Final Broadcast – O$P$

Title: Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI GAOGAO PTE. LTD. right now. Help is always available.

Description: Our broadcast is about two civilians that owe a huge amount of money to an infamous loan shark organisation, Wu Long. The duo had to find enough money around the place so that they could pay the head of the loan shark organisation the total amount of money they had borrowed from him. The debtors had a buffer time of about 5 minutes to collect as much money as they could or hide, after which the loan sharks would start chasing them down. Will the debtors be able to collect enough money before the time run out?

In the live stream, Cher See and Xin Feng were role playing as the infamous loan sharks while Joan and Hannah were role playing as the civilians. The civilians’ mission was to locate all the hidden envelopes that contain money, finding every possible areas that had the hidden stash of money. The head of the loan shark, Long Ge (aka Cher See) had dispatched an underling, Ah Feng (aka Xin Feng) to find the two civilians to pressure them to pay back the money they owe. Joan managed to find the envelopes hidden around the area but was caught by Ah Feng shortly after she found the third envelope. She was brought to Long Ge to check on the amount of money she had collected. Joan had to wait for Hannah to find the remaining amount of money that was escalating every 10 mins. On the other hand, Hannah had to go around and beg people for money so that she could pay back her debts while finding ways to escape the loan sharks. After finding enough money, Joan asked Hannah to come find Long Ge to return back the remaining sum. In the end, both civilians were able to pay back what they had borrowed from the loan sharks.

 

Hannah & Joan live broadcast

Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI GAOGAO PTE. LTD. right now. Help is always available. (a video stream about two debtors on the road to repaying their debts to a infamous loan shark organisation)

Posted by Joan Li on Wednesday, 15 November 2017

Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI GAOGAO PTE. LTD. right now. Help is always available. (a video stream about two debtors on the road to repaying their debts to a infamous loan shark organisation)

Posted by Joan Li on Wednesday, 15 November 2017

 

Cher See & Xin Feng live broadcast

Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI GAOGAO PTE. LTD. right now. Help is always available. (a video stream about two debtors on the road to repaying their debts to a infamous loan shark organisation)

Posted by Xin Feng on Wednesday, 15 November 2017

 

Combine broadcast

Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI …

a video stream about two debtors on the road to repaying their debts to a infamous loan shark organisation

Posted by Goh Chersee on Wednesday, 15 November 2017

Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI …

a video stream about two debtors on the road to repaying their debts to a infamous loan shark organisation (PART 2)

Posted by Goh Chersee on Wednesday, 15 November 2017

Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI …

a video stream about two debtors on the road to repaying their debts to a infamous loan shark organisation (Part 03)

Posted by Goh Chersee on Wednesday, 15 November 2017

 

Where all the remaining money are

Know someone who is in need of money? Contact the WULONG JIJI GAOGAO PTE. LTD. right now. Help is always available. (a video stream about two debtors on the road to repaying their debts to a infamous loan shark organisation)

Posted by Xin Feng on Wednesday, 15 November 2017

 

Further Improvements:

The one major problem that the team faces were the internet connection. It was causing lagginess and disconnection when the team were co-broadcasting. However, the team had came to believe that such limitation were actually working in our favor as it created a more interesting composition and dynamics when things were not working as it should have. There were some shots that were quite unusual and could really sell the narrative that the two civilian were actually running away from the loanshark. Nonetheless, the team were still able to complete the project on time even when the internet connection were poor.

Another problem that we could have improved on were the balancing of the game. There were some envelope that were hidden in areas that were too difficult to find and some that were too obvious. Perhaps the team could strike a balance if we had another chance to improve on our live stream. However, placing envelops at places that requires strenuous effort to locate promote our team members to interact with passersby, borrowing money and help from them. It remove the stagnancy of our co-broadcasting and introduce new elements to keep the audiences entertain in our stream.

Overview:

I have contributed to the project by creating the background image and rules for the game. I have managed to get help from Xin Feng as she has an overall vision for how the stream would look like, I have just touch upon her original concept and refine her vision further. It was quite technical as I have to be precised about how the images were cropped and how the overall stream would look. I have also put in additional element to organised our stream, for example a countdown video were added to show the audience when the video was going to start.

I felt that the project were quite similar to the Videofreex and I was inspired by them when I first thought of this idea. The ability to interact with the audiences and vice visa has always appeal to me as an concept for broadcasting and I am glad that I was able to do this. Rather than having the audiences calling in, our team members were actively finding our own audiences, getting help and begging money from them to make the stream a lot more interesting.

Author: Goh Cher See

I was Cher See

One thought on “Final Broadcast – O$P$”

  1. You have created an incredibly rich and nuanced narrative, with many elements of intrigue, complexity, interaction, and outcome incorporated into the game structure. Also, I am very impressed with the characters you have created, each with their own motivation, that together as an ensemble have potential for interesting encounters with one another in the context of the game.
    But the issue here, is that the medium has conspired to render this interesting narrative structure difficult to follow. With all the stopping of action, the characters moving in and out of their screen areas, and the audio malfunctions, etc., make it hard to grasp the narrative.

    That together with the choice of Chinese as the language, makes it very culturally specific, so that those (like myself) who do not speak or understand Chinese, have an even more difficult time understanding the narrative. Did you consider using some form of subtitles since the piece is not in English? I think that would have helped.

    So my main comment is that the nature of the medium did not support so well the complexity of your narrative. Even though as you point out, there are many interesting moments due to the bandwidth problems, when characters freeze, and the sound glitches, and these elements might add a certain amount of dramatic tension or complexity. However, since you had no control over this, it made it difficult to incorporate these bandwidth issues into the narrative with any degree of design or precision.

    In my view, it might have made more sense to simplify the narrative, and in fact, I wonder if the very nature of the interface actually got in the way. In fact, I really liked the interface and thought it was quite effective, but had you gone full screen with some of the action, in other words, removing the interface, it might have captured the action better, as well as improved the reception.

    For example, when I saw your group making the piece in the hallway, it was very interesting to see what you were doing, hiding the money, talking to me, etc. If it had been possible to incorporate some of this “live action” into the piece, outside of the interface, or with the interface momentarily removed, I think the tension and drama that you were looking for would have been more apparent. But by confining all the visuals to the surveillance monitor, it seemed as though you were having a difficult time controlling and clarifying what was going on within each window.

    That said, I really like the concept, I liked the interface, I thought some of the action was interesting, and putting it all into the game structure was quite compelling. As a narrative/script, it was an excellent work. What I am saying though is that the execution of this particular narrative into the medium of social broadcasting through Facebook Live is where you ran into problems. It is important to consider the medium in relation to the nature and complexity of the narrative when creating a piece. You have an interesting and experimental medium to work with, and you have an compelling narrative, but do they match up? That is the question. Are you making the best use of the medium with the narrative you have created.

    Our work in this class is all about process, and I wanted you to use it as a laboratory for testing ideas. So in that sense, you can learn much from the work you have done. In future projects, you will perhaps have new insight into creating work that is a good conceptual fit with the medium, technology, and overall presentation mode. Ultimately you want your work to communicate and to be understood. That is always the main goal. You have created an incredibly rich and nuanced narrative, with many elements of intrigue, complexity, interaction, and outcome incorporated into the game structure. Also, I am very impressed with the characters you have created, each with their own motivation, that together as an ensemble have potential for interesting encounters with one another in the context of the game.

    Chersee, well of course you use the Videofreex as your reference! But if there was interaction with the viewers it was not apparent in the piece, at least for me. Were you interacting with the viewers though chat? If this were the case, I would have liked to have seen more about that, perhaps some documentation. I would encourage you though to look beyond the Videofreex in search of other elements in the course you have found of interest.

    That said, I think you made an excellent contribution to the piece by inserting the rules. That was one of the most clarifying elements that provide some structure and coherence to the narrative. But as I mentioned above, I think the narrative and overall game structure could have been clearer so we could follow the dramatic structure you had designed. Again, as I said, the game design/narrative was very well done, just hard to comprehend given the medium. That should definitely be the takeaway from your experience.

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