AO1:
Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
At the start of this unit, I decided to collaborate with Emma for this unit. We came up with 2 ideas. The first idea we had was a game of snap. In this game of snap it would have a couple of categories and one would be photos. So one person would have a bunch of photos and the other one would have the name of photographers. When ever there was a match so the person had a photo that was taken by the photographer or vice-versa. That person will claim the cards so it is actually more of a mixture of top trumps. Me and Emma thought that this game would be hard to produce and wouldn’t be effective as a game. The reason why it wouldn’t be effective is because we wanted to create a game where the players would learn about multiple aspects of photography, in this game, they would only focus on one aspect of photography, which isn’t what we intended to make. So next, we came up with an idea which in our opinions is better. The idea of this 2nd game is that you roll a number dice, then you roll a colour dice. The colour dice determines whether you answer a question about photo techniques, about a specific photographer. For example you could get a quotes card. There will be a question like, “Who said ‘Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst’. You would have 3 possible answers. If you get it right, you can move forward, if you get it wrong, you don’t move. This game takes aspects from Monopoly and snakes and ladders. The aspect of Snakes & Ladders is the concept of you need to get from A to B, in this case 1 to 50. The aspect of Monopoly is Flashcards. These are the equivalent of Community Chest and the Chance cards of Monopoly, you can either get something good [e.g Took some nice photos, move forward 3 spaces] or something bad [e.g You’ve broken your camera, move back 10 spaces]. We decided to include this because we feel that chance/luck is a very important aspect of photography, most of the photos we take are down to chance, as our some of the cards. The next bit of research I did was researching photographers, with the hope of it developing some questions. This was possibly the hardest bit of research I had done because I wasn’t searching a specific photographer. I was researching what certain photographers photographed, what subjects they photographed, famous quotes they said, photographic terminology. Emma and I used a wide range of resources. Our research involved books and online research. I was considering looking at an exhibition however I couldn’t really find one that was suited to my research because I was researching loads of stuff about photography, we weren’t researching a specific photographer. One book I looked at which was Hockney on photography. It is where I found out how David Hockney discovered his most famous bit of photography work, Joiners. Which he discovered by mistake. He took a large amount of images of images and arranged them together, some overlapped, some next to each other. them together. He didn’t know that the composition would work. From that, the ‘joiners’ were born. The question I had for him was, "Who discovered by accident, Joiners?". Online research involved, searching up photographers biographies, looking on the Master of photography website. We thought that we should try to keep the rules of this game as simple as possible because we don’t want the players to just learn about photography, we want them to have fun as well, we want them to enjoy the game. We want them to say, that was a good game, I’m going to play this again another day, or they're going to recommend it to their friends. If we make the rules too complicated or do too many, people might not have a positive response to the game. So we settled with 1. Roll the dice, 2. Roll the colour dice 3. Next you must answer the question that you’re opponent picked up from the pile. If you rolled a white. You can move forward without answering a question, 4. You only get one chance to answer, 5. If you answer incorrectly, you can’t move, 6. The person to reach 50 first is the winner
AO2:
Experiment with and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining work as it develops.
The first bit of experimentation Emma and I experimented with was with dice. We were deciding what kind of dice we should use, how many sides etc. The reason why we decided to experiment with these is because we we’re deciding whether we should make it easier for them to get a specific question. For example we tried 6 sided dice. We also tried 16 sided dice. Which would increase the chances of getting a specific question. In the end we went with a 6 sided die.
This was fun for Emma because she is good at making objects out of papers, she did well when it came to assembling the die, whereas I struggled with it. I was better at experimenting with technology, specifically with assembling the board on Photoshop. I did try to use Adobe Illustrator to make the board because it is more suited to making game boards because of it being Vector software [not resolution dependent] However I’m not skilled in Illustrator and I was struggling to follow tutorials of it on Youtube.
When using photoshop, it took as a while to decide on a layout. We considered having the players go around a piece of photographic equipment on the board. For example the board could be in the shape of an aperture ring, tripod, DSLR, camera lens. However I felt that none of these would look good, the reason why is because I did try to make one that looks like a DSLR however it was too hard to achieve it. In the end, we decided to go with the normal Snakes & Ladders format, however decided are board should go to the side, rather than going up. The reason why we decided to go with it having a start and finish was because we wanted it to be like you’re going on a journey. With the producing of the game, the board would be printed out and mounted on a mount board. The question cards would be laminated. Finally we decided we should make our own die. The reason why is because die’s are small and they can fall off the table and you might lose them. So we decided to make six-sided die, in bigger size. So that way you can’t lose them. Also the bigger the die, the easier it is too read it.
This was fun for Emma because she is good at making objects out of papers, she did well when it came to assembling the die, whereas I struggled with it. I was better at experimenting with technology, specifically with assembling the board on Photoshop. I did try to use Adobe Illustrator to make the board because it is more suited to making game boards because of it being Vector software [not resolution dependent] However I’m not skilled in Illustrator and I was struggling to follow tutorials of it on Youtube.
When using photoshop, it took as a while to decide on a layout. We considered having the players go around a piece of photographic equipment on the board. For example the board could be in the shape of an aperture ring, tripod, DSLR, camera lens. However I felt that none of these would look good, the reason why is because I did try to make one that looks like a DSLR however it was too hard to achieve it. In the end, we decided to go with the normal Snakes & Ladders format, however decided are board should go to the side, rather than going up. The reason why we decided to go with it having a start and finish was because we wanted it to be like you’re going on a journey. With the producing of the game, the board would be printed out and mounted on a mount board. The question cards would be laminated. Finally we decided we should make our own die. The reason why is because die’s are small and they can fall off the table and you might lose them. So we decided to make six-sided die, in bigger size. So that way you can’t lose them. Also the bigger the die, the easier it is too read it.
AO3:
Record in visual and/or other forms ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, demonstrating an ability to reflect on work and progress.
With documentation, Emma and I recorded it onto our photography websites. However we both missed out on documenting the planning process of the game. So people who look at our websites, will read that we did diagrams, however there wouldn’t be any evidence of it, there isn’t any pictures to back-up my claims. However the rest of the process is documented, the experimenting with dice, the producing of the board, the manufacturing and laminating of the cards, is all documented on my website. The way we did the documentation was my photographing as we went. For example when we laminated the cards, I took photos of the cards being laminated. I was going to get photos of the cutting out of the cards, so we could show how they were cut out. However both of my hands were helping with the scalpel and ruler, so I wouldn’t of been able to. I planed to receive feedback to my game by giving everyone a demonstration of how it is played.
AO4:
Present a personal, informed and meaningful response demonstrating critical understanding, realising intentions and, where appropriate, making connections between visual, written, oral or other elements.
I made the board on Photoshop along with the cards. However with the dice Emma printed them out and assembled them. We instantly decided Emma should do that bit because I’m not good at arts & crafts. I better with technology. After printing out the cards, next me and Emma focused on laminating and cutting out the cards. Laminating them was easy, however cutting them out was tough. We tried to use a trimmer, however it wouldn’t cut because the blade was blunt. So we decided to use a ruler and scalpel. This was a slow process, which required patience. When it came to printing the board. I decided to print and mount it the same way as I did with the final pieces. Cut it into 4 sections, print in A3. So when they printed out, I was getting ready to cut and mount it on mount board. However I found an old piece of empty mountboard that was a perfect fit. We received positive feedback for the people said the board looked good, it was a nice and simple layout. There was one complaint Emma and I received. With the quotes questions, people didn’t have a clue what the answers were. So if we sent this game into production. We might remove the quotes bit and think of a different category.