CAMS 280 – WE MEDIA: DIGITAL STORYTELLING

So I’m a CAMS major with lots of experience in production. I took this class thinking that I would pick up some new concepts that would help me with my comps project, which I expect will include a short documentary. Now, perhaps I didn’t learn a whole lot in the normal, technical sense (I did pick up a new trick or two on Final Cut, but most of this was just further practice). What I did take from this class is experience, something just as useful, I think. Additional time spent on Final Cut is always a good thing. I had some problems with video tapes, so I was able to practice my troubleshooting abilities (I also learned that you should never use a tape more than twice, at the most. I promise). I learned more about interviewing: how to adapt to the subject; which types of questions lead to the best responses; how to work with what information an interviewee does have, and is willing to discuss, to my advantage… I had never used photos in a video before, so this was a new experience. Working with them in both videos allowed me to do more than simply create a slideshow with them. I had worked with voiceovers before but had never created my own. I learned how damn difficult that can be. The writing is tough enough, but making it flow, making it perfect? F my life. I also learned a good deal about both story making and story telling. There are so many ways not just to tell a story – that is, to make a story happy or sad, to make it personal or relatable, to make it inspiring or just entertaining. However, there are just as many ways to film and edit the story once you have it. Every person has their own style, their own techniques, and none are necessarily more right than any other story. I learned that there is no ‘way’ to make a movie. Just keep working on your own style and it will come.

So, maybe, upon further reflection, I did learn a lot.

Jordan

P.S. Here is my second video, called It’s All About the Journey. It’s about my golf coach here at Carleton and why he is having such a good time coaching a bunch of scrubs like us.

….everyone, no matter how big or small, young or old, has a story. I, too, have a story. Share your story, spread your story–but also, listen to and appreciate the stories of others. It really meant a lot when people in class were willing to take the time to give meaningful feedback to others. It meant that they were listening. Beyond that, listening/viewing with a critical eye was also helpful too. Stories can always be enhanced. When you give someone feedback, negative and positive, you’re showing that you actually care and took the time to listen.
I think this is something I definitely developed in this class. I was surprised and delighted with the stories everyone had to tell, and I found myself becoming more and more eager to respond. At the same time, I leave this class with a greater sense of self-worth in terms of my abilities as a story-teller. I was worried at the beginning of the term that I had nothing, that I was too boring! But I definitely don’t believe that anymore.

…seeing the power of mere images set to a simple voice-over and music reminded me that I need to spend more time documenting my life as it happens. I want to engage more in photography and video, but I tell myself that I’m busy, or I’m tired, or I’m lazy. I recognize the potential each day has, no matter how simple, in containing something that could be amazing. Recording this gives one the ability to create with it. I feel that from now on I will be more inclined to be more creative with my memories. Learning how to use these tools has gotten rid of my fear of using them.

…stories are connections. Delving into my past and mapping the changes in my life concretely for my first story showed me something that I had never realized before. Stories give voices, map changes, and, in my case, come into existence surprising even the story-teller. I came out of my first story with a renewed desire to connect with my dad on that different level that I lost track of along the way. I don’t think I would have realized this without having to sit down and work through my reflection.

It’s been a really great class! Probably one of the most valuable things I took from this class was getting to know everyone in a really personal way. I really didn’t know most people in this class, but I have respect and admiration for all of you because you all have told such wonderful stories. (okay, i had no idea wordpress would turn my smileyface into an emoticon, but we have to be visible with our edits, so i’ll just keep it, although it looks way cheesy.)

…I will take understanding, not only of which buttons to click & which arrows mean what on video cameras and in Final Cut, but of the reality of fact as greater than fiction. The words/thoughts/sounds/ideas/dreams/ images/moments expressed by real live people in a circle, people with lives behind them and lives before them, are rich and nuanced, hilarious and painful, deep and wide. I knew a very small portion of our class before we began, but this beautiful thing happened–we told stories. We got to know each other. I might not even know some of my classmates last names, let alone their favorite ice cream flavor, but I know the meaningful and beautiful images and words that make up a tale, a time, a moment, a montage, that is part of who they are. I think one of our first class periods, when we reflected on the seemingly simple question, “what is a story?” and the subsequently more complex query, “what does a story mean?” will go down as one of the richest, most interesting class discussions of my college education to date.

Beyond increased technological literacy and an appreciation of the community of the classroom, I will take from this journey a feeling of confidence and contentedness with my own ability to relate to others through this new (to me) form of media/art. I often feel that I talk about what I do, and rarely talk about who I am. I think the combination of words and images and film in the short format of a digital story allowed me to feel that I could do both—the images filled in the who when the words weren’t doing it, or vice versa. I think of others as more than the activities that fill their day and I think somehow telling these stories was a bit of my education about how to express myself that way as well.

Sorry I didn’t get this up right away, but here it is.  I may still make some changes, but I thought I should get a version up sooner rather than later.

This is a video I made to recognize the work of the Body Positivity Discussion Group on the campus of Carleton College, and to encourage body positivity in general.  Enjoy!

This class has showed me the power of not just story telling, but story telling using a digital medium. Computers are around us– in dorms, in coffee houses, in libraries, in homes, in offices, everywere. This makes a digital story accesible– I think even more accessible than writing or 2-d or 3-d art (two mediums I’m familar with). Someone must be literate and have an interest in reading stories to understand written narratives. Similarly, someone must be interested in art to unpack the narrative nature of artwork. Digital stories, however, are easily viewed (anywhere that has a computer and interenet– which is almost everywhere today) and instantly replayable and can be shared with family and friends. This class has expanded my knowledge of storytelling as well as story making.

This was my first CAMS class at Carleton. I had never recorded a video, taken a screen shot or used final cut before this class. I was never too comfortable with using technology and I was worried about the technical part of this class when I read through the syllabus after the first class. But over the course of the last ten weeks I made two digital stories, and acquired all the technical skills needed to be able to successfully do so. Even though we were not able to spend much time on the technical tutorials in class, I found Jeremy’s guidance and the tutorials on you tube particularly useful. Thus, over the course of this term, I have become more confident and comfortable with technology.

In addition to acquiring technical skills, I also have also learnt how to tell a good story. I have always been very nervous about sharing my own pieces of writing or stories, in front of a large group of people and at first I found presenting my voice over in the story circles, and showing drafts of my digital story to the class intimidating. Taking this class made me realize the important role courage plays in being able to tell a good story, and over the last ten weeks, I have become more confident about presenting my stories to a large group of people. I believe that the encouragement and support that I received from the class tremendously helped me build my confidence.

This class has also helped me understand the important role stories play in our lives. Sharing my own stories with the class, my friends and family has made me more confident about those particular aspects of my life. For example, I have never been particularly comfortable about the fact that I feel like I don’t completely belong to a community, or about my own body. However, sharing these stories has shown me that others may also be able to relate to these ideas, and this has made me feel more confident about myself. Additionally watching some of the digital stories have helped me understand the ability of these digital stories to universally touch people and make an impact. Thus, this course has made me truly appreciate the power of stories in all our lives.

This was my first video production course at Carleton, and I feel like it was a great introduction to that side of media studies: it wasn’t just about the equipment and technology, but why we’re using it. (After all, I can learn how to use a camera and FinalCutPro perfectly, but if I have no idea what to do with it, nothing postive is going to result from it.) It taught me how to see using the techniques of filmmaking as the last step in the process that starts with an idea in your head or on paper. Each one of us told one kind of story or another, faced different obstacles, and sought a different end, and I really think sharing it all (over and over again) in class helped us learn from all our very different storytelling processes.

In the end, that may be my favorite – and to me, the most valuable – part of the class: working alongside people with such a variety of aims for their projects and life experiences to build off of. Since stortelling’s such an intimate activity, we all had to share some part of ourselves, and I guess it showed me a spectrum of possibilities, of what you can make despite starting with the same basic training and assignment. For this I’m grateful to everyone in the class.

I was challenged a few times, from the very beginning (at first, I did not want to read my ideas out loud; that changed), but I’m very happy with the mild technical expertise I gained and excited to learn more next year, and I feel like I put it to good use by creating something I’m proud of. This class has encouraged me to tell more stories of all kinds, even in media I’m not yet comfortable with, and I hope to go on doing just that.

I learned a lot in this class about digital storytelling. In particular, I learned to express myself using media that had been largely a mystery to me. Still, I think that the greatest lesson I have learned from this class is that, in the grand scheme of things, I know relatively little about the digital world. Digital media is relatively new and has evolved a great deal over the past few years, to such an extent that most of rarely stop to recognize the power that it holds in our day to day lives.

Digital media encompasses a wide range of tools, both visual and auditory, and I believe that its multi-dimensionality is what makes it so accessible to a wide range of people. You do not have to be well-acquainted with this area to be able to appreciate. Nonetheless, I believe that it is important for us to recognize that its ability to communicate and to touch many makes it all the more important for us to understand it. It has the power to organize and to unite, but it also has the power to manipulate. In this day and age, we are constantly being bombarded by the media and I think that many of us fail to realize that something as small as the angle at which a shot is filmed can alter our perspectives.

This class has taught me to be conscious of the choices a director or artist must make in framing a story and the ways that this affects the audience. More than anything, I take the desire to learn more about digital storytelling and the awareness of how little I truly know.

Two stories exist where they had not before – ideas, and sometimes words, or a single photograph may have been there, but not the full story and all its emotional and thematic essence.  I feel like this class exposed to me the power of my own storytelling voice; the power to creating something where there was nothing, by doing every part of the process and putting some (or quite a lot) of myself into it.

On a more practical note, those many long nights in Scoville and many afternoons lugging around the miniDV and tripod and mics have left me with a greatly enhanced set of technical skills that I certainly did not possess 10 weeks ago.  So, not ony has this course given me the inspiration to tell my stories and the stories of others, but the practical tools with which to do so.  It makes a pipe dream of being a legit film maker seem significantly less dreamy.

One of most exciting things about this class was watching other people going thorugh process of telling their story – it’s almost like getting a glimpse of each storyteller’s soul.  Likewise, I told two stories that let me glimpse my own soul – you finally stand up after hours and hours of sitting plugged into an editing station, stretch, see the sun rising outside of Scoville, and its hard not to know yourself a little better.  Editing is uniquely intimate, and this class made me realize just how much I love it.

This class has been a journey, a learning experience, a wonderful excuse to get credit for doing something I love. 

I have leared so much in this class both about the art of telling a story and about the methods to creating a story.  Before taking this class, I had very little knowledge of what goes into a digital story.  It seemed like such an easy task, just a complelling voice over and some photographs from one’s past could create a story.  However, after the first project and all the hours spent on it, I learned that this was not true.  So much more goes into a story than is apparent to the viewers.  A short three minute piece can take hours and hours to complete.  To get every transition perfect and every audio track even is very important.  These tiny but important aspects of a story are the difference between the audience listening to a story and the audience being  transported into the story.  I will certainly take away an appreciation for each story I watch, knowing how much effort was put into each one.

I also have gained a respect for the medium itself.  You can say so much more in a digital story than you can with pen and paper.   I feel that stories told with this medium are very powerful and I will definitely remember this in my future storytelling projects.

This class for me was about overcoming personal hurdles. From readings stories (that I was not completely happy with) aloud in class to becoming more confident with technology of Final Cut Pro, this class taught me to “dive in” (like Lambert says) and get over my initial fears. What seemed at first completely daunting and overwhelming in the end gave me more energy. Especially with Final Cut I feel like I reached a tipping point, were I finally was able to produce (in my final digital story) something that matched image I had for it in my mind. Being able to create a piece that I was happy about (and not just produce something overly simple and easy because I was afraid I didn’t know enough) actually gave me more energy to experiment with the technology further. I am very grateful that I was forced to play with Final Cut as much as I did and actually am pretty happy that we had a lot of time on our own which we had to dedicate to the program, because I do not think I would have learned the things I did by simply reading the manual or seeing demonstrations in class.  I am so glad to take the skills I now have in Final Cut and use them either in my journalism or in future school projects and presentations. The world is just becoming more technologically savvy and I think knowing things like final cut really can give you a hand up.

As far as crafting a story I think I learned through this process the value of peer critique. My frustrations in the past have come from peer critiquing when it is not taken seriously, but everyone in this class I feel provided thoughtful comments that significantly helped improve my stories. I really learned to value others reactions to my work, as well as gain more confidence with sharing my work with my peers who really seemed to be interested in the things I was producing.  Thanks guys!

I am really glad I took this class. Like someone mentioned on the first day, stories are told all day long and every day by people around the world, and the ability to tell a good story is very powerful gift to have. Therefore I am happy I was able to gain skills which allowed me to be able to more effectively share the stories which I think are important and meaningful to others.

ok we finally fixed the one wierd sound bite in our video.

here is the real thing.

Refining the Junk, a look into the world of “Hot Sam’s” Antiques.

Rachel said it so many times that I’m almost embarrassed to tote this as the biggest lesson I will take from this class, but really, I have, throughout the course of this class, gained a newer appreciation and deeper understanding of the old mantra that a story is a gift. Cheesy, maybe, but really, the more I think about it, the more I see it’s true. Stories take thought and energy to tell and relate effectively, but stories always, always leave some kind of mark on the people who hear them, as well as on the people who tell them. And it’s becoming more and more obvious to me that in our society, the people who’s stories are told and listened to belong to those who have some command of digital technology.

As a biology major, my brain while at school is often functioning on a highly scientific, analytical level, leaving little room for truly creative endeavors, and at the beginning of this class I was a bit surprised to find that not only were my storytelling abilities decidedly rusty, but my listening skills were rusty, as well. I don’t know what part of the brain it is that you use for really listening to and appreciating someone else’s story, but those particular neurons of mine had not fired so happily in awhile. I genuinely enjoyed and took something from every story that was shared in this class. Listening to other people’s stories helped me to rediscover some of my own voice as a storyteller, and sharing my stories with others has helped me to appreciate just how much of an impact I can have on others simply by sharing a bit of myself and my experiences. I am so grateful for this lesson, and I am grateful, too, to have learned some ways in which I can share stories more effectively in today’s world.

So, in a nutshell, this class on storytelling has impressed upon me the value of telling and listening to stories (go figure). Before this class, I don’t think I had ever actively appreciated just how important the act of storytelling is to human existence. But now, every day, I come to a deeper realization of what stories do for us. Stories help us to form and solidify our values, help us to connect with others, and help us to realize that we are not alone. In the future, I plan on making storytelling a more active pursuit in my life.

What a term…

When I started this class, I had always considered myself to be a good storyteller.  Having been involved heavily in theater since the age of 10, and spending a great deal of my time working on my own creative writing since high school, I think I viewed this course as a way of simply carrying over those same skills to an entirely different medium.  Stories, my reasoning went, were pretty much the same no matter how they were conveyed.

It became pretty apparent to me after a week or so, however, that telling a story this way was a whole different ballgame.  In a sense, stripping away the methods of storytelling that I knew–blocking actors on a stage, say, or coming up with that perfect image for a poem–forced me to become reaccquainted with the basics of storytelling.  Instead of relying on a script written by a talented playwright, I had to carefully examine what it is that gives a story that emotional ‘hook’ that keeps audiences interested at all, and map out a plot arc that would carry my message forward in an engaging way.

More importantly, though, I appreciated the fact that I was forced to step away from proviing commentary, or interpreting the root stories of others and insert my own experiences and perspectives into the final product.  I was able to step outside of the notion that a storyteller is objective, the neutral conveyor of a profound truth, and realize that it is only the unique truths we construct for ourselves that give stories their meaning.  I have no way of knowing when I will return to this medium–my access to Final Cut, after all, might be limited for a while–but this subtle yet all-important lesson is one that, I hope, has been well learned and will continue to impact how I pursue my craft in the future.

Hi guys!  You can watch my final video Here.  The PASSWORD is: cams

(still missing v/o, but…)

Also, I’m bummed that I missed your videos in class today, so I’m going to try to leave comments on everyone’s stuff on this blog!  Not tonight, but soon…

A mix/jam/remix/kablam of The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, my very favorite poem, by Wendell Berry. Resurrect.

For our final project, Kitty and I focused on gender roles as represented in The Wire.

If you’ve never seen The Wire, some info may be given away, but in general it won’t spoil it too much.

With that said, go check out our video on Vimeo.

See Ellen and Kate’s Final video story on hot sams here!

password: gotmail

Here is my final project video:

http://vimeo.com/4963185

-Will

http://vimeo.com/4936022

Here’s my final music video

Just found this great photojournalism/video blog on the NYTimes blog page. check it ouuuuuut.

The Free Body from Paro on Vimeo.

This is a short video about our need to respect our bodies and maintain our individuality in a society where the media dictates what “the perfect body” should look like and what we are meant to be.

http://vimeo.com/4884536

JUST A DRAFT

Here it is! Cari’s Final Project

This is a video about my study abroad experience in Beijing, China and what I discovered about myself while there.

You can view my video here.