Final Project – Know someone in need of money?

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

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?

Description

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

Cher See & Xin Feng live broadcast

https://www.facebook.com/sim.xinfeng/videos/10155422573456888/

Combine broadcasts

https://www.facebook.com/goh.chersee/videos/10212370482911395/

https://www.facebook.com/goh.chersee/videos/10212370688196527/

https://www.facebook.com/goh.chersee/videos/10212370781958871/

Reveal of all envelope locations

https://www.facebook.com/sim.xinfeng/videos/10155422573456888/

Further Improvement

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 loan shark. 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.

My role

In the live stream, I role played as one of the debtors. As the game started, I began searching from the 4th level, and eventually found a total of 10$. The treasure hunting experience was really fun, especially with the aspect of fear of getting caught. The first time I bumped into one of the loan sharks, it was within the buffer time and I received a warning about my ‘debt’. About 10-15 minutes into the live stream, I was officially caught and brought into the WuLong Headquarters. However, I did feel a little bored as there wasn’t much to do after getting caught. I had a hard time trying to get my fellow debtor to co-broadcast with me, as she kept disconnecting for long periods of time. However, I felt that the problems we encountered in terms of the bandwidth helped to balance out the difficulty on both sides; it was a little more difficult for the loan sharks to figure out our locations.

Linking to what we have learned

The CCTV-like footage that the loan shark used to track down the locations of the debtors reminded me a little of A Hole-In-Space. The collage of footage on OBS was a collapse of multiple spaces, much like real CCTV cameras that could collapse spaces throughout a building into one single screen. Without moving from his chair, the head of the Wu Long organisation could reach into and access real-time information from wherever his debtors were located at around ADM. However, the one-way onscreen interaction would render our live performance as something closer to Jennicam, especially while playing the role of a debtor.

The debtors had no access of the loan sharks’ stream or whereabouts, despite being constantly tracked and spied on by them. Similar to Jennicam, she had no means of knowing who or when someone was watching her and how much of her they saw. During the broadcast, we felt the vulnerability of being exposed to an unknown audience whom may or may not have caught our every movement. We also had the constant feeling of impending danger, and the fear of suddenly bumping into one of the loan sharks in ADM (which I did, at the lift). We felt what most people would have felt when put into the position of Jennicam, although Jenny herself was perfectly comfortable with it.

The weak Internet connection that we experienced also caused our OBS live stream to play in slow frames, which was similar to the earlier periods of Jennicam where grainy images where replaced every 15 seconds. It gave viewers a small sense of suspense and anticipation as to what image is going to appear next, and piece them together to form a narrative. One interesting aspect of the outcome of our live stream was also the audio. Even though the footage froze on many occasions, the audio actually continued playing in the background. There was one instance where Hannah disconnected from my co-broadcast completely, but somehow her audio still got through.

Overall, it was a fun treasure hunting experience and really interesting to assume a new identity on the live stream and play a different role. Although the outcome could have been better with better bandwidth, I feel that our concept was still conveyed through our final project.

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.

Joan, I thought you did a great job explaining the work and the documentation you provided was very helpful. I do think that your references could be thought through a little more, such as Hole in Space. That piece was about allowing the viewers to communicate together, in your case, it is the artists who are communicating. Even though this may seem similar, there is a big difference narratively speaking even though you are telematically connected.

Overall, I thought your contribution to the narrative was excellent, and that again, the idea of the project was quite good, it just was the way it was executed with the live medium. Take note of some the ideas I have offered, to consider alternative ways that a story can be told so that it reads to the audience, engages them, and perhaps even involves the audience as participants, which is why I brought up the encounter that I had with the group.

One Reply to “Final Project – Know someone in need of money?”

Randall Packer says:

November 19, 2017 at 11:48 am

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.

Joan, I thought you did a great job explaining the work and the documentation you provided was very helpful. I do think that your references could be thought through a little more, such as Hole in Space. That piece was about allowing the viewers to communicate together, in your case, it is the artists who are communicating. Even though this may seem similar, there is a big difference narratively speaking even though you are telematically connected.

Overall, I thought your contribution to the narrative was excellent, and that again, the idea of the project was quite good, it just was the way it was executed with the live medium. Take note of some the ideas I have offered, to consider alternative ways that a story can be told so that it reads to the audience, engages them, and perhaps even involves the audience as participants, which is why I brought up the encounter that I had with the group.

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