Timeless Cinema
Spring 2016
Tablet Application
The goal of this project was to create an interactive infograph, and with that I had to choose a medium and a topic. I chose the topic of Cinema because I hold a high interest in movies, and I found it easy to get data to make infographs with that topic. Since films are for a casual entertainment, I felt that the medium of tablets would match up nicely with the subject matter. So that was the cinema part of the title, the timeless section of the title originates from an amorphic idea in my head about working on a project that compares the decades against each other. So I decided to apply it to this project and compare decades of cinema against one another. Each decade in this app is defined by a color scheme that matches the popular color themes during the corresponding decade.


Sketches
When I was sketching out my project, I wasn't 100% set on a direction for this app to go. As VR was on the rise, I considered making the whole project around Virtual Reality. Hence the rise of the idea of making the timeless cinema. The original plan was to make it a 3D VR cinema for the user to explore. Due to time constraints I simplified it to the map of the cinema, and made it a iPad app so it was more accessible with the public, since VR is highly exclusive.


Character Sketches/Compositions
Drawing the caricatures of the decade actors was probably my favorite part of the project. I suppose the main question is why these actors specifically? I took 2 main aspects in picking out actors for this project, salary and popularity. The actors that best fit between these two requirements made the cut. The final cut being (from left to right): Charlie Chaplin for the twenties, Clark Gable for the thirties, Bing Crosby for the forties, Marilyn Monroe for the fifties, John Wayne for the sixties, Jack Nicholson for the seventies, Harrison Ford for the eighties, Jim Carrey for the nineties, Johnny Depp for the noughties('00), and Robert Downey Jr. for the tenners('10).


Evolution of the Decade Slider
The main mechanic carried throughout the app is switching between decades, and I needed to create a device in the app to allow the user to preform that task. So I had to design a time travel device if you will. I originally started with a time wheel that the user could spin, but in the end the design was to confined and awkward, in other words I had these weird pie slices of time that really fought with its neighboring decades. So I switched the disc to a strip that you could slide through, so instead of a circle it is a line, kind of like movie film. The square design of the lined format allowed the personal designs of each decade to fit in a nice space, and not look awkward since rectangles are easier to visualize and work with.


Wireframes
When time came around for wire frames, I had the main direction of where I was going with this app, The iPad Timeless Cinema, where you can view each of the info graphics in different rooms of the cinema, traveling to each room via a map the user can access in the top left of the app.


Compositions
First compositions come, and I'm not to far from the final result of the project. Some changes from this stage and the final version can be seen. One big one being the Top Movies per Decade (bottom right), that section was too cluttered, and I ended up reducing it to 2 decades shown at a time, much like with the Movie Length and Top Actor pages(top left and right respectively). Another change is the text, at this stage I had each decade with a different font. in newer versions I made a universal font and used the decade font as an accent. Some smaller changes I made where more definition to the hands in the Movie Times room, and fixing the color schemes so they work well with each other instead of fighting with each other.


Video (First Draft)
Due to ambition and lack of time, I have this roughed out version to meet the deadline, yet I did update the video as seen at the top of this project.
The main issues with this version is timing, everything goes to fast. Another issue is lack of sound, so I added that later, and also a few visual UI flaws were buffered out after this version.


Final Screens
The Theater of Stars
The Theater of Length
The Ticket Booth
The Box Office

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