Final Video, Philosophy of Storytelling, and Reflection

Philosophy of Storytelling:

I never really thought about it before, but we tell stories all the time. We are always trying to communicate some kind of information and by how we craft that information is storytelling. For me storytelling has always been very literal. Things that are actually happening. I’m not the biggest fan when it comes to philosophical ideas, and its hard for me to wrap my head around stuff that is “out there”. So when I hear a story that questions big ideas I get scared by them. A professor I once had said, “We can not not communicate.” Meaning, we are always communicating whether or not we know we are. I feel the same way about storytelling. I argue that we can not not story tell. Everything we do tells a story. A story that may be intentional or unintentional. So for me storytelling needs to be as concise as possible. It needs to be as clear as possible. Because to me storytelling provide vital information to its audiences. Storytelling also has to be creative. To engage the audience that is listening is also important. Crafting a story is that of an art and takes skill to successfully tell that story. Stories use stylistic devices and organizational tools to accomplish this. Most importantly, being aware that there are stories all around you allows you to critically analyze those stories which allows for a much more open dialogue about how stories play such a significant role in our society. Embrace other people’s experiences and learn to build off others and don’t be afraid to tell your stories.

Reflection:

My project has gone through multiple revisions since I first decided what to do. While sticking to a central theme of promoting the City of Chicago, my approach has significantly changed. When I first stared out my project was going to the route of showcasing all the holiday attractions there are in Chicago. As my project evolved, I found that this was not what my target audience would be looking for. So I sat down and really thought about what would make someone want to visit Chicago. And I came up with the idea of drama. Drama is part of our lives and we live it everyday, so I thought creating an ad that centered in on dramatic and epic renditions of Chicago would engage my audience much more. To deploy this new theme, I am basing my video off of an epic movie trailer. Movie trailers are great for telling a story in a short amount of time and are very clear and entertaining. A trailer is also a great promotional tool because it allows for a snippet into what a movie is going to be about. Trailers also act as a first impression for a movie and carry a heavy importance for the success of a movie. So I think a movie trailer theme is perfect for showcasing the city of Chicago because a lot of the qualities of a movie can be juxtaposed into the story of a city. To enhance the clarity of my video I will be using voice and text to make sure my audience understands what’s going on. I will also be using drone shots of Chicago to enhance the “epicness” of my video. I have also added an epic trailer soundtrack that really drives the whole video and gives it that dramatic effect. I really enjoyed using Adobe Premiere because a lot of the jobs I have been applying to have required knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite. So, its been really nice learning how to create and edit a video in Premiere. While I enjoyed using Audacity for our audio project I found myself frustrated with the user interface and I feel that there is other audio software out there that has a better user interface like GarageBand. Overall, I really enjoyed this project! I really liked how it was a semester project and we had tons of time to work on it and even revise it multiple times. For my project, I really thought it was cool doing the revisions and seeing my project completely change from start to finish. Thank you for a great semester!