Giving Our Form A Voice

Persona of Aaina
We discussed Aaina’s personality and character and developed the list shown below. We returned to these qualities periodically to ensure we were representing her correctly.

Mapping the Conversation
The transcript we chose portrayed a therapy session between the counselor and the client. In this conversation, the client is coping with the loss of her boyfriend while recognizing he treated her badly in the same way her father did. We chose to edit the script to focus on counselor’s empathy and the progress of the client. Then we highlighted the key phrases the counselor would empathize with. For example, phrases like “can’t move on” and “baggage that is going to follow me” express the client’s feelings of frustration. During this point the counselor reflects the frustration of the client through voice and through a change in color.

Recording the Audio
We choose one team member to record the voice of the counselor and another as the voice of the client. It was most important for the voice of the counselor to be comforting and empathetic so we rehearsed key phrases until the tone was correct. The dialog was recorded in Audition then imported into After Effects.

Putting it all together
In After Effects the audio was linked to the AI animation. Visualization of the counselor’s emotions were then mapped to the dialogue. The end result is a simple shape that conveys the persona of Aaina.