cs92 - ps111 storyboard

playback image
editing image
Overview: To allow students to create multimedia analyses of political advertisements. The software will consist of two main modes: playback and editing.

• Playback: The playback mode will allow students to view an annotated political ad. This will consist of a quicktime movie with markers at specific points in the movie. Markers will illustrate the different aspects of a political ad. The student will be able to play back the ad in two different ways. The first mode will simply display the ad without annotation. The second mode will pause at each marker to display the information it contains. Once the student has read the information they will press a button to continue playback.

• Editing: In editing mode a student will be able to construct their own analysis of an ad. Editing will have a similar interface to playback, with the addition of a several elements. There will be a marker button which will allow students to place markers at points in the ad. Additionally, instead of simply displaying the information for markers, the interface will present editable fields so that the student can write their own text.

• Aspects: The seven different aspects of political ads which we have identified come from Darrell West's book. They are: visual images, visual text, sound and music, editing, color, voiceovers, and code words.

• Markers: Each marker will consist of a basic set of data. These data types are: the time in the ad the marker appears, a title for the marker, the aspects of the ad the marker discusses, and the analytical text of the marker.

• Index: An additional interface element will be an index of the markers. This will be a scrollable list of the markers currently associated with the ad. It will display the time where the marker appears, the title of the marker and the aspects of the ad it addresses. By clicking on a marker in the index, the movie and display will be updated to show the information of that marker.

Assessment: Currently assessment is an issue that we are somewhat unsure about. There are several different issues here as to whether the students should create their files on local media or their creations should be stored in a central server or database. Currently we need to look more closely at the tools we are thinking of using to determine the feasibility of these different ideas.