Possible Problems?

Although I think that the bombing of Newick would be an interesting story to tell, the problem is that my grandfather is not alive to tell his side of the story. Even thought I do have a first hand account from somebody, they are not from my family, so I don't think it is suitable for the brief.
I shall talk to him soon, to see if my dad knows anything that my granddad told him, otherwise I will have to see if my Nan knew anything about this story, as she might have not known about it. If not, I may have to choose another story...

Research

For my research, I have got a report written by one of the locals, which is about the garage and how it was repaired following the years of the bombing.
The incident happened on the 22nd May 1941, and there is a account of what happened that day written in this article.
These are some quotes from this account:
"Only two enemy planes reached England on that day, one in Wiltshire and one here in Sussex. The German bomber came in over Shoreham at 4.45 in the afternoon dropping bombs at Henfield and Lindfield, then at Chailey/Scaynes Hill and it reached Newick at about 5 o’clock."
"The bomb fell on Dove Cottage opposite the garage with a massive explosion, blasting lime tree branches through the air. After the sound of breaking glass with rubble and tiles falling there was silence. Then came the voices of the frightened people, gradually seeing the damage caused."
"The chemist’s shop ‘Oddie and Whitby’, by the garage, was damaged and inside on the floor surrounded by broken glass was the dead chemist, 62 years-old Percy James Horsley. Broken glass had hit the back of his neck. The blast had lifted and damaged the roof of Terry’s garage and the staff there were injured from flying glass. One of the mechanics Cecil Holman had been trying to get to the air raid shelter at the back. The walls and roof of Bannister’s shop and post office were damaged and the windows were all shattered. Rubble and glass lie over the pavements. Staff had injuries. Mr Carter had intended to dive underneath a lorry for protection but was pleased that he hadn’t because the lorry had rubble scattered all around and under it and the concrete had lifted and jammed against the underside. Soot had come down the chimney of Mrs Annels house and the clock fell off the wall at Red Brick House, the home of Mr and Mrs Fuller."

As seen by these quotes, there was a lot of damage done to part of the village, and my grandfather, Cecil Holman, was part of this incident as he mas a worker at the bombed garage.

This is an image of damage done to a shop nearby to the garage. It was taken from a local newspaper.

Story Idea

Whilst talking with my family about this project more, and looking through the folder about my grandfather, a story was brought up that could make for an interesting ebook as it was around the war time period, and it happened quite locally. I have also started to gather some research for this. This story was about a bomb hitting Newick garage back in 1941, and as my grandparents lived in Newick. The ebook could be about how it affected my nan, and some of the people in the community. As I develop my research, i will hopefully get a clearer picture of how my ebook will look...

Looking at Animated Documentaries

As well as looking at existing ebooks to get a look at how they can be interactive, I have also looked at a couple of animations that are used as informative stories or documentaries.

This animations is called "The History of Evil", and is about evil from Ancient Greek mythology, to the present day. The whole thing is drawn in a cartoon-like style, which I like because I would like to do something like that for my own ebook. Although the animations are simple, it uses sounds and narration to make it entertaining throughout. As we have to have a narration in our ebook, this is a good example of what can be done in After Effects animation.

This animation is much more complex, as is about the Earth's orbit. It uses a lot of 3D models, and 3D diagrams, which can be done in After Effects. This gives me an idea of what I could produce if I had a lot of knowledge on the program, It is very informative, and the animations really help with talking in the information.

Thinking About Ideas for my Ebook

After getting the brief and discussing it with my family, we have agreed that researching my grandfather would be a good choice for an ebook, as he was around in the Second World War. War times would be an interesting period to research and make an ebook about, as there was a lot going on at that point in time. As my father had compiled a big folder of information about him for his funeral, it will also be easy to find a lot of information about his past, so I will be able to do a lot of research about him from this, and hopefully find a great story to tell.
As for people I can interview, for this story, my nan would be a great help as she can also give her side of the story as well as narrate it.
So, I will be getting this folder shortly and having a look through it to see what I can find.

Looking at Existing Ebooks

To get an understanding of what my ebook could look like, I found some existing ebooks to get some ideas on how to make a layout or how to tell my story.
After Googling fora bit, I found some good examples of ebooks, although many ebooks are for children as the interactivity makes it easier for them to understand the story.

This is a trailer for Alice in Wonderland, that was remastered for the iPad. It is a good example of how interactivity can work in an ebook. A lot of the interactivity in this book comes from the reader moving and changing the imagery in the book. The illustrations are also well done to give a better sense of the story. The interactions include a lot of motion, where you have to move the iPad around to change what happens to the pictures. This kind of interactivity works for the the target audience, which would be children.

This is another ebook aimed at children, through it seems to be much younger children (around the ages 2-6). The illustrations in this ebook are much more cartoon like, and has a lot of tutorials to tell kids what to do with the interactive parts of the book. There are also extra games and features, such as puzzles and even an editor to let children make their own stories. I would say that the interactivity and drawings work well for the audience.

This ebook is based off of an informative book, which is brought to life by this ebook rendition. It helps explain things further with the help of diagrams and illustrations. The amount of interactivity in this book is much greater than the ones aimed at younger children, as this one allows users to change parts of the diagrams to show different information, and makes it easier to understand for younger readers. This book really shows the capabilities of ebooks, and how they can really bring out the best from the original text and can make it more accessible to others.

Here is another informative ebook which really shows how the ipad can make learning more interesting. It is about showing things that happened through time, and as such, there is a timeline where you can quickly choose what to learn about, and like the other informative ebook, uses illustrations to compliment the text. There are also animations to make the information more interesting and accessible.

Project Brief

For this project, I will need to create an ebook that will work on the iPad. In the brief, it says the subject matter of this ebook should be based around something to do with my family, whether it be a story about a family member, or about a place that one of them lives at. We should record the audio for this ebook as an interview, and this piece of audio should be no longer than 1 minute. We should also make an introduction sequence for our ebook.
This is the requirements for the ebook from the brief:
"You will source or generate text, images, sound, moving image and animation. The ebook must contain at least the following:
- A title page or cover which may be animated
- Text and images
- At least one audio interview with a family member, edited to tell the story in 1 minute or less
- Animated visual elements to accompany the interviews"

We will be using Adobe After Effects to create the animations for this ebook, as well as using Photoshop and Illustrator to create images. 

This assignment requires the following:

"- Attendance at pitches and crit presentations is compulsory
- Sketchbooks must be available for discussion with your tutors in every lesson and must be updated at least weekly throughout the project
- Blogs must be must be updated at least weekly throughout the project
- The pitch must be in the form of a presentation, prepared in advance of pitch session
- Production will be complete by the crit, so a full product is shown in the crit session, though changes and improvements can be made between crit and deadline"

 The pitch will take place on the 22nd of October, crit will be on the 5th of December and final submission is on the 12th of December.