Mar 20 – 26

And so, after ten weeks of work, it’s time for our Half presentations! We spent most of Sunday in school going through the presentation and coming up with our scripts. The next couple of days was just spent rehearsing over and over again, before finalizing everything on Tuesday night.

Unlike Quarters, Halves is a relatively formal affair, and it was refreshing to see the team dressed up nicely for a change. Our actual presentation went really well. The team spoke confidently and had no trouble answering the questions posed to us.

The faculty were generally pleased with our progress, which was reflected in our grades (yay!) They were all extremely interested about our https://www.bernardspharmacy.com/ project, probably because most of them are Americans and this is a topic close to their hearts. Here are some of the main questions/feedback which we will be working on addressing over the next few weeks:

1. How will audience members (in bigger crowds) feel like they are contributing? How do they know their votes made a difference, instead of becoming demotivated because they see their input as unneeded/unused?
2. How will you motivate people to participate instead of just watching?
3. Is controlling only 1 actor efficient and engaging for the audience? Could the audience be divided up into 2 teams to control both?
4. In a tech savvy audience at the conference, would the users think their questions are really being passed on to the actor, or think it’s being faked? Would that matter?
5. What exactly will be displayed on the projector screen?
6. The actors will make or break this experience!
7. Make sure the web interface is informative and always up to date with the current point in the story.
8. The title might take away some decision power from the audience, or offend responsible gun owners. Consider testing the experience with NRA or hunting lodge members and see if they consider the treatment a fair one.

On Friday, our team conducted an interview with Janice, one of the staff at ETC. She used to be a police officer, and was able to give us a lot of insight about gun ownership for protection. In the end, we decided to based our gun owner character loosely on her, as she fit all our criteria (middle aged white female, has a child living at home, owns guns, etc.) and this would make our character a lot more believable.

We are still looking for the actual actors though. With any luck, we’ll be able to find them within the next few days, giving us enough time to rehearse for next Saturday’s ETC Playtest Day.