The Little Mermaid
Category: Web Art, Interactive Comic
Date: 2020
Teammate: Pamela Pan
Project Brief
We adapted the story of The Little Mermaid and put it into the modern context. We are inspired by the famous movie: The Truman Show.
Ariel, the main character of the comic, is the star of the show. Her life is constantly streamed. Human on land love to see Ariel’s life because she is a princess and have luxurious lifestyle, which satisfies people’s curiosity. In the end, Ariel discovers what she really wants and escape being monitored. She gets to embrace the real life.
Moodboard
The Truman Show & Nam June Paik
The Story
We adapted the story of The Little Mermaid and put it into the modern context. We are inspired by the famous movie: The Truman Show.
Ariel, the main character of the comic, is the star of the show. Her life is constantly streamed. Human on land love to see Ariel’s life because she is a princess and have luxurious lifestyle, which satisfies people’s curiosity. In the end, Ariel discovers what she really wants and escape being monitored. She gets to embrace the real life.
Starting Page: The Little Mermaid
Chapter 01: Hello World
Ariel lives under water, and has a very happy life.
She have loving father and sisters.
It seems that she owns everything she needs.
Chapter 02: Desire for New World
However, Ariel feels a sense of emptiness. She wants to explore the human world.
She goes about water (secretly) every day.
One day, she met prince Eric.
TThey fell in love.
Chapter 03: The Conflicts
Ariel’s dad rejected her request to live above water, and said it was impossible.
Chapter 04: Moment of self-realization
Ariel got to a place where there are lots of TV screens, on which her face appeared.
Ariel goes into self-doubt. When she wandered around, Ursula appears, and tells her that her life is constantly streamed, she’s the star of the show. There’s only a limited series of things that the audience wants to see (they only want to see a luxurious lifestyle, recreational fun, etc.), that’s why Ariel does not have a lot of experiences; her father told her to say “hello world” every morning because that’s the opening line of the show.
Chapter 05: Away into Reality
Ariel successfully escape into the world she want to be in.
Interaction & Visual Design
Parallax Scrolling:
"Screens" in the Screen:
User Testing & Feedback
