Why are you creating this story? Goals, rationale, purpose, premise? What do you want your audience to experience or understand?
Premise: Fitzroy is inhabited by a group of cafe entrepreneurs and graffiti artists who demonstrate their anecdotes to international visitors through an interactive documentary.
The main reason of creating this webdoc is Fitzroy is Melbourne’s oldest suburb where it is famous for its art and cafe culture throughout Australia.
In this interactive documentary, the purpose is assisting travelers to explore the unique culture existing in local streets. For example, the Mario Cafe est.1986 locates at the Brunswick Street which is the commercial heart of Fitzroy. I am expecting users to experience the real Melbourian food and living atmosphere within their short stay in the city.
What is your story? In what way will it be original, surprising, human, passionate, truthful or relevant to your audience?
My idea is creating an interactive documentary where combine coffee culture and graffiti paintings to demonstrates the unique street culture in Fitzroy. There are many tour guide website that only provides traveling recommendations without giving insights of the real local culture. So the doco will not only be featured a number of representational scenic spots, but it will also allow tourists to participate into the Melbournian community in an innovative way. The participants can receive back-stories of the scenic spots through viewing interview videos, archive photographs, and description texts. After audiences have a specific context about Fitzroy, they will be deeply affected by the location when they have an actual visit.
In additions, the Goffe Beans is semi-open webdoc where allows participants upload their stylish selfie to the website. In modern society, ‘showing off’ on social media platform is trending up. People are passionate to unfold their personal stories to attract more viewers. The doco is able to satisfy their demands.
Where will you publish your story? What platform/s and hardware are suited to your audience? E-books, blogs, videos, photos, podcasts, tweets, status updates, apps, games, forums, websites?
The interactive documentary highly replies on mobile devices where users are easy to access the content with their smartphone. The initial idea is building a website based on a computer platform, but it is not an efficient way for a traveler. From a tourist point of view, the smaller electronic devices bring more convenient in their journey. Also, the portable electronic devices like Samsung tablets and Apple iPhone predominate in contemporary society. Those devices are as functional as the traditional laptop or PC. So the ideal solution is establishing a friendly mobile web that is accessible for a smartphone or other electronic devices.
Who is your audience? Who is your target viewer/user – i.e. the group you will target in promoting the work?
‘The Goffee Beans’ project is targeting at international tourists, ages 18 – 40, who is skillful smartphone users and is active on social media platform.
Reaching international visitor is dependent on the flourishing tourism industry in Melbourne. According to Tourism Victoria, Melbourne experienced year-on-year growth in international spend (+5.9%), visitors (+9.6%) and nights (+8.7%) in 2016. The city has received 2.5 millions global travelers in the same year.
When will you create the content and start to engage your audience? What is the production process and publishing schedule?
At the moment, the project is still in pre-production. But it prepares to start to create content in June. This is a big project involves many aspects of specialty such as graphic design, website programming, videography, and marketing. Therefore, the production process will take 4 to 6 months and the final result estimates to release at the end of 2017 or early 2018.
How will your audience participate in the narrative? Will they be able to contribute to the narrative, alter the narrative, respond to the narrative?
The main participation happens in an interactive map where users start navigation in their own way. They are able to walk through the streets in any possible directions. Once the users begin to explore, the next decision may activate a secret scenic spot which could be a coffee shop or a graffiti painting. Then, an additional window will pop up onscreen so participants can browse information in the window. Finally, they can visit a found spot and may have a physical interaction with interesting people who inhabit in Fitzroy.
In general, the process is divided into eight steps:
Step 1. Users start to know contextual information of Fitzroy from an intro
Step 2. Users enter the interactive map and encounter scenic spots through navigating a red point on the map.
Step 3. Users receive information about a local cafe or a graffiti painting.
Step 4. Users reach the cafe and buy a coffee. With their purchase, they will receive a card that has information about a specific graffiti painting in the area.
Step 5. Users explore nearby surroundings to find the graffiti.
Step 6. Users take a personalizing selfie and upload to social media platforms
Step 7. The outstanding pictures will be selected and be added to the webdoc by the Goffee Beans.
Step 8. Users will be rewarded with their fabulous pictures (Optional)