BA7 | Concept and Pre-Production #04

 Research Report Tutorial

Yesterday I went into uni for a long morning tutorial with my tutors focussing on our research reports, giving us help, advice and tips on getting them properly started. I took my notebook with me to take notes incase there was anything important I needed to document. 

• NUA catalogue > Games Art and Design Research Reports > Journals > Games and Culture.
• Consider searching the subject of horror on TED Talks.
• Your draft needs to include your references and cite where you’re going to look for your information.
• You have two options: you could either write a fully realised chapter of your research report that you wont necessarily altar OR you can split it up into chapters with a few sentences in each to sum up what the chapter will explain.
• You should have an introduction, if you include an abstract this will come in BA8.
• You can use a lot of quotes and referenced material in your draft to clarify your idea and put your chapter point across better.
• You need to arrange your own submission folders so that they suit the work you are submitting. 
• •Presentation needs to include research from BA& and needs to clarify what your project is about, what you have done and how it will go onto BA8.
• Presentation should be 10 minutes with 5 minutes for questions.
• Presentations will be on week 9 (starting 2/12/13)
• Manuel Aguirre - “The Closed Space, Horror Literature and Western Literature”.
• Submission template (just an example/idea): blog/reflective journal, draft presentation, research document/aka design document, learning agreement, research report draft, technical.

Research Report Task

For yesterdays session I was asked to submit 250 words explaining my idea with a rough reading list. My tutor gave me the thumbs up for my idea and agreed that I have a lot of reading material to dive into, possibly too much. However, we were given the task to leave the session and return next week having done a lot of reading, as much as we possibly can, so that we can discuss it in our group meeting. This will give me the opportunity to organise my reading list.

 

Project Tutorial and Update

Today I was at university having a small group tutorial session with two of my tutors. The session was undoubtedly helpful to me. It finalised and clarified my project and helped me understand what work is expected of me in BA7. It also tied up a few lose ends and queries I had generally which is great! As with every tutorial I have at uni, I took notes to ensure I wouldn’t forget any of the useful information, feedback and suggestions given to me.  

• Remember to produce a presentation for every group tutorial in order to showcase the work you have been doing over the week.
• Misery - based on Stephen King’s work.
• LSD - horror game.
• Caspar Friedrich - creates beautifully haunting artwork.
• Willkie Collins - author.
• Tomb of Rooms - game.
• Mr James - ghost stories.
• Charles Dickens - The Signal Man.
• Start producing studio related blog post and research work (even though it ties in with research report research) and state what your idea is, what you intend to study, discuss what you want to do i.e. looking at why games are scary, how environments and scenes are made scary.
• You can produce a small series of practical responses to artist studies, environment studies, technical/software related studies, game, film, literature studies etc.
• Consider how games that aren’t necessarily a part of the horror genre inject horrific elements into their games, consider games like Fallout 3, The Last of Us, Uncharted 2, Bioshock etc.
• Research academic techniques used in film, literature, art etc regarding lighting, technique, camera, scenes, settings etc specifically associated with horror.
• Research lighting, rendering and horror related 3D environments (studio specific).
• Consider looking into the various sub genres of horror and how they are represented across media, especially in games.
• Work schedule cant be vague with large blocks labelled with project titles such as “studio project” and “research report”, try to add a little more detail, such as the type of research you plan to be doing and when, what you want to have completed and set mini deadlines within the project to help.