User:Dorukeker/Signs of a Story

Signs of a Story (SOAS) is an Internet project allowing users to create narratives with pictograms and subtitles. The current version of the web site holds general information about the project and an editor which can be used to make slideshow movies out of signs.

The future version will have additional functionality, enabling users to share their movies, add different interpretations of the narratives and make comments on them.

About the Project
The core element of the project is the web site containing the signs movie editor. Using this editor the site users can browse through a set of images of traffic signs and other pictograms (signs with figures, shapes and lines only, no numbers, letters or words). They can choose a number of those signs in any order they want. The chosen signs in the chosen order will form a video (a slide show of signs). The video creator can also write the story of the video, i.e. the narrative s/he had in mind while producing it, as subtitles.

Current Version
This current version of the web site contains general information about the project and the first version of the editor with which one can create a signs movie, as described above. However, while s/he can download a personal copy of the video, s/he cannot share his/her video on the web site (the videos can be shared via e-mail etc.). This version of the web site has been created to let Internet users test the editor and give feedback on the editor and the project. The full scope of the project will be reached once the extra functionality is added.

Future Functionality
The next version of the web site will offer collaborative platform where the video creators can submit their videos for other users to view. The original story subtitles will be kept hidden to the other users until they submit their own written narrative interpretation or "interpreted version" of the same video's story as a new set of subtitles. Once submitted, the original narrative written by the video producer will be accessible to the user so that the original narrative and the interpreted narratives can be compared with each other.

Moreover a comments section related to each video/story thread will be set up so that people can comment on the videos and original or interpreted stories, and be notified when someone has responded to their video, story or comment. Thus a "community environment" will be formed.

Extensions of the Project
One additional function can be to ask the users to submit some demographic information when they register to the site or create a video. This information then may be used by psychologists and/or sociologists to study the differences in interpretation between distinct groups of people.

To be continued...

Editor
The SOAS Editor is an RIA build on Adobe Flex. Using the existing version of the editor users can browse through different categories of signs, drag and drop the chosen signs to the timeline of the editor, adjust the duration and edit the subtitle of the individual sign, save and share their work (timeline) as an XML file. The same XML file can be used to playback to movie in the SOAS Player.

Player
The SOAS Player is an online application whhich is build using Adobe Flash. It allows users to load and play their saved timeline files. It removes the burden of downloading a player every time you download a SOAS movie.

Project Owners
Geneviève Appleton

Assistant Professor - Bilkent University / Department of Communiccation Design

Screenwriter and Filmmaker - White Wave Productions

Concept initiator, project developer and designer, interface modeler

www.whitewaveproductions.com

Doruk Eker

Part-Time Instructor - Bilkent University / Department of Communiccation Design

Software Developer - Sanpark IT & Design Co., Ltd.

Web and RIA development and technical support

www.de-signer.net