. Spinning .

hyper – 1. excessively active, behaving in an overexcited or hyperactive way.  2. excitable, easily excited, or having a high-strung temperament.  Syn. overexcited, manic, agitated, hectic, frenzied.

compendia – (compendium) – 1. short account, a comprehensive but brief account of a subject, especially in book form.  2. list of items, a list or compilation of various items.

Well, I don’t know if it’s accurate, but in a roundabout way it fits.  I was looking for the "new" meaning of hyper referring to hyperlinks, hypertext, hyperfiction.  And hell, I was just trying to think of another word for story and as I posted previously, -tale, -fiction, -novel, etc. were all taken.

So, if we think of hyper as linked, and compendia as a group, well there ya go.

Hypercompendia

God, I love this project!

Hypertext involves paths; it’s taking me on so many different paths just in each and every element or step of the project.  In seeking to do this, I need to find this, and that leads me to this, and so on and so on.  Many of the trails have been dead ends, many have been loops that lead me back to the main path.  I’ve sent myself so many e-mails with links to check out that I’ve had to put in new folders in Outlook just to know what they are for. 

It’s total research, and while many questions haven’t been answered, solutions not found, I’ve come up with more and more information–as well as new questions.  For example, in the simple  decision to transfer all this new media stuff to another weblog, I felt I needed a name different than the existing Pseudohyperfiction since at this point I’m getting ready to turn it into real hyperfiction.  Hyperstory, Hypertrail, Hypertale, Hyperfictive, Hyperbia–all these have been used.  But in Googling the name to check its availability, I’m finding all sorts of articles, sites, resources that may or may not apply.  Unfortunately, most of the words have already been used.

And this is only one simple aspect of the starting up of this production.  Just think of the road(s) and fun ahead.

Working with three or four different programs here, none of which are completely the answer in themselves (sorta like my four stories?).  This is why Adobe has what they call "suites" — to make sure all elements can be done in their suitable programs, then combined.  Too bad the whole combo still doesn’t fit my needs exactly, and the CAD programs aren’t compatible.

I’m still thinking along the lines of the different planes of vision, similar to that Graphite clip I mentioned.  Picture four "floors" (stories?) with various objects laying about, a sphere, a cube, a pyramid, etc., and connections between the levels of floors that are threads of communication or progression–stairways.  Each object might be colored differently, zoomed up to the forefront with a click, and opened, like a Christmas present, to reveal a mini-movie, text, images, music, whatever.

I’m not building just a story here; I’m building a house.

…sort of… Graphite

Do as they say: move the mouse around on the image.

Further thinking on the previous post (and I think also that it’s time this project along with its postings go into the other weblog instead–a "to-do" this week) brings me to an image that isn’t far off from a 3-D of an atomic structure.

I’m thinking that the multilayers of story within a hyperfiction piece lend themselves easily to 3-D, (I’m not talking 3-D animation here, but rather still on the storyboard layout and the eventual finished piece) and I can imagine it as similar to a universe where the objects (textboxes, or images, sounds, etc) are self-contained within an object, let’s say a cube–connected to appropriate other cubes that follow a story line–that can be clicked on, would come forward and open up to be read/viewed/enjoyed.  Another click would send it back into the background so that another choice can be made.

Now I know that some pieces produced in Flash work this way to a degree, so I know that the technical aspects can be worked out.  But wouldn’t that be neat?  If I can find something quickly that illustrates my theory here, I’ll post later.

Further along, the piece itself, of course, would be based on this 3-D effect.  A story made up of "planets" that connect yet float by themselves in space.

In the meantime, I need to figure out how to do it.

No doubt about it: this might be a lot more fun if the process didn’t involve a lot of research and time spent in finding things that, in a classroom setting or even with someone else involved, could be brainstormed and discovered in minutes instead of days. Discovery is also best when shared.  Come to think of it, the way I’m working is very much in the Garden of Forking Paths. 

Anyway, I’m plodding along here in many different programs and find that Premiere does have a storyboard included.  Unfortunately, it appears that its layout is comic-book style, meaning panels.  I liked the flow of Windows Movie Maker which was a continuous strip layout.  My thinking here is that if WMM’s format were the basis but allowed for several tracks or storyboards, that might be closer to what I’m looking to do with a multi-layered story setup.

On one of the computers I put in an old Expert Software (I really, really love their simplicity in maneuvering) CAD 3-D program.  I unfortunately gave away my original 2-D program and can’t get it back–and that one was the greatest.  But what I’m thinking now is that even though this doesn’t lend itself to my needs, wouldn’t it be great if the story layers could actually be seen in a 3-D effect, just like the building-a-home layout that allows you to see the floors individually, put together, and from all different angles.  Each story would be a layer, and each text box of paragraph could be seen in different ways.  Maybe they could be cubes, transparent but readable.

As I said, while this is loads of fun and interesting as all hell, it’s taking a lot of time with questions that, if working along with someone else, could be answered with a turn of the head.

Getting my fingers into all the different aspects of this at once.  Premiere Pro for Dummies is a lot less daunting and if I’d’ve gotten this first for Flash 8, I think I would’ve learned it quickly.  Premiere is similar to the other programs as far as technical how-to, but until you know one, they’re all a foreign language. 

Have the stories laid out in TurboCAD.  Now the problem is to be able to connect the textboxes and keep them connected while moving them around.  Maybe this is just the start of a storyboard.  On the good side, what I’m seeing is everything at once–the whole picture–by scrolling the screen.  I should also be able to embed images on the layout once I have them.  What I may do here is grab some off the web as "spaceholders" and to inspire and keep the ideas coming.  I did this with the laying-out of the poem Recycling, plugging in photos of Earth, Mars, Jesus, Edgar, etc., until I replaced them with photos or drawings of my own work.  Needless to say: no, I couldn’t get a clear photo of Jesus so I had to make do with a drawing.

Video comes into play here as well, so I’m learning to run the camcorder.  Actually, Premiere Pro for Dummies does give me some assistance here as well since it’s premise is to teach a total project based on the most used areas of Premiere, and this is the program I’ll use for these stories.

Last but not least, I’m already seeing that the stories themselves must be rewritten to accomodate the brotherhood of hyperfiction.  They need to flow into each other, out, away, elsewhere, and back in again.

I’m really looking forward to working on this project.