Initially titled 'A Life in Final Moments,' this interactive audiovisual project was designed to explore the idea that each of us will inevitably talk to someone for the last time; what would a life look like through these “final moments.” We wanted to let the viewer experience the life of a main character solely through self-contained interactions, that were, unbeknownst to the parties involved, the final interactions that would ever take place between them.
Process
Tackling such a sensitive theme was challenging, but by focusing on the message we were trying to convey, our group was quickly able to work out a storyboard of what we wanted to convey. Of course, this underwent many changes during the course of the project, but the core idea stayed the same: Bob dies, but this story isn't about Bob.
After initially planning to cover "final moments" over the course of Bob's entire life, we ended up focusing on the last day that he was alive. Limiting the characters to three, not including Bob (it wasn't about Bob), we settled on a childhood friend, his boss, and his wife. More accurately, we settled on Bob being each person's childhood friend, employee, and husband. By keeping a limit on the time frame the comic would occur over, and on the number of characters we look at, we hoped to deliver a more powerful and succinct message.
Deciding on a look for the webpage and the comic was significantly harder; how do we want to come across? Taking inspiration from old gothic noir detective type comics, we kept the theme essentially entirely grayscale, with the exception of a few splashes of color here and there. While most of the panels were hand-drawn, I made an effort to vary the style between each character to represent something of a lack of continuity between them; rather than a lack of story continuity, I wanted to communicate a sense that each page was being told from the perspective of a very different person.
Reflection
After helping produce this (hopefully) thought-provoking and poignant work, I am glad to have worked on this fairly morbid piece, rather than on a more generic or cheerful one. Forcing myself to think about how conveying information and interactivity would change with the tone of the piece was very engaging. I do wish we had more time, because as I've mentioned above, a project like this takes more than just enthusiasm to get right. Perfecting a piece like this would have been invaluable to any future viewer experience, and my only real regret is not being able to have "outsiders" take it for a test drive.