonstrator and business model for a future media product, service or experience

From this list I have discovered the ideas that pop out most to me area:

• A digital story that utilises more then one media form (video, social media, interactive etc)
• A game-based media experience
• A community media initiative
• A transmedia storyworld

What I need to hand in:

1. Your Innovation (a prototype, pilot episode, website, iDoc, product, a film showing your innovation in situ at an exhibition etc)
2. Blog posts demonstrating your creative and critical research and development, analysis, evaluation and reflection (see below). This should include:

• Research and Development
• Analysis
• Evaluation
• The Business Plan/Marketing Plan/Future development plan for your innovation

How I achieve this:

1. Knowledge of the historical contexts that have shaped the media landscape (cultural, social, economic, technical). Awareness of issues that effect the digital media landscape. This might include:

• • The changing role of audience and authorship in digital media
  • Different processes of production
  • New research methods and opportunities with digital media.
• Creative and Technical Research into your chosen area (showing the prototyping and development process)
• Audience Development and Testing (focus groups, surveys, audience feedback)

2. Analyse the impact of innovations in your chosen area of work. Who are the major players in this area? What has been their impact on the digital landscape? What are the potential critiques and problems inherent within their work? Does it cause any wider socio-cultural impacts. Show how this fits into the development of your own work

3. Demonstrate ability to experiment and innovate using a variety of media production techniques and skills. Provide evaluation and reflection of the above

4. Show evidence that you understand and adhere to professional production practices in the creation of your work. Provide evidence of using of a range of technical craft skills. Produce work to the required length. Ensure clarity of communication, both in terms of structure and in terms of its clarity. Good Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar are essential.

5. Ensure that the assignment is referenced correctly using the Harvard referencing system