Final Project

Reflection:

I enrolled in the course the last possible day and had to quickly invent a topic for my project. The date I had a few weeks prior in NYC was still fresh on my mind and I figured it would be a fun story for me to reflect on. I quickly recorded my audio track in Audacity and that first version and script remained untouched throughout the entire process. I was confident in the audio story but I did struggle with the visual aspect. Around late January, the person I went on the date with came out to Pittsburgh for work and we spent a good amount of time together. We decided that I would book a trip to visit him back in New York. After spending the weekend reconnecting I made up my mind that I was going to personally shoot the entire footage necessary to recreate the original date when I went to visit him the weekend before spring break.

Late February came around and we were still talking daily and the trip to NYC was finalized. It wasn’t until the days leading up to my departure that we lost communication and he stopped responding to my texts. Long story short, I ended up not going and somewhat falling out of interest with my project and completely neglecting it over spring break.

Eventually I came up with idea to use vintage films to contrast the modern theme of the audio story. The first clip I found was the time-lapse of midtown Manhattan with a catching audio that I used as both the intro and the outro. I ended up coming across a few puberty and dating films that were shown in physical education courses back in the ‘50s and ‘60s which contrasted with both the modern style of dating and homosexuality that was present in my audio. Originally, I had multiple story lines in the visual aspect of the project, which I eventually replaced with a consistent, singular teenage couple at a carnival. Seeing as I had to make cuts and edits between the couple’s date, I found other vintage films that followed certain aspects of my audio story (such as the “pornstache” man rubbing his oiled body or the sensual burlesque dancer). I knew I wanted to incorporate a clips I personally shot so I had my friend dress up in her black dress and heels and walk across my kitchen holding a liquor tray, which I later edited using filters and overlays to maintain the vintage aspect in the visual project. I then went back to the other found footage of the man and burlesque dancer and tweaked their settings to keep the visuals uniform. The final task was perfecting the transitions and creating timed text for the title and credits.

Philosophy of storytelling:

Storytelling is used across different forms of medium. Stories have the ability to be both time and space-binding forms of media. Whether a story is written for a local newspaper or on a tomb discovered thousands of years after the fact, they both serve to inform the audience. Stories host themes, which the audience is responsible for identifying through investigation of the text/ story. The storyteller has multiple forms of media to express their theme, some examples being pen on paper, typing a blog, creating a video, and dancing. It’s up to the teller to create a story that will interest an audience and take them away from reality for however long necessary to understand and interpret the themes involved. In order to create the best story, the teller has to have some investment or interest in the topic. Storytelling is supposed to make the audience think and create ideas. The control of the story begins when the author creates their interpretation but then control shifts to the audience, who now has the responsibility of interpreting a meaning. Engaging in storytelling and creating a meaning allows the audience a distraction from their normal daily tasks. It grants them the freedom to use their mind to connect factors and themes within the story to create an overall meaning.

The strength of the story trumps the length; if you’re story is consistently compelling, the length is not a huge factor. Good storytelling will take the audience to a new place of thought and creativity—successfully distracting them and making them think.

Storytelling is also just as therapeutic for the teller for all the same reasons. It gives them the chance to use creativity (regardless of medium) and incorporating themes that are important to them and their beliefs. It is their chance to express themselves and use their reality and ideology to create a channel that will make their audience formulate their own thoughts and story.

Colton Taylor Final Project

Reflection

Over the semester I had the experience of composing my Composing Digital Media Digital Story which I ended up calling Forest Run. This project took my in every direction it possibly could have, but I managed to get through it and complete a project I am happy with. It started off very happy that I chose to write about something that has been on my mind since I was in 7^th grade, well at least the first page of that story I had been planning. I wrote it rather quickly, and was happy with it. When we had to record them I thought out, I need to try and flush this out a little more, which I did. My issue originally was trying to incorporate the interviews, which after going through my project it had absolutely no place in the story itself. Aside from hating the sound of my own voice and trying to find a time where it’d be quite in my room so that I could record the story without hearing any background noise, which thankfully I was able to take out in the end anyway. Overall the project was going decently smoothly until I hit the point of having to make a visual story, and I had high hopes at first of finding things for my project. These hopes ended up not being fulfilled as almost everything I searched ended up not working with only one exception. I had planned to try and record some footage over spring break, but I ended up being incredibly busy with other work and family obligations so I did not actually record anything myself. After break I met with Jenn about my project and I turned it into a significantly more abstract kind of project and I found myself able to fill in about half of it with video opposed to about the 30 seconds I had. I kept going but again round out of ideas and met with Jenn again. This time she had the fantastic idea of putting in Vietnam scenes into my project which ended up filling in about 80% of my project in the end. Thankfully this worked for me. The only issue after that was trying to find something to present on because by the time I wasn’t worried about this there was nothing I could think of until I thought about making my presentation on adding sound effects. Overall this project was a rollercoaster of random ideas since every time I thought I had an idea of where it was going it went somewhere else, so it certainly kept me on my toes to say the least. In the end I enjoyed and despised making this project, I loved the freedom I had in the beginning of the semester, but as the semester progressed I felt kind of trapped with my idea, and if I had known about the visual story in the beginning I probably would have chosen a different topic for my presentation. I took the project as a whole as a good experience, and it was definitely different from my other classes which was nice to have for a change.

 

Philosophy of Story Telling

                Story telling is more than just a set of words on a paper, or one persons’ description of an event. Story telling is an adventure. You follow the brave knight on his journey to slay the dragon. The football player running down the field to score the winning touchdown. It’s more than just one person’s thoughts being told, it’s an entirely new world to each person who hears, or reads it. Story telling is opening up part of your world and inviting people in to come join you on this mystical adventure you are describing. People open up and let others read or hear their thoughts as they describe what they have been imagining for some time. With wide ranges of a hero saving the damsel in distress, from a sports star, or someone who is down on their luck and overcomes the odds to fix what has gone wrong. The beautiful part about this is that the story is not the same to everyone. Regardless of how many people have known of this story there is always bound to be at least one small detail that is different. That’s why story telling is such an adventure. With other forms of media such as movies and television, what the creator wants you to see is put right in front of you. Of course many people have different takes on a show but unlike a story, the visuals are already presented to you so that everyone sees the same thing. They may interpret it differently, but unlike a told or written story people all know what a character looks like, and what they see. Storytelling to me is leaving in this hint of mystery, for people to be able to have their own interpretation of what is going on, to feel like they are actually there besides the knight as he slays the dragon. To be able to see what they want to, and that no one can tell them they are wrong. Making it more immersing of a story that allows all of your senses to become enthralled by the story.

 

Kati Davis - Final Project, Philosophy & Reflection

Airplanes final from Kati Davis on Vimeo.

Philosophy:

“The creation of a single world comes from a huge number of fragments and chaos… We depict hatred, but it is to depict that there are more important things. We depict a curse, to depict the joy of liberation.” – Hayao Miyazaki

Why do we tell stories, you ask? We tell stories as a means of finding meaning in the meaningless and hope in the hopeless. We tell stories to splash color into a grayscale world, to illuminate parts of ourselves that would have otherwise remained in shadow. We tell stories to breathe life into characters who are like our children, people who possess the brightest and the darkest aspects of ourselves. We tell stories to awaken the child that has begun to drift asleep within us, the one who fills our dreams with dragon fire and fairy wings. We tell stories to build worlds of our own with the pieces we have been given, constructing a clumsy jigsaw puzzle of memories and mayhem: that stranger in the corner of the cafe, that sign we glanced at on the way to get groceries, that conversation we overhead in the back of the bus, that piece of the dream that clung to our consciousness. We tell stories because they are the rope to which we cling to keep us from sinking into the dullness of reality.

We tell stories because we are stories. They are embedded in our bones, coursing through our veins, flowing in and out of our lungs with each breath we take. We are pages overflowing with words, torn and tear-stained and smudged with our scars, our crow's feet, our stretch marks, the wrinkles in our knuckles and the lines of our palms. We are bound with the skin that houses our spirits and stitched together by the bumps of our spines. Our blood is ink and our flesh is paper. We are, each of us, waiting to be read and cherished the same way we love our favorite stories, cradling them to our chest and comforting ourselves by breathing in their bookish scent.

Stories are more than the words that pour from our mouths or the ones we scratch upon paper with sticks of charcoal. Stories happen all around us, every moment of every day, and all we have to do is pause for a moment to notice them. Notice the beating of our hearts, the leaves dancing in the breeze, the stray cat skittering into the alley, the water running in liquid rainbows down the street. Notice them: the fragments and the chaos.

Notice them, and then begin building your world.

Reflection:

What I've learned from this class is this: stories don’t have to make sense. Dreams are a perfect example of this. We can analyze and interpret them until we’re blue in the face, but will we ever really understand or make sense of them? Do any of us dream in perfect, Academy Award-worthy narratives? Of course not. Our dreams are composed of fragments: fragments of people, places, fears, desires, and memories shoved deep in the recesses of our consciousness... yet they are stories all the same, and they are stories worth telling. This is the kind of effect I was going for with my project. Because my audio story involved me describing a series of dreams I've had and exploring the meaning behind the evolution of these dreams, I wanted to choose videos that would simulate a dreamlike sensation for my audience.

Although I didn't originally plan to use as much footage of the beach as I did (it just happened to be a result of the fact that I went to Miami over spring break), I ended up liking the effect it produced. There's something about images of oceans and sand that creates feelings of calmness and relaxation similar to the ones we often experience while sleeping, and I felt that the contrast between this soothing imagery and the audio story about the anxiety I experienced during my airplane dreams was effective. I also included clips and stills from the animated movies The Wind Rises and My Neighbor Totoro because I wanted my visual story to blur reality and fantasy the same way dreams do. Also, The Wind Rises is about a man who designs airplanes and often finds his inspiration for them in dreams, which perfectly fits the theme of the story I am telling.

After showing my rough draft to the class and receiving feedback for the first time, I went back and made changes that I hope reflect their constructive criticism. I removed some of the scenes that were too literal, such as the literal girl on the playground, and replace them with ones that give them more room to conjure up their own imagery. I also shortened, lengthened, and adjusted the speed of some of the clips in order to better match the flow of my voice, and I added a couple of transitions that I felt were fitting, such as a fade out when I talk about watching the airplane in my final dream "fade into the distance."

Overall, this experience has taught me not to limit both myself and my audience when it comes to the stories I tell. It has taught me to explore abstract visual representations that give my audience the freedom to think and feel however they want to while listening to/watching my story and not to try to force thoughts or emotions upon them. My favorite form of storytelling has always been through writing, but this class has provided me with a new and fun method of storytelling that I plan to continue experimenting with even now that the class is over - after all, I have a lot of crazy dreams to talk about. :)

Cat Pagano - Final Project

Philosophy of Storytelling:

Everyone loves a good story. Bundled up by the fire listening to spooky tales of haunted barns and of ghosts. Curled up across from grandparents as they share memories from their younger years, how they fell in love, where they were when the war broke out. Even just a casual catch up with your best friend at a coffee shop to discuss the events of last weekend. Stories are for telling. Stories are for listening. Stories can serve many purposes: to entertain, to learn, to express. While picture books encapsulate the eyes of children with caricatures of lions and vibrant forestry, Star Wars novels amuse the world-wide science fiction enthusiasts.  People may laugh, people may cry but regardless, they are brought together by the power of a story. A narrative from Albert Einstein’s biography is referenced in a college-level mathematics lecture in order to further explain the complex course material. From the experiences – past or present – of others, our own lives can be influenced. Through storytelling as well, we are given the opportunity to express ourselves. Whether it be the expression of ideas, feelings, or political standpoints, we are allowed to be free and open with each other.

Personally, I believe that while powerful told alone, stories are even more significant when weaved together. Our parents have told us for years that we should not believe everything that we hear. Why? One side of a story standing on its own cannot necessarily be perceived as true and is often times manipulated. That is why scientists do not make conclusions after proceeding with only one experiment. The more tests, the better the results. By conglomerating the tales of many people, the message and morals of the overall story become dynamic. Often times, the context is what ties stories together. On other occasions, though, they are brought together in order to make a statement, to address an idea or a concept. An idea that is supported from multiple angles is arguably more powerful than an idea that is supported from only one perspective. As Martin Luther King once said, “there is power in unity and there is power in numbers.”

By communicating our thoughts, we improve the wide-spread knowledge and progress towards the future. In a very ordinary and simple way, stories have the ability to connect people: they entertain us, they teach us, and they allow us to express ourselves and our opinions. When joined together, stories become collaborative and truthful. I guess you could say that storytelling has been and still is a pretty significant part of humanity. Though officially unknown, it is almost certain that storytelling, due to its largely impactful nature, will hold significance for many years to come.

Reflection on Composing Process:

            Over the course of the semester, my video project withstood one revision after another after another. When we were first assigned this project, a few ideas popped into my head: I could compose a piece about sustainability and how we should be saving the world around us or about how technology affects relationships or about ultimate, the sport I love. Considering the fact that I am passionate about all of these topics, it would have been easy to discuss any of them in a four minute video, but at the time I felt that I had more speaking and photographic material to work with. Therefore, it was decided – my piece would be centered around the effect that technology has on relationships.

            Once I had finally decided on a topic, I went to work on my audio story. Initially hoping to imitate the stylistic rambling of Eileen Myles, my piece turned into an assortment of unconnected thoughts and run-on sentences. I did not like how it sounded so I began to apply some organization. Succeeding some major structural revisions, my audio story developed the following outline: first explaining my own experiences from when I was younger compared to now, connecting my friend Abby’s personal experiences, and at last introducing the thoughts of others found from external sources about technology. Though the problem of organization was cured, my story still lacked flow. During the next few weeks, I worked on interweaving bits of each section above into one another as well as including an inquiry-based conclusion to tie everything together.

Before the video-making process could begin, research for video footage – other than footage that I had taken using my own camera – became necessary. Using the provided websites (such as archive.com) I searched for clips of families and/or friends interacting with each other without the appearance of technology as well as footage of futuristic technology usage. Searches were not as successful as I had hoped but I did end up finding some valuable clips of an early 1960s family’s vacation to Disney World in addition to a more modern family’s memories around the holiday season (which just so happened to be a 2013 iPhone commercial). Other than my found footage, I also recorded some clips during spring break of my friends enjoying the beach and each other’s company.

From there, I began using Premiere Pro to compile my project. Switching back and forth in my audio story between my childhood memories and my more recent memories of Christmas, I decided meanwhile that it would be appropriate for the iPhone commercial footage to weave together with the footage that I captured of my own family this past Christmas. For the rest of the video story, I flipped back and forth between my spring break footage and the found Disney World footage – I felt as if the two stories complimented each other nicely. During the audio section of other’s opinions of technology, I included videos of robots and futuristic technology. The conclusion of my audio piece is visually complimented by a scene of waves crashing on the shore, intended to leave the piece open-ended and curious. Furthermore, music was added transitioning from a well-known Christmas tune to a relaxed acoustic track. Although the story has somewhat of a dark, call-to-action tone, the music is ironically light-hearted and is intended to evoke a sense of confusion. Conclusively, this piece came together better than I could have imagined.

Final Project - Mark Machi

Philosophy of Storytelling

Humans are dependent on storytelling. It is a tool that we use everyday, and it is a tool that has multiple purposes. Stories are used as a means of learning, relating, and expressing oneself in a manner that provides deeper connection. Stories allow us to explain the more nuanced aspects of whatever it is we want to convey. They add layers and feelings that individual words by themselves cannot express. This allows stories to give us the ability to reach the same emotional and mental ground with the people we share them with.

 For example, you could tell someone you are happy, but the word happy could be received and perceived in a way that doesn’t do the feeling you are experiencing justice. A single word can hardly be used to express the complex nature of human thought or emotion. A story on the other hand can depict everything you went through to achieve that happiness. The hardships and struggles you faced, and relief of overcoming them.

Utilizing stories allows humans to give context and grants us the ability to fully grasp and comprehend deep emotions. In a way, stories provide the framework for learning and are vital to developing young minds. It is difficult to explain complex ideas to children and have them fully understand what you are telling them, but if you use a story, that enables children to understand in a format that is simple and easy to grasp.

The structure and method of constructing stories is not something that is set in stone. Authors can arrange and visualize their work in a variety of ways that they deem fit to drive the point that they want to make. One can tell a story in chronological order, or jump from one time point to the next to add depth and perspective. Authors can add visual queues to make sure the audience experiences the story in the way that the author wants, or visuals can be withheld to allow the audience to create their own interpretation of the story. This in a way allows for the creation of many stories. All of which are similar, yet each are unique in the listeners’ minds. This is beautiful relationship that demonstrates how stories can connect us, but at the same time demonstrates our individuality.

Process Reflection

Deciding on what to write about was one of the most time consuming aspects of this project for me. I was very unsure of what it was that I wanted to invest my time in and explore. I felt compelled to write about something I knew, but at the same time I wanted to adventure into territory that I was unfamiliar with, which is what I can safely say I did.

Originally, my story was about theft, but even I knew when I first wrote it that that topic is too broad to really extract any value from. This led me to revise my writing. I researched and talked to people to get some idea of direction on what it was I really wanted to share with people. It wasn’t until I watched a documentary on illegal music that I found my end topic, copyright laws. While this seemed a little dry on the surface, it fit my needs to work on something that I knew about, illegal music downloading, and something that I had never explored before, the reasoning behind why people steal music and what it really means to steal.

Reading books like Bluets and Invisible Cities and using feedback from small groups really helped me revise how I wanted to word my story. I knew that a dry topic like copyright needed to be told in a way that kept people’s attention and actually provoked thought in the audience. I felt that using questions and descriptive imagery achieved my goal of thoughtful reflection in the audience.

The creation of the visuals was somewhat of a daunting task. I had never used Adobe Premier before, but thankfully it was fairly intuitive to use and the class demonstrations were extremely helpful. Deciding what to add as visual aids to my project caused me many headaches simply because I didn’t know how one goes about visualizing laws. I ended up with a hodgepodge of visuals. Some of which were real people and others were of cartoons. I felt that this mash up of visuals really did my topic justice. I learned that blank space and can actually be a good thing at times, especially if you want to drive a point home or force the audience to reflect. However, I feel that I might have gone too overboard with the blank screens. I felt that black screens simply fit better in certain aspects than trying to force a visual image that simple doesn’t fit the story. Which makes me think that maybe some stories don’t need visuals.

All and all I felt content with my project. I still feel like that there is tons of work that can be done to it, but the one thing that I’ve learned is that creators always feel like they can add or edit more. They feel like whatever project they are working on isn’t perfect yet, which is an impossible goal. I’ve learned that you should be happy with what you’ve created and not continuously revise and edit it until the end of time since you will never achieve perfection.