NORTHUMBRIAN WATER PROJECT

Project Brief

The brief was that they want us to focus around the previous work that was done by the Design for Industry students. The areas that the undergraduates did were animation, game/application, innovative bin and roadshows. The main challenge that Northumbrian water said to us was that were a lot people within the north east, that was flushing down the wrong items down the toilet or pouring cooking oil in the Kitchen sink. This led to blocked drains and flooding in certain places. They wanted to use the 4 areas to change customers/people behaviour of how to use the toilet and kitchen sink properly such as not flushing down wet wipes down the toilet.

Animation Team

I decided to be in the animation team because I have done some animation work in a levels and also in my undergraduates course. The main reason I decided to be in the animation group is develop my skills in animation and hopefully the new skills that I have learnt would be beneficial for the group in the future.

Animation Objectives

The three main objectives that we set out for the animation were:

1.Raise awareness

2.Educate the uneducated

3.Engage with the dis-interested

Questionnaire Research

The first thing we did as a group is to do a survey/questionnaire and go out asking questions to the Northumbria university students within the university campus. The main reason for us to do this is because we thought that this would give us of more of an insight of student’s behaviours when they’re in their bathrooms or if they pour cooking oil down into the kitchen sink. The questionnaire was fairly short; the first question was saying “Do you know what you are allowed to flush?” The response of the students that we asked was that majority of them said toilet tissue, pee and poo. Then we asked of what were the strangest things they have ever flushed down the toilet and we did get some funny answers from them such as one student said that he flushed down his brothers DVD for revenge and another said a baseball for no reason. This was funny and we thought that we will have these items in the animation because we thought it would keep the viewer amazed that these items had actually been flushed down the toilet.

However for our third question, we did find a lot of students have actually flushed down the items that were listed on our questionnaire and once again they knew it was bad but they still did it anyway because it was convenient for them do it. For example we found out that wet wipes were the most common items that were flushed down the toilet and this was down due to the fact of the toilet was right next to them and this meant that it was easy for them just to chuck into the toilet instead of the bin.

In our final question we asked the students of how they dispose their cooking oil. Majority of them said they just chuck it down the kitchen sink and one again they knew it was bad but they just do it anyway. However even though they knew it was bad, they didn’t know the devastating effect it has on the pipes and sewage because it causes big blockages which restricts water flowing through the pipes. There were many occasions that were Northumbrian water had to clear blocked drains for example Northumbrian Water spent over £145,00 clearing at least 2000 blockages in 2013. We also explained how cooking oil gets sucked is that once it cools down, it starts to solidify and slowly it starts building layers and layers around the drains.

Overall we concluded that it would be hard for us to suddenly change the student’s behaviours because they’ve built these behaviours throughout the years. However we believed that educating children would be more beneficial because they are easier to influence and also they might also change their parent’s behaviours.

Who is the animation aimed for?

We decided as a group that it would be best if we aimed the animation to children because it would be easier to influence them into changing their behaviours of making sure that they are only flushing down toilet paper, pee and poo down the toilet. It is only easier for us because the animation would be cartoony and funny which will make it more appealing for them to watch it. Furthermore it will also be beneficial because teaching children at a young age of the right and wrongs what is allowed to flushed down the toilet and also cooking oil in the sink. Teaching them would hopefully slowly become repetitive for them and in the future this would hopefully reduce the amount blockages that happen in the drains within the North east region. Also the children might be able to also influence their parents by pestering them into making the right decisions of disposing cooking oil properly and making sure that don’t flush down un-flushable items down the toilet.

Research into advertising the animation

Me and Hanae went into researching of how to make sure that the animation would be appealing for the children and also what platforms that the viewers could be able to watch it on?

We researched into how to make sure that the animation would keep the viewers interested. For example we looked at the video marketing statistics and visible measures which is a company that measures and analyses video performances for brands and publishers. In September 2010, they looked at 40 million short videos (5 minute durations) and they have found out from their research that that 20% of viewers would leave in the first 10 seconds of the video. This showed surprisingly of high levels of viewer abandonments because once again within the first 30 seconds, 33% of the viewers will leave. Going back to the first statistic shows that if you had an online video campaign has 10 million views then 2 million of them would have just seen about 10 seconds of the video (Follett, 2015). This made us realise in order to keep the viewers interested, we decided to get them interested within the first 5 seconds by making it cartoony and funny for them to watch it.

(Source: Visible Measures (2014))

How will it be viewed?

We did some initial research and looked at the best possibilities of getting a wider audience for the animation.

Firstly we looked at the potential TV advertisements. We conetcted ITV Tyne-Tees and they kindly sent us the their packages that they offer:

30 seconds adverts to be viewed on their channel
This will allow us to show our animation video in the north east region.
The cheapest price is £3690
This allows you to have 8 spots throughout the day
3 of them spots would be on peak a time which is on at 3:15 till 11 and
5 off peak times which is 09:30 – 17:14 and 23:00.

We also looked at advertising the animation in local cinemas. We managed to find out the best package that we believed would reach our target audience which is

Having the animation advertised within the trailers in family movies and the cost of it will be £2381.
The animation would be viewed in 98 screens throughout 16 cinemas within the north east region for a month.

Concepts & Storyboards

Road Work

1.There is a traffic jam because they are doing road work

2.People start to get angry and frustrated because it stops them from going to work on time

3.Northumbrian water has to close the road because they have to fix the pipes

4.The pipes have a lot of blockages in them which was caused by many stuff that shouldn’t have been flushed down the toilet

5.Throughout the north east region there are many similar places that also needs to be fixed

6.The solution that could work is providing live updates of the road works on their social media accounts or website.

7.Or they could have a visual image of block pipes on a sign and showing them how it blocked

Phone App / Animation – Interactive Animation Video

1.An interactive flash video or visual image, which allows the user to select a list of items they might flush down the toilet and then shows them what, will happen next. If the user selects an item that should be flushed down a toilet then it shows an image of blocked toilet.

Cooking oil in the sink

1.A lady cooks her food using cooking oil

2.Then once she finished cooking she then pours all of her cooking oil down the sink

3.Once the cooking oil has been poured in the sink hole, it shows how it starts to build up in the pipes

4.Then it will shows the sink completely blocked up

5.Then Dwaine the pipe shows up and he will show a list of possible solutions and other ways of disposing cooking oil properly

6.1 example of disposing cooking properly is allowing the cooking oil to cool completely, then wiping it up with a paper towels and then throwing it into the bin

Dwaine the pipe gets sick

1.Dwaine the pipe shows up and says he is really ill

2.Dwaine the pipe explains and shows what’s inside him that is making him feel sick

3.He then explains why these stuff are really bad for him and the whole north east region’s pipes and sewages

4.Then shows a list of facts and statistics of how they left a massive amount of damages on the pipes

5.Then explains how you could stop from making the same mistakes by now throwing anymore non-flushable down the toilet

Educational Schools

Northumbrian water goes into many schools and teaches the kids about what is flushable down the toilet
Then they show ben’s animation showing what are the consequences of flushing things that are not supposed to be flushed down the toilet
Then the Northumbrian water gives the kids and teachers leaflets about them and the north east region’s sewages
The kids then gives the leaflets to their parents, helping them also understand more about of what can be flush down the toilet

Animation in adobe flash using ActionScript

From one of my storyboard examples, I decided to make an interactive story animation, which allows the user to select a list of items they can flush down the toilet and then shows them what will happen next. If the user selects an item that should not be flushed down the toilet then in the next scene it would show a blcoked toilet. If they select the right item that is supposed to be fulshed down the toilet then in the net scene it will say that yes that has went thorught he toilet perfectly. I borrowed a graphics tablets to help me draw up some of the items and also getting me to understand of how long it actually takes to draw. Drawing on flash and also trying animate it made me understand from Ben’s point of view because it takes quite long to draw on flash and also the time it takes to complete it. Even though my animation was fairly short it still took me 1 week to complete it because of the level of skill and making sure that it looks appealing for the users and that it functions perfectly. This again made me understand from Ben’s point of view because even if a simple 30 seconds animation would take about 1 week from one person to make. Also taking in conserdation that the animaton has to make sure that it funs and appealling to our viewers and that its rasiing the awareness and also educating them.

Using action script, I learnt how to add in codes so that the animation runs smoothly and correctly so that the user will understand of what is happening. The animation is simplistic and easy to use because it gets to the point of what it trying to do which is to raise awareness of what is and not allowed to be flushed down the toilet.

GameSalad

I decided to use GameSalad also because I thought that it will be beneficial to create the interactive story animation as a game app and have it be available on multiple platforms that just having on their website. In my undergraduates, I created a app for one of my module’s assignment. So using app creating software was really new to me however I still had to learn how to use this software and understand the mechanics of it. GameSalad is primary aimed at the at non-programmers due to its drag and drop features this means that you have to any coding init. However the software does make still makes think in a linear thought process which means that you have pick the right blocks in order for the game to function. This was realitively easy for me because this didn’t require too much skill for me to learn the mechanics.

The main reasons that I used GameSalad because I was lucky enough to have John get an expert that worked in the gaming industry for a long time. He suggested to use GameSalad because it easy to use and is a great way to prototype a game by being able to create fairly quickly. However one big disadvantage that it has is that it was limited of the high level quality games that you wanted to make because of the limitation of feature that it provided to you. One disadvantage that I had when creating the game in GameSalad unlike Adobe Flash was that I had to use another graphic designing software to create images and icons. In Adobe Flash, I was able to create the images and icons using that tools that it provided me and then program them start away using ActionScript. However after my experience using GameSalad, I realised why this software would be suitable for someone that doesn’t have much skills in programming because of its simple features that it provides and how easy it is to understand of what need to do when trying to make a game.

Summary

During this project I was able to work with Ben and looking at how he created the animation such as realising that even if a simple 30 seconds would at least take a week. This was important for me to understand that each frame in the animation has to be perfect and that it actually takes time for them to create the final animation. Looking at how much detail went into the characters, how he had to animate them properly and finally making sure that it was suitable for our target market which was children. We decided that our main stakeholder that would have the highest interest in our animation were children and potentially the parents. Even though our clients wanted students to be our main target audience however when conducting our questionnaire on the Northumbria university’s students we realised that they knew it was bad flush down wet wipes and pour down fat in the sink they still did it anyway. Also doing more in depth of looking at what places would be great to advertise our animation in such as we had to call our local cinemas and find out the price they would us if we wanted to have our animation advertised in their screens. Finally having the opportunity to actually create an interactive animation/game using new software even though I had very little experience.