The vinyl record player could be designed to play every other track automatically or every fifth track or tracks divisible by three or eleven or the player could just follow the whim of the person picking up the needle and plunking it down in a different spot. This would be a multi dimensional experience, but it would be an experience without a multidimensional navigational tool.

          Question: What is a multidimensional navigational tool?

          Answer: Look at a piano.  Look at the 88 black and white keys. A piano is multidimensional. You have the choice of playing any note, at any time. Not only can you go forward or backward, you can play any combination of notes, in any order as well. The resulting potential is (a piano version) of any music ever written. Although, with a two by four plank of wood you could play all notes at once or with an infinite number of hands and fingers you could play a piano version of all music, of all time, simultaneously, this multidimensional machine, this piano, does not come with a navigational tool. It is not obvious from looking at the piano keys, just where Beethoven’s ninth symphony is. 

          The multidimensional navigational tool of the piano is actually the sheet music. Sheet music is the navigational tool that you would use to find Beethoven’s ninth symphony. Sheet music notation is designed
by technicians, for technicians.

          The challenge of making a multidimensional navigational tool for a DVD is that it must work and be used and be understood without instruction and without language for anyone, even an illiterate, a person from another culture and (for this project), it must work even for the blind, the deaf, the child and the illiterate. Fortunately, unlike the piano, the navigation system of a DVD requires only one finger and fortunately, unlike the piano with it’s 88 keys, the DVD only has 5. Not so bad. The DVD navigation system is five keys played in any order, but only one at a time with one finger. That’s too easy!

          Question: N E W S and C. Five keys, played one at a time, with one finger, is simpler than a telephone or TV remote control. Come on, what is this multidimensional stuff?

          Answer: N E W S and C. 
(North, East, West, South, and Centre) The four arrow keys and the enter key on a computer keyboard.

        If the DVD had just the commands NEWS it would be indeed only two dimensional. It would be a checkerboard, allowing one hop per turn in a direction NEWS North, East, West, or South, (with no diagonal moves). 

But by increasing the choices to NEWS and C, we increase the dimensions from one dimensional to not just two dimensions or three dimensions but to multi dimensional three, four, five, six, seven, eight or more dimensions of navigation.

DVD
              navigation is multidimensional: 

                 DVD navigation is not just a checkerboard but is a stack of checkerboards. One hop North, or one hop East, or one hop West, or one hop South or one hop to a space on another checkerboard (another dimension).

        A DVD is not something that you view. A DVD is something that you travel through. (Without getting into science fiction), this ability to plan a travel, through many dimensions, is what the planning of a DVD actually is. The planning of the navigation, the navigation itself for the traveler (rather than viewer) is an immersive part of the content. Each traveler will be presented with many choices (five per click). Each traveler of a DVD may take a different route. They may take a route of their own choice, or they may follow a route that they know from remembering the navigation of other DVDs they have experienced or they may take a route that they think they are instructed to follow by the DVD itself, or from written material on the DVD case, or they may take the route advised by a friend or they may just be trying to find some one thing somewhere on the DVD just to show to someone (and they don’t want to waist any time searching for it). You can of course throw the extra dimensions away. A linear one dimensional DVD (video experience) will be the result. There are many limited use DVDs that are in fact just one dimensional video tapes; they go forward or they go backward, that's it. That’s NOT what this project is about. This proposal, is to make one traditional animated film. The film is about the 26 characters of our alphabet.        The film will be produced in both an English and in French. But for this proposal we will work with just English first.  This proposal is not just about one film. This proposal is a proposal to make a collection of playful animated films, language experiments and text/voice examples, that will surround, and augment and extrapolate from, the main animated film about the characters of our alphabet. 
      
        The DVD itself, which we are proposing, will act as it's own study guide and it will act as it’s own resource for further study. It will be both educational and entertaining. It will contain immature, childish, naive playful fun with letters for illiterates of all ages, yet there will also be varying levels of challenge, leading right through to the university level, for those who dig down through the DVD navigation to get to it. There may even be a place for a the f word.  The DVD navigation will have a straight play-through-movie-mode for a kindergarten class presentation, or home use, yet there will also be a game-like labyrinth of increasingly challenging works for elementary school level, high school level and even college level. Each level of challenge will be, in effect be on a different checker board. The Easiest level will be the top level, but with one hop you will be able to hop to the next level of difficulty down or hop on the same level.

     The choices given to the travelers (bundled up in just the N E W S and C navigation) will in itself be a huge part of the content. Although the most entertaining "sit-down-and-watch-entertaining", part of the DVD, will remain the main animated film (that will be released to festivals and distribution on it's own), the DVD will be a place for many travels for hours of entertainment and education. The DVD will be designed for a single five minute encounter, or as a resource for students or as entertainment for English as a second language students or for illiterates (of all ages) , the blind and the deaf and  for a academics.

     For the next stage of the project a film that will stand on it's own will be developed and story boarded in tandem with accompanying short animation tests that may eventually exist on the DVD. Admittedly what is being proposed is a lot of content, yet this material, in general can be animated and produced quickly. For example, the first ten weeks of investigation have produced thirteen presentable animated examples with sound. An estimate for the entire project to completion would be at the rate of one one minute of film completed per week, per animator. One animator, in one year could produce 50 minutes of finished digital animation for DVD.

     A brief explanation and anaylisis of the test animations done so far, can be found as links on the previous flash animation page including the initial purpose, method, and results for each experiment, followed by some conclusions based on the results.