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 7th 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.
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