Dreams Of Your Life

Last year I worked with Hide&Seek to make a website for Film4 to support the release of the film Dreams Of A Life. The site launched in December, and it’s called Dreams Of Your Life.

Dreams Of Your Life

I still have problems with describing the site. It’s definitely not a game. It’s not, in itself, a story. And I’m not going to saddle it with the horrible noun “interactive”.

Its narrative, written by A.L. Kennedy, takes you through an exploration of “society, friendship, love and loneliness”, in keeping with the theme of the film — a documentary about Joyce Vincent, a 38 year-old woman who was discovered in her bedsit three years after her death.

The branching journey is split over many full-window screens, as a conversation, asking the user questions. The background of each screen is a photograph taken by Lottie Davies, a huge series of subtly shifting views of the same scene.

It requires a little time to get into, so when you have some spare — ten minutes? 20? 30? — give it a gentle spin.

For a website that is so simple in appearance — essentially a single “page” — this was one of the most complicated pieces of front-end coding I’ve done. When the project started we weren’t sure what the final “thing” would be, and I began making a site that would, hopefully, be as flexible as possible. Inevitably, it wasn’t always flexible enough in quite the right places, but it enabled us to construct a site around an experience and narrative that was continually being adjusted and tweaked. Hopefully the final result is an absorbing, image-rich, smooth experience where the technology gets out of the way.

Hide&Seek have more about the project.

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3 Jan 2012 in Photos

3 Jan 2012 at Twitter

  • 9:33pm: @tomcoates @yoz Quiet! Pesky kids! It’s nap time!
  • 8:25pm: @tomcoates @yoz @Zoonie I don’t think there’s a nice way to say this. SHUT UP!
  • 8:23pm: @rosiestones I never throw stuff away - I can email you a copy of your ideal man data!
  • 5:50pm: “Give it a go!”? Exclamation mark? I sound like a desperate social marketeer. You can try it if it takes your fancy, otherwise, no problem.
  • 5:46pm: More belated bloggedy writing. I wrote about Dreams Of Your Life that I made with @hidingseeking: bit.ly/yV7dO2 Give it a go!
  • 4:15pm: We have lovely new neighbours at the office, but still the excited cries of “LASERS!” ring out. Some things are eternal.
  • 1:16pm: @D_Nye_Griffiths What?! Santorum is a symptom? I’ve been taking 3 x 200mg Santorum twice a day to treat my Gingrich!
  • 11:41am: @StephanieOs Here’s your answer about Pepys’ Diary! bit.ly/rBTKBL
  • 10:23am: @tobybarnes @revdancatt @charliebcatt I think you’ll find they’re referred to as a “travelling chef”. It sets you up for disappointment.
  • 9:50am: I finally wrote a blog post about the Guardian’s nice iPad edition bit.ly/tpzUBb Stay tuned for more of 2011’s hot topics!
  • 9:23am: @revdancatt Have the fares gone up?
  • 9:16am: Who's been sitting in MY chair?
  • 9:13am: Emptying the office fridge of 2011's half-finished soups and Philadelphia cheese.
  • 9:06am: Shutters up on 2012.

3 Jan 2012 in Links