Project Profile: The Eighth Day
The Eighth Day is an online interactive graphic novel. The primary aim was to improve upon a current media text and revamp it into the digital age on a new platform. The secondary aim was to create a story that would appeal to loyal comic book fans without deterring them from the new media form, as well as attracting new audiences to grow an interest in comic books.
It was conceived internally, which involved writing the story for the ongoing saga and the script. With detailed instructions, illustrator Nick Toye (www.nicktoye.com) was brought on board to sketch, ink and colour the illustrations that made up Chapter 4 of the graphic novel.
The website was then designed in a Matrix-esque futuristic appeal, consisting of photo manipulation and Flash animation. Voice actors were hired to supply voices for all characters and subtle animation was included for onomatopoeia’s. Once sound effects and a soundtrack were added, the graphic novel was brought to life. The graphic novel was then constructed in 2 viewing modes, one to appeal to avid comic book lovers, where which the user can click on individual panels to hear sounds and view animations. Or ‘Experience mode’ which scrolls down 1 page in full screen, playing sound and animation in sync with the graphics. A sophisticated engine was constructed so that in ‘Read mode’ the relevant soundtrack fades up when hovering over the relevant page and fading out the previous page. The website features pages to show the evolution of characters, the back story of The Eighth Day saga, in-depth look at characters and a discussion page for readers to talk about the latest issue.
Since its conception The Eighth Day has won the Europrix Multimedia Top Talent Award 2007 Seal of Approval as well as swept all the accolades at the The Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts 2008 in Las Vegas winning 1st place in the Faculty and Student Interactive Multimedia competition for Individual projects. The project also won the BEA Festival 2008 King Foundation Award, which is the highest honour the festival can offer.
Features: Flash, Website Design
