Type 2, Assignment 3, Post 3- Background and rational

 

9/12

After showing the video during the critique I took on board the points about the moving images and faded them in and out.  I also decided to modify the final message to leave it on the screen for a bit longer.

1 hour

As a bit of background to understand my parent's life. My dad joined the army in 1940 and fought in Italy and Northwest Europe.  When he returned to Canada he mined uranium in Northern Ontario for a while and then became a police officer in Toronto.  He got married and had a son.  His first wife was killed in a car accident when my brother was less than two.  He changed careers and became a security officer for External Affaires, and set out the travel the world as a single dad in the 1950s.  His first posting was in London, then off to Moscow.  My mother was born in Orkney and after high school got a job as a clerk with British security and then a communicator (teletype operator) with the British foreign office.  She was posted to Italy and then Moscow where she met my father.  They were married in 1959 and continued to travel, not returning to Canada full time until 1985.  During this time they had my brother and me.  My mum had to resign from the British government work, but she kept active, clubs, working part time at embassies, and social events.  She was pretty adventuresome, taking me to on a road trip from Islamabad to Kabul in 1978 in our little Toyota sedan. When we returned to Canada my dad kept working doing short 1 month to 12 month deployments to Canadian embassies around the world, his final one in Iraq.  They always wrote when separated, and while I don't write the beautiful letters they did to each other, I do drop postcards to friends and family when I travel.  With how the world has shrunk in the last 20+ years, I don't think this type of communication is as common and I wanted to create something that reminds people that email and WhatsApp wasn't always around.

The brief as to create a product that uses type to get a response.  The type in the video exposes relatable themes of love, longing, separation, and hope.  Through the lens of a method that has been abandoned, but still known, letter writing, the narrative conveys the intimacy of their relationship, the challenges of long-distance communication.  I had to decided how to stage the letters because they passed each other due to travel times.  The inclusion of details about life in Baghdad, shooting the street, going to meet aircraft, getting messages from a third party about planning a holiday, reinforces the distance and somewhat alien lifestyle that is unfamiliar to many of the viewers.

The end result is satisfying.  It engaged the viewers during the critique, I don't think I heard the room so quiet. I will be sharing this with my brothers, and hopefully they will share it with their kids, my nieces and nephews, to provide them with an understanding of their grandparent's unique life.