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.