For my transmedia project, I decided to play off of the idea of beauty and its implications. The idea came to me when I was watching a 60 Minutes interview of Lady Gaga. She explains to Anderson Cooper, her interviewer, that she has a diamond that she places in her coffee every morning. This got me thinking along the line of "the beautiful mixed with the mundane", or finding the truly beautiful moment in a seemingly normal situation.
Essentially I'm going off of Gaga's ideas of being yourself and championing this idea of "True Beauty". In trying to tell the transmedia story of "True Beauty", it was important for me to define what I thought of as a "diamond in the coffee" moment. For me, that was capturing people in a candid moment through photography. I sought to capture my subjects in an exposed moment, a moment when their true character shone through.
It was important for me to keep the subjects natural. I'm trying to tell the story that you can be beautiful, even if society has defined it as something unattainable. Along with the photographs I created a blog. The goal for the "True Beauty Blog" is to post a daily picture of what I see as a beautiful moment, along with an inspirtional quote or story. The quote or story may even revolve aroud the photograph or the subjects within them.
For my final piece of media, I plan to hand out "You are Beautiful" cards, and challenge people to not only believe that they are beautiful but to pass the sentiment on. The cards are made to be passed from person to person. The idea of this challenge has been around for a bit, but I put my own personal spin on both the cards themselves and the general concept.
Essentially, I want to challenge the conventional or commercialized idea of beauty with this transmedia project. I want people who interact with this project to feel empowered to, like Gaga, put the diamond in their coffee cup, and realize that the most beautiful moments can be found in the most mundane situations. Just be yourself, let your diamond shine through!