Lost Belief

Emily Burcham – B1032563

Contents Intro

Research o Firestorm

o The last hunt

Practical Evaluationo Filming o Planning o Structureo Editingo Social page o Final structure o User testing o Online Version

Critical Analysis

Conclusion References Appendice

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Intro Lost Belief began a year ago, when I started going to an event called a Waes-hal. It’s a pagan celebration of the New Year, where you bless the apple trees to give the orchard a good harvest. I enjoyed the event so much that I wanted to create something that would raise publicity for them. But I started to think, how many other events like this are there around Britain? And why are people not aware of them? So I started to look deeper into the pagan religion; a religion that seems to have been lost over the decades, and found that there was no modern media that really explained the religion succinctly. I could only find websites and films that seemed rather dated. Yet in my opinion their belief system is one that I feel many follow in present society. I knew at this point that I really wanted to make something that would help bring paganism into the modern era.

However it wasn’t until I went to Doc/Fest and discovered the medium of Interactive documentary that my idea started to form. I wanted create an i-doc that reflected how paganism is represented in today’s society. Informing users on the traditions as well as showcasing events that are held throughout the year. With the aim of attracting more people to accept the pagan religion, and to hopefully raise its profile in society. However one of the best things about interactive documentaries or i-docs is that they expand the story more than a film would. I wanted Lost Belief to be an i-doc so that I could offer a place for the pagan community to socialise and share experiences with each other. It would also allow me to utilise everything I've learnt from the past four years in terms of graphic design, animation, website design, and videography.

ResearchInteractive filmmaking is revolutionising the film industry, especially in the documentary genre. The emergence of new technology has led more audiences to find entertainment online. Tom Perlmutter, chairman of national film board of Canada, believes that interactive filmmaking is going to take over the way we watch films in the same way that TV did to cinemas or cinemas did to theatres.

“In the evolution of the interactive documentary, we are at a place equivalent to where film was between the invention of the movie camera in the mid-19h century and the birth of cinema 20 years later” (Perlmutter, 2015)

I wanted my project to be interactive rather than a tradition documentary as I feel the story needed a bigger platform. Interactive documentaries give me a medium for the user to delve deeper into the story, to interact and immerse themselves in a way no other platform offers. Sandra Gaudenzi, an interactive media professor, suggests that there are many different levels of interactivity in i-docs and I feel mine fits into the semi-open category where “the user can participate but not change the structure of the interactive documentary” (De Leeuw, 2015). I want my user to be able to explore the i-doc at any pace they want, by going to whichever section they want. “The interactive experience is unique to each user” (De Leeuw, 2015) I also want them to be able to share their experiences and stories within the i-doc, and this medium is ideal for that. I feel that interactivity in filmmaking is going to be the future of storytelling and so utilising this technology in Lost Belief is going to give me better understanding and a better chance at being involved in this industry “technology has always changed the way we tell stories” (Power to the Pixel, 2014). Ingrid Kopp is a filmmaker who has transitioned into the world of interactive documentary believing that with the advent of new technology audiences are finding new ways to experience stories. “Audiences are no longer watching content that follows in one direction; it flows in all different directions” (Power to the Pixel, 2014).

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Paganism is “a group of contemporary religions based on a reverence for nature” (BBC, 2015). Initially I started to look into the pagan religion researching what it is about. Their ethics and general values are pretty simple, they worship nature and uphold eco-friendly lifestyles. So when I was planning my i-doc I wanted to reflect this. I chose a theme of earthly colours as well as aesthetics centred on nature, using semiotics of the four seasons, blossom, corn fields, brown leaves and snow. Through this research I also found a great deal of information to put into the i-doc itself. I researched into what animals, flowers and terminology used to symbolise these seasons, as well as what rituals are done to mark them.

This idea of making my i-doc simple was also backed up from what I found at Doc/Fest. I volunteered there in the interactive area to circulate with interactive filmmakers and raise the profile of Lost Belief within the interactive community. However one of the main things I found from being there was that the simpler i-docs that didn’t use complex navigation were the most successful. In my opinion they ran better when people were trying to view them and people also tended watch it more. No one wanted to sit down and explore an i-doc that was a challenge to watch, if they got frustrated with the navigation they tended to just walk away. So I knew that my navigation needed to be simple to use, to avoid this scenario.

FirestormIt was during Doc/Fest that I found the i-doc Firestorm (Henley et al., 2013) (see appendix 1). In an interview one of the producers Jon Healey said “He deliberately structured it so that the human story of what happened that day in Dunalley is interspersed with more technical chapters about how some of Australia’s flora relies on fires to propagate, or the debate

about whether fire devastated communities should be rebuilt at all” (Belam, 2015). This is similar to my i-docs philosophy, I want to tell the human story of paganism as well as explore the reason why the religion isn’t as high profile as others. I also like the way it has used parallax scrolling to reveal the story. This gives control of the story to the user; they can decided which parts they want to read and which parts they don’t. This combined with a full screen video

interview, gives the i-doc a very immersive feel. “Robin said the aim was for people to feel really immersed in the story, to get the viewer to understand what it was like on that day” (Richards, 2013). This immersive experience is exactly what I want to try and replicate, by integrating a parallax story with full screen video. I want my user to feel like they were at the pagan event and I hope that from this interaction they’ll have a better understanding of what paganism is and what its rituals involve.

The last huntSimilar to Firestorm in its structure is the i-doc The Last Hunt (Hobb, 2015) (see appendix 2). I took a lot of inspiration from how it was designed. “I found it a unique and innovative reading experience” (Stivelman, 2015) the i-doc utilising images with illustration to tell the story in a parallax scrolling format. This kind of immersion is what I want for my i-doc. A combination of all these elements will help me construct Lost Belief. However the difference between my project and these i-docs, is that I want mine to have a non-linear

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(Henley et al., 2013)

structure, so that the users can explore whichever element they want, although, I will utilise a lot of the visual aesthetics that they have used.

Practical Evaluation Filming The production process has taken over a year, as the events happen on certain dates throughout the year. I set up social media (see appendix 3) for the site as well made business cards (see appendix 4) to promote the i-doc. I then began filming the events and rituals, with just a canon xf100, but wish I had used some sound equipment as this was a problem in the edit. I wanted to focus on the people at the events to show that it is not just Pagans that can attend, anyone can join. As well as document the ceremonies that take place to show that it is not just sacrifices and witchcraft. The first place I filmed was where the idea started, at Skidbrooke Cyder’s Waes Hal. Apart from the weather being a bit dreary, everything went rather well. After striking up a rapport with the Grimsby Morris Men, who run the event, they were really keen to show me what the Waes Hal meant. The idea is you place toast soaked in cider onto the trees so the robins will eat the toast and send a message to the gods to bring them a good harvest. You then ward off all the evil spirits by shouting Waes Hal and making as much noise as possible.

I then got permission to film the Beltane at Thornborough in North Yorkshire, where the weather was a little better. However unlike the Waes Hal, I had never been to this event before so wasn’t sure what to expect. We went for the weekend, but not a lot happened on the Saturday apart from a bonfire, with singing, dancing and fire spinning. It was on a Sunday when the majority of the festivities happened. They put on a play to tell a Beltane tale of an ugly man who makes himself a wife out of spring flowers, but it doesn’t all go to plan. They also do maypole dancing and perform rituals to celebrate the equinox. The only issue I had with filming was that I didn’t get the name of the women I interviewed, but she gave me some great information about what Beltane represents.

The one place I was really keen on filming was the summer solstice at Stonehenge. From talking to a lot of pagans at Beltane, many believe it is a bad place to go because of the abundance of people spoils the experience. However from going I found this was not the case, which I want to reflect in my i-doc. There was a few people there who didn’t understand the significance and weren’t very respectful, but I found that there were far more people from across the world there to simply to celebrate the solstice. It was a remarkable event which I hope to represent.

The last event to film was Mabon. Out of them all this was the trickiest to film as I found it hard to find an event that would let me film. A lot of the ceremonies were private affairs and didn’t want cameras there, so I ended up going back to Thornborough. Unlike the Beltane, there was less activities going on but a larger ceremony. However I felt that I didn’t get enough footage from this event so I filmed a Samhain ritual as well. I went over to Liverpool to film a Lantern festival, which didn’t have strong ties with paganism but showed a more commercial aspect of the occasion, with people more celebrating Halloween without any idea of the pagan connotations. Overall the filming went really well with me getting a lot of footage.

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Planning Once I had all my footage and photography, I began planning what I was going to do with it. I created a diary to document my time and meetings during the project as well as a Gantt chart (see appendix 5) to keep myself on schedule. I also made a colour scheme based on earthy tones. With all this in place I was then able to start planning the project. I made a site map (see appendix 6) of how I roughly wanted my i-doc to be structured. I knew from the outset that I wanted it to be based around the pagan calendar and so figured the navigation should be planned around this.

In terms of what software I would use to create Lost Belief my mentor gave me a few suggestions. Popcorn Webmaker (see appendix 7), Racontr (see appendix 8) and Klynt (see appendix 9) are all online web developer tools, however they all had they're drawbacks. Popcorn was free to use but was limited on what you could do within it, you have to pay to use Klynt and Racontr was free to use unless you want to publish. All of these were not ideal; I wanted to be in complete control over the design and development of my project, so I looked at the new Adobe Creative Cloud software Muse and Edge Animate. Unsure of which one to use I made a basic framework in each, to see what potential they had. Edge Animate (see appendix10) was good at creating HTML content as its structured a bit like flash or after effects which I’ve worked with before. However it wasn't very strong at making HTML structures like navigation, or a twitter feed or a form. Muse (see appendix 11) did offer these elements, however, and you can also add edge animate animations for stuff more complex. However some of the drawbacks to this software is that it doesn’t responsive scale very well. So I eventually decided the best thing to do was to use both software. The basic framework was made in muse and the animated elements were made in edge animate.

Structure and AssetsWith all this planning in place I had a good basis to start creating content for Lost Belief. I started with the illustrations. There are a number of different symbols that signify certain elements within paganism. The pentacle (see appendix12) represents the four elements as well as the spirit. The sun wheel (see appendix 13) is a symbol of the wheel of the year and the eight sabbats. On top of that each season has iconography that represents them. The rabbit is a symbol of spring, the butterfly is a symbol of summer, a deer is the symbol of autumn and the wolf is a symbol of winter. I chose to represent the animals as I could then animate them into basic GIFs, making them come alive. To create each illustration I drew them first by hand (see appendix 14) from looking at reference images, I then took them into illustrator to experiment with different lines states, before putting them into photoshop to experiment with different colours and textures (see appendix 15) based on the earthy tones in my colour scheme.

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Now with all my assets in place I could start creating the different sections; starting with the scrolling pages. I wanted to use a parallax scroll effect, the same used in both Firestorm and The Last Hunt, to give the text and images more life, which should hopefully keep my audience more engaged. To create the parallax scrolling effect I made a simple animation in Edge Animate, with each paragraph of text or image fade in one after the other, then by adding some Javascript from Edge Docks (see appendix 16) the parallax effect is created. Once exported from edge animate as an .oam file, it was simple to put into Muse. All I had to do was place the file and state that it’s a parallax scroll parameters (see appendix 17). In all however I know think this effect works really well.

Editing With these four pages in place, I began editing all the footage from the solstices and equinoxes. Using Premier Pro, as that was what I was most comfortable with I began to edit the footage into short films of about 5mins in length (see appendix 18) that would

represent each festival. However this is where I started to have a lot of problems. The footage wasn’t really well shot, as I was filming with no idea what could happen next, so a lot of the time there wasn’t enough time to set up a tripod, which meant some of the footage had to be stabilised. But a huge problem was the sound quality. I wanted to keep the equipment to a minimum to

save carrying so much, so I just used the microphone on the camera. However looking at the edit a lot of the dialogue was inaudible. I tried boosting the EQ levels and removed some background noise in Audition. But I still had to add subtitles. Granted the films have their problems which let down the i-doc, but I still feel they’re the best quality they can be and demonstrate what each festival involves. I also added an animation at the end of the films using After Effects, so that they didn’t end so abruptly and so the user knows to scroll down. I’ve had some positive feedback about the films so felt that do what I set out to achieve with them.

Social PageWith the video in place the last section to do was the interactive pages. On these pages I wanted to create a sense of community for my user. I would have liked more interaction on this page, however looking at what the software was capable of, I figured the best way to do this was by implementing a twitter feed and an interactive map. The twitter feed was an easy way to get people involved, as its one of the largest social networks in the world; I set them up using the twitter widget creator (see appendix 19). From researching into pagan events I found one of the main issues was that they are really hard to find. I wanted to help combat this by making an interactive map. A map that the user could add to if they were holding an event or wanted to promote one, so people who are maybe interested in paganism can see where to go. This page also offers me a way to test how engaged my audience are; the more events added, the more I will know how many people are interacting with it.

Final structureOne of the main issues with Adobe Muse at the moment is the fact that it can't make websites that

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responsive scale. This has led to me making two versions of Lost Belief, one for a laptop size of 1280 x 720 and one for a desktop screen of 1920 x 1080 (See appendice 20). But one thing I'm glad I did get to responsive scale was the background images and video. By going into the html I managed to set the width and height on them to 100% and auto in order for them to fill the screen. To give my i-doc some context I also made an introduction (see appendix 21), explaining what Paganism is in general as well as outlining what the aim of the i-doc. I think it works rather well and from the feedback I've got from users it seems to be very effective.

User Testing With all four sections complete I tested it using a sit along observation method (see appendix 22) to see what the user's reaction to Lost Belief was. In general it was a good response with everyone loving the images and videos. They also loved the message I was getting across and found the project very educational. They said it enhanced their knowledge on paganism, with some saying that they would recommend it to people. From the user testing I gathered that Lost Belief was achieving its aims but there were still a few issues in terms of its functionality that needed fixing.

Online Version So with all the changes made from the user testing, I started to put Lost Belief online. I bought the domain from crazy domains (see appendix 23) which I then linked to my server. The online version (see appendix 25) looks great, although there are still a few issues, mainly with the scroll effects and twitter feed. Apart from these issues my site seems to run rather smoothly. There have been a few glitches here and there but in general everything seems to run perfectly.

Critical EvaluationFrom what my user testers have said the best things about this project are the background music and the animations. I feel these really set the mood to the piece and reflect well on the Pagan traditions. A lot of people also liked the introduction, as again I feel it sets the tone for the project whilst explaining the reasons behind the project. For me, my favourite part is the interactive map. This is something that I hope will be really effective once people start using the site. One main problem I had from the project was finding places and events to go to and this map will hopefully aid people with this problem. As well as advertise events like the Waes-hal, which is why I started this project.

I think that what really lets this piece down is the video quality. I should have really focused more on this side as it is a vital part of my piece but with me filming a month apart it was hard to really focus on this side. Another huge issue is the sound quality on these videos. As I filmed without using an external mic, the audio isn't very clear and the majority of sound is of crowd noise. Even with it improved in Audition I still feel like it's not the best quality. Another main issues is the resolution, hopefully there will soon be an Adobe Muse with responsive scaling functions to eradicate this problem. However I still managed to make a useable site even with this issue. Even with these concerns I managed to solve a lot more by watching tutorials on Lynda.com or by asking the Adobe Forums for help. These two websites became invaluable to me, as I had never used this software before, so seeing how other people to talk to about problems was really helpful.

If I was to do this project again I would definitely focus more on the video elements by getting more interviews with people and by filming them with a better microphone. I would also add some page transitions between the homepage, and the different sections, maybe by having the wheel move to the side or just a simple fade between the two. However this is something Muse is very limited at getting a video to go onto a page once

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it's finished playing isn't possible. If I bought a plugin then I would have been able to add a fade, however I wasn't able to afford it. I would have also added a custom audio player for the background music, so the user can mute it at any time. Currently in muse you can only embed an audio player with the default HTML style, which didn't fit within the aesthetic of Lost Belief. Given more time, I would have like to of made a player in edge animate. I would also figure out a way of getting the videos to stop once the user has navigated away from them. Again this is something that I couldn't quite work out, but hopefully with the updates in muse there might be a way to fix this. In all I think if I had more time I would have definitely spent it working out exactly what kind of navigation would be best for the project. I would have tested out different designs on my target audience and done iterative user testing throughout the project to make sure I was utilising the best navigational method. This I feel would have eliminated a lot of the issues that I had with the project. I would have also liked to have made a tablet version for users, as currently it doesn’t work so well on these devices.

Conclusion

In all I’m really proud of my piece as it has already helped me gain opportunities in the interactive filmmaking world. Through making this project I have got an internship at Doc/Fest as well as the opportunity to help Rachel Genn with her interactive documentary The National Facility for the Regulation of Regret, exploring how people cope with regret in different ways. I will also be helping to co-present an interactive workshop at Doc/Fest this year, about how to make an interactive documentary using Adobe CC. This is very exciting as hopefully there will be industry professionals there, that may take interest in working with me and it will definitely give Lost Belief more of an audience.

My plan is to submit Lost Belief to a few interactive film festivals such as Doc/Fest and Filmteractive. If my application is successful then I’ll be able to pitch Lost Belief to industry professionals to get advice on where to take it next, possibly by getting funding to employ more people to advance Lost Belief. I’d love to put it on a more global scale, by travel to festivals in different countries to see how they celebrate the pagan belief. I would also love to add more functionality to the piece, especially in the interactive section. I’d like to hire a software developer to help me make a map that will automatically update when someone posts an event, instead of it coming through me first. However this will all be dependent on if I get funding from these festivals. Although just being accepted to the festivals to raise the profile of Lost Belief would be thrilling.

The project is best viewed on a 1920 x 1080 resolution screen and with headphones on, to isolate the experience from the outside world. I feel like this makes Lost Belief a really immersive experience. I plan to develop the project more depending on the kind of response this initial design receives. But with all this in the future I’m really looking forward to seeing where this project will go. Overall I feel this assignment has been really beneficial for me and my future career. Interactive documentary making is a topic that I’m really fascinated with and Lost Belief has given me a chance to explore it further, as well as help me start a career in the industry.

References BBC, (2015). BBC - Religions - Paganism: Paganism at a glance. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/paganism/ataglance/glance.shtml [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].

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Belam, M. (2015). “Telling the story of Firestorm” – Jon Henley & Robin Beitra at Hacks/Hackers London. [online] martinbelam.com. Available at: http://martinbelam.com/2013/hacks-hackers-firestorm/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

De Leeuw, I. (2015). The 6 Most Innovative Interactive Web Documentaries | The Creators Project. [online] The Creators Project. Available at: http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/the-6-most-innovative-interactive-web-documentaries [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

De Leeuw, I. (2015). Vincent Morisset Discloses The Secrets Of Interactive Filmmaking | The Creators Project. [online] The Creators Project. Available at: http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_uk/blog/vincent-morisset-discloses-the-secrets-of-interactive-filmmaking [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].

Films, H. (2014). Klynt.net | Klynt is an interactive editing & publishing application dedicated to creative storytellers.. [online] Klynt.net. Available at: http://www.klynt.net/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

Henley, J., Topham, L., team, G., Khalili, M. and Panetta, F. (2013). Firestorm: The story of the bushfire at Dunalley. [online] the Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/may/26/firestorm-bushfire-dunalley-holmes-family [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

Hobb, A. (2015). NFB/Interactive - The Last Hunt. [online] Thelasthunt.nfb.ca. Available at: http://thelasthunt.nfb.ca/#/thelasthunt [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

Mozilla Webmaker, (2015). Popcorn Maker. [online] Available at: https://popcorn.webmaker.org/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

Perlmutter, T. (2015). The interactive documentary: A transformative art form. [online] Policyoptions.irpp.org. Available at: http://policyoptions.irpp.org/issues/policyflix/perlmutter/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].

Power to the Pixel, (2014). Experiments in Interactive Documentary by Ingrid Kopp, Director of Digital Initiatives, Tribeca Film Institute. [video] Available at: https://vimeo.com/78649465 [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].

Racontr, (2015). Racontr - For the future of storytelling. [online] Available at: https://racontr.com/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

Richards, J. (2013). 10 things we learned during the making of Firestorm. [online] the Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/info/developer-blog/2013/jun/07/10-things-we-learned-making-firestorm [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

Stivelman, B. (2015). The Last Hunt: A Stunning Piece of Digital Storytelling « The @allmyfaves Blog: Expert Reviews about Cool New Sites. [online] Blog.allmyfaves.com. Available at: http://blog.allmyfaves.com/photos/the-last-hunt-a-stunning-piece-of-digital-storytelling/ [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

Widjaja, S. (2015). Using parallax scrolling in Animate with a single line of code | EdgeDocks.com. [online] Edgedocks.com. Available at: http://www.edgedocks.com/content/2013/12/using-parallax-scrolling-animate-single-line-code [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].

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Appendices 1. Firestorm - http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/may/26/firestorm-

bushfire-dunalley-holmes-family

It’s an i-doc about how the people of Dunalley, a town in Tanzania survived a raging bush fire that devastated the community. The main part I loved was its linear story and navigation. It simply has a menu at the side so that the user can scroll through the story or skip to certain parts. I admire the way the i-doc is very visual, using background images and video to set the scene of the story. This is something I want to use, to give my audience a sense of what time of year it is by using images and video to represent each season. I also respect how the i-doc has incorporated interactive maps to visualise the scale of impact the bush fire had on the community, as well as the way it has used nature as background audio to set the scene and relax its audience into the story. All these elements have inspired my i-doc in some way, shape or form, to get a better interactive experience.

2. The last Hunt http://thelasthunt.nfb.ca/#/thelasthunt

An interactive documentary telling the story of a grandson, as he joins his grandfather on his last hunt, before moving into a retirement home because of dementia. I loved the way the graphics animated like GIFS helping illustrate the story being told and when combined with the background images the user really gets a sense of what it’s like to be in that environment. This is something I want to try and create, a scene where animated illustrations and background images tell the story. I also appreciate the music the piece has used to create a calming background ambience throughout the project. Using calming music like this, will relax my user and engage them more into the story. I believe the more relaxed they are, the more they will enjoy the story. It will also reflect some of the values of the pagan belief.

3. Lost Belief’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/Lost_Belief 4. Business Cards

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5. Gantt Chart

6. Site map

The idea being that there would be four sections to represent the four seasons in the pagan calendar; these four parts would each have three sections, one with an animation about the season, one with a film about how the pagans celebrate the season and finally a social section where people can share their experiences of the season.

7. Popcorn Webmaker – https://popcorn.webmaker.org/ 8. Racontr – https://racontr.com/ 9. Klynt - http://www.klynt.net/ 10. Rough framework in edge animate - https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=_zyCenqp26E 11. Rough framework in muse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcFHNt_pWnU 12. The pentacle

I used a 3pt thickness on the line with a chisel style to make it look wavyWith a colour of #42210b

13. The sun wheel

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I used the same settings as I did for the pentacle when making the sun wheel, although I added a gradient and a sandstone texture to it. to give it more depth and to make it look slightly worn.

14. Hand drawings

15. Experimentation

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It was hard to choose a style so I asked a load of my peers to choose which one they liked best and the crayon line with a brown stained colour in the middle came out on top 4/8.

16. Edge docks - http://www.edgedocks.com/content/2013/12/using-parallax-scrolling-animate-single-line-code

17. Scroll effect in muse

I stated how much it needed to scroll by in relation to the rest of the page and then from which point it needs animates from. The main problem with this was working out the timing. I had to spend a lot of time working between Edge Animate and Muse to get the timeline and the scroll effect amount correct. But eventually I managed to work it out. Apart from one slight problem where if you scroll a certain amount on some pages the animation disappears completely. I’ve still not managed to work this out and it seems to be an issue that no one on the Adobe forums is struggling with. In solving most of my problems with this software I’ve often asked the Adobe forums for help, but to date my question on this has still not been answered.

18. Beltane – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm316cW-Kq4 Litha – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMamoUclcq4 Mabon – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGTx1F6L15A Waeshal - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZ-z5PH_RE

There is various pieces of software and plugins that help make subtitles but due to me editing on the university PC’s I wasn’t able to use any of them. I ended up creating them the hard way. I transcribed word for word, to the best I could, what I could hear and then typed this up as titles overlaid onto the footage. Although it was a long process, the films really benefit from them. I also added some explanation pages to ease the user into the film, as I found that a lot of people wanted to know more about what was going on, and found the films didn't answer their questions. I also put an animation at the end using After Effects to let my audience know that the films had ended instead of them finishing abruptly. I made two versions of this edit, one that will be put into the Muse site that guides them to scroll down to the next section at the end, and one that I will use when publicising them with the URL at the end to link them to the site.

19. Twitter widget - https://twitter.com/settings/widgets

I was able to make a twitter feed based on people tweeting about what they’re doing to celebrate the sabbats, using the hashtags #beltane, #litha, #mabon and #wassail. Although this gave me a few challenges. When implementing the feed it

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wouldn’t show when I previewed it, which led me to believe that that it wasn’t working. However I found out that this was solved when publishing it.

20. Different resolutions

I chose these resolutions as most people have screens this dimension, and by having them at this size meant I could render the videos to a similar ratio, so that they wouldn't distort too much when scaled. However screen resolutions always varying and if someone has a resolution that is higher or lower than Lost Belief's then my site is likely to change. The main concern being that the background images won't fill the screen. It also meant that there’s a lot of space around certain elements, like on the interactive pages, where the elements are squashed in the middle of the screen because none of the elements can scale correctly. However Muse is an evolving new media and the hope is that this will soon be possible.

21. Introduction - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmZre4UnvIE&feature=youtu.be

I found from the user testing that my user wanted more information and I felt that by making an introduction, would be a good way of doing that. It also gave me a start page; from the i-docs I saw at Doc/Fest the most successful ones had a clear starting point for the user to navigate from. I made the animation in Edge Animate using .png images that I made in Illustrator which were faded in and rotated around like a wheel, to symbolise the pagan sun wheel. I would have like to have had more complex animations instead of just using fade but due to not having a lot of time I just settled with this. It was also made it easier to use in Muse as simpler animations were easier to add effects too. Also as my project was already rich with media I didn't want to add more to the file size.

22. User testing

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From my user testing I found that my navigation seemed rather complex for people to understand. Many didn't use it and just scrolled down the page or used the home button to go back to the main menu. It was also hard for them to work out the story, with them jumping to the video or interactive pages first. So I decided to make my structure more linear. Instead of the user being able to go to separate parts within the season sections. I decided it was best to have just one button for each season so that they'd immediately go to the begin of the story, instead of jumping straight to the video and not understanding what was going on because they missed the first animation part. I still maintained the design of my navigation with the sun wheel so they'd associate it with the home page. However if I was to do the project again I would think about simplifying my navigation from the start by maybe user testing a prototype at the beginning before starting the project.

One of the main things everyone loved from my user testing was the sound. The calming effect it gives the piece is exactly what I wanted as it gave it more of a Pagan feel. I found the music on a website called dig.ccmixter.org which offers royalty free music. The artist is a guy called Colab and the song is called Still Water with an attribution licence (see appendix 24). I edit the music slightly, however so that I only had the intro to the song on repeat. As I was unsure about the licence of the music I felt it best to not use it throughout my project. So for the season's sections I used some birdsong that I had recorded using a zoom and a Rhode NT-4 to get some stereo audio.

23. Lostbelief.co.uk registered

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24. Music License - http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/colab/23909

25. Lost Belief – www.lostbelief.co.uk

With Lost Belief, one of the main issues was that on some of the pages my scrolling animation disappears when it gets to the bottom. This is an issues that I’ve had when previewing in muse and when publishing online. I think it has something to do with the scroll effects settings but I’m not entirely sure. I‘ve asked for help using the Adobe forums to see if anyone has an answer to this, but currently there seems to be no solution to it. However I have managed to get it to a point where it won’t disappear until the last line, so the user can still read all the content before it goes, but it still makes my piece look a little unprofessional. Another issues is that my twitter feed is slightly glitchy not loading sometimes in browsers, especially in Internet Explorer. It does, however, still load the hashtags so if the user clicks on this, it will take them to the twitter feed. Again this is something that I’ve posted onto the Adobe forums to see if anyone can help me figure it out. Also there were a few issues with the fact that Firefox seems to squash a few elements, due to Muse not responsive scaling. I had to move a few elements around, being careful where I placed them and making sure that they weren’t being cropped within the browser. Another issue I found when I’ve put my website online is that the email address on the form doesn’t work. When I was testing it in muse it sent an email to me fine using Adobe’s business catalyst servers; however when I tried it with my server no emails were coming through. However I think this is an issue with my server more than it is with adobe. So it may be fixed by purchasing a better quality server. Barring a few alignment issues though, I think that my site works really well online.

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