interative narrative - story timeline and activity

From looking at my scrappy notes of the various things that be ascribed as tasks that could make up the Suburbia idea. I'll now list a few:

• Ironing - Boyfriend needs a shirt to go out with his friends down the pub. She starts ironing and then he is not happy so takes over, pushing her aside from the iron. When finished, instead of offering any thanks, he simply walks out of the room.


• Hoovering - simply using a vacuum cleaner to do the carpet. Maybe introductory, a chance to say this is Sarah, whilst also showing straight off that she has chores to complete


• Tidying up magazines - this serves as having a two part purpose. One, her boyfriend could be reading them and drop them off the floor when he is done, which she then needs to tidy. But also, in that stack of magazines, is a Yellow Pages. This would let the viewer subliminally know, for later on, that is where she needs to go to get a phone number for help.


• Dinner - her boyfriend asks her to make some food. She starts chopping up some vegetables, and he decides that he doesn't want that. Options can appear offering the choice of making something else (submitting to his dominence, but then not putting herself in harms way) or making him eat it (causing controversy and possibly agression, but standing her ground). From this then, the boyfriend turns a knife on her, confirming the threatening violence, but also revealling a bruise or mark on her arm revealing past violence.

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I have since been home to capture the shots. It worked well in my opinion, and some of the shots are quite unsettling. The narrative is not only displayed through the narration that will appear on screen and then the dialogue that will be added, but also just the stand alone images, where her feelings of sadness are SO obvious and tell a thousand words.

I've now made these into a storyboard type timeline document, where the option of pursuing different routes comes up, this is represented by the double line of action underneath.





I will be using this whilst making my way through Flash and Action Script 3.0. It'll be my first time using the software, so fingers crossed it'll go ok. If not, them o so useful (but then sometimes o so slow) tutorials can be called on for help!

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