DIVE DEEPER 2 is a series of 5 interactive experiences that allows the audience to delve further into the stories, issues and factual content presented in each episode of The Water Brothers - Season 4, a television series showing the effects of water related problems. DIVE DEEPER experiences offers an important derivative experience: a detailed tool for learning. Our intention is to create an interactive "gateway" experience to help the audience to become further motivated in water justice issues and have an outlet to join forces with the hosts on collective actions they take. DIVE DEEPER delivers this experience in a non-linear manner offering the audience there own choices and pathways to information. Every year, hosts Alex and Tyler participate in media appearances, social outreach and public speaking events. While these offline engagements are critical to the shows success, we believe that equal effort needs to be put into the online social engagement—DIVE DEEPER 2 does just that. DIVE DEEPER 2 interactive stories are 3-5 minute experiences that highlight the most startling facts, important figures, and offer access to various direct action opportunities. They serve to retell the most compelling stories of each episode and to create a shareable experience that our audience can send to friends and family within their own personal online ecosystem.
DIVE DEEPER 2 involves using a Macro, Meso and Micro levels of analyses to break down one single issue, system, etc. from each episode. It allows the audience to "dive deeper" into issues without being limited to a scrollable linear story as in DIVE DEEPER 1. Each episode topic has three to five sub topics which each in turn have three tertiary topics. The user will experience information and watch appropriate material from the episodes at each level of discovery being able to move non-linearly throughout the experience through visual connections.
Each episode of The Water Brothers accompanies an interactive story webpage on the WaterBrothers.ca website. Viewers are encouraged to dive into the graphically rich, immersive experiences through one or more of the following ways:
Once a user has landed on an interactive story webpage, they can easily navigate through the narrative either actively through clicking in and out of various details or passively by being guided through the experience.
The basic sequence for each scrollable story is:
The graphic design and style blends seamlessly with The Water Brothers television branding. As the animation team on the series, Thought Café implements style, assets and various other graphic content from the television series into the interactive scrollable storytelling. Thought Café created technically accurate and visually appealing characters and backgrounds that stimulate the users interest and encourage them to explore the interactive environments. The graphics are accompanied with typographic elements to allow users to easily digest the information presented. This is crucial to brand recognition and promoting the high production value of both the show and DIVE DEEPER experiences.
The DIVE DEEPER experience brings the video and animation content, as well as background environments to life through the creative use of interaction techniques ultimately controlled by the user's mouse behaviour. These triggers also activate exciting transitions and animations that will move the narrative through different areas and environments highlighting the issues in discussion.
DIVE DEEPER 2 has achieved what it set out to do: to provide additional information to viewers of The Water Brothers TV show, while being a compelling and sophisticated space in terms of design, branding, 3D animation, and user experience.
The website has been implemented far in wide in schools as a learning tool, inspiring young people to learn more about water issues and take action where possible.
As the team behind the project's design and development, we've been able to build on our extensive experience developing episodic and factual content, along with motion graphic animations to bring these interactive experiences to a wide audience. We have been successful in creating an engaging and educational experience that users will enjoy interacting with.
