The following is a list of links I found to be particularly useful.
Video Hosting:
www.youtube.com
Free Images:
www.fotolia.com
www.freeimages.com
Free Music:
www.ez-tracks.com
www.yourfreemusicdownloads.com
incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free
Free Video:
www.archive.org/details/movies
www.findingdulcinea.com
Monday, August 17, 2009
The Nature of Story, a Personal Reflection on Psychology, Story and the Media.
Since early man began communicating with each other, they began to utilize stories to pass along information, history and prediction. From cave paintings, hieroglyphics, verbal tales, to the written word, all the way up to the modern age of digital media, stories are the essence of expressing ideas, information and entertainment. According to McAdams (1997) everyone has a story that is the essence of his or her identity.
From adolescents until early adulthood every person is developing the meme that will shape the personal story they share. McAdams (1997) posits that these are the stories we live by, develop our social network through, and shape not only our personal identities with, but also the very mythos that we present to society. According to McKee (1997), stories and life have a direct connection. He describes stories as the equipment we all need in order to understand patterns of life in an emotional experience. McKee posits, similarly to McAdams, that well told stories can provide the receiver with an emotional and powerful experience.
Continue reading here.
Digital Story 1 Reflection
Of the two digital stories I created for this KA, this piece was my favorite of the two! For me it allowed me to be very creative while at the same time being minimalist in style and format.
The Story Core:
This was the first time I had been introduced to the concept of the story core, or story planning in general. Having never been on the pre-production side of media production it came as both a shock and a pleasant surprise to me. I simply assumed that writing a script for production was a simple matter of sitting down and spilling out a bunch of words and hoping they would have some sort of effect on the message receiver. Boy was I wrong! After reading both Dr. Ohler's Digital Story Telling in the Classroom, and Robert McKee's Story, I was enlightened to the proper writing process.
The story core is comprised of 3 seemingly simple, yet complex, elements; tension, transformation and resolution. Drawing from the concept of the hero's journey, the story core allows the writer to take a very narrow, yet deep, look at the fundamental story elements.
My Story Core:
My story core was easy to produce, as it was a story I had told a million times to others. The basic tension (problem) was that I was not good in school. The deeper problem was that this caused me significant distress. The transformation took place when I discovered the causes for my life long difficulties with my education. The solution (resolution) took place when I discovered how to over come my educational problems and become a good student. On the deeper level it was the epiphany that I was not the bad person I had thought, and was told, I was. The ultimate closure was the acceptance of my past, my present and my future as a learning disabled student, my continued struggle with feelings of inadequacy and my future as a student.
My Presentation:
The presentation I created was done in what I would consider an artful and minimalist style. I decided, as my video editing skills, and editing software, were limited, that I would utilize still images, and no music. It was simply a group of images one after the other with a voice over monologue. I had numerous black and white images taken of me posing with various facial expressions. I felt the black and white would give me a stark contrast, providing for striking images focused only on me. The images showed me posing with a wide range of emotions. I felt this would give the viewer an excellent visual, lending physical emotion to the emotional story. I did not use any music, but did use a bit of stock photography, and special sound effects (sparingly) to enhance the overall look and feel of the project.
I believe the project turned out quite well and addressed all of the elements in the story core. I believe it was good but could have been better. My limited skills in editing coupled with the limited abilities of the editing software did not allow me to create visually what I had in my head. I now understand why directors re-release movies as director's cuts!
This story taught me to plan everything out in advance. Once I have planned then I needed to review and retool. Only when I had nailed the story down could I move forward with the actual production. This has given me much better insight as to how a good persuasive narrative and media presentation is researched, prepared, created and presented.
The Story Core:
This was the first time I had been introduced to the concept of the story core, or story planning in general. Having never been on the pre-production side of media production it came as both a shock and a pleasant surprise to me. I simply assumed that writing a script for production was a simple matter of sitting down and spilling out a bunch of words and hoping they would have some sort of effect on the message receiver. Boy was I wrong! After reading both Dr. Ohler's Digital Story Telling in the Classroom, and Robert McKee's Story, I was enlightened to the proper writing process.
The story core is comprised of 3 seemingly simple, yet complex, elements; tension, transformation and resolution. Drawing from the concept of the hero's journey, the story core allows the writer to take a very narrow, yet deep, look at the fundamental story elements.
My Story Core:
My story core was easy to produce, as it was a story I had told a million times to others. The basic tension (problem) was that I was not good in school. The deeper problem was that this caused me significant distress. The transformation took place when I discovered the causes for my life long difficulties with my education. The solution (resolution) took place when I discovered how to over come my educational problems and become a good student. On the deeper level it was the epiphany that I was not the bad person I had thought, and was told, I was. The ultimate closure was the acceptance of my past, my present and my future as a learning disabled student, my continued struggle with feelings of inadequacy and my future as a student.
My Presentation:
The presentation I created was done in what I would consider an artful and minimalist style. I decided, as my video editing skills, and editing software, were limited, that I would utilize still images, and no music. It was simply a group of images one after the other with a voice over monologue. I had numerous black and white images taken of me posing with various facial expressions. I felt the black and white would give me a stark contrast, providing for striking images focused only on me. The images showed me posing with a wide range of emotions. I felt this would give the viewer an excellent visual, lending physical emotion to the emotional story. I did not use any music, but did use a bit of stock photography, and special sound effects (sparingly) to enhance the overall look and feel of the project.
I believe the project turned out quite well and addressed all of the elements in the story core. I believe it was good but could have been better. My limited skills in editing coupled with the limited abilities of the editing software did not allow me to create visually what I had in my head. I now understand why directors re-release movies as director's cuts!
This story taught me to plan everything out in advance. Once I have planned then I needed to review and retool. Only when I had nailed the story down could I move forward with the actual production. This has given me much better insight as to how a good persuasive narrative and media presentation is researched, prepared, created and presented.
Digital Story 1, Story Script
This is the story script I used to produce my first digital story for Dr. Oler's KA. I have sadly lost the story map I created. It was the first one I had ever done and it really opened my eyes on how to properly begin the story writing process! Feel free to check it out here!
Digital Story 1, Who Am I?
This media narrative fulfills the first major assignment in Psychology 767 - The Media and Psychology of Story. It is a biographical narrative and self portrait. Please feel free to take a look.
Digital Story 2 reflection
I began my second digital story with a very strong desire and a VERY specific outcome in mind. Well, that all went out the window when the plans did not go the way I had hoped!
The Best Laid Plans....
My intentions for my second digital story for this KA were grand, and NOT as well planned out as I had hoped. One must always remember to have a back up plan in the world of production. In my case I had planned on going to the Democratic Party of Orange County's presidential election coverage and video taping the evening, focusing on a few specific people, and following their emotional roller coaster as the evening progressed.
What transpired was an error in communication leaving me with NO required press credential to film inside the event, and thus NO ability to create my planned project!! I was very upset, and completely unsure of what the hell I was going to do. Never to back down from a challenge I decided to video tape myself throughout the election night and document my personal roller coaster of emotions as the evening's events unfolded.
My Story Core:
The principle core of my story was simple, too simple in hindsight. The problem was my fears of losing the election, having no faith in the system, and losing my faith in my country. The transformation began to occur throughout the night as the election results came in. However, there was a good amount of tension-release and tension-renewal throughout the evening and the process. In the end the ultimate transformation came with the Obama victory, and solution being my renewed faith in the system, government, and my country, as well as a new hope for a better future.
My intentions for my second digital story for this KA were grand, and NOT as well planned out as I had hoped. One must always remember to have a back up plan in the world of production. In my case I had planned on going to the Democratic Party of Orange County's presidential election coverage and video taping the evening, focusing on a few specific people, and following their emotional roller coaster as the evening progressed.
What transpired was an error in communication leaving me with NO required press credential to film inside the event, and thus NO ability to create my planned project!! I was very upset, and completely unsure of what the hell I was going to do. Never to back down from a challenge I decided to video tape myself throughout the election night and document my personal roller coaster of emotions as the evening's events unfolded.
My Story Presentation:
Having taken an Apple Final Cut Pro certification editing course I felt as if I was truly ready to utilize the editing to make this a special piece. I utilized the video diary as the primary video, and cut it into segments with narrated video and still clips. The video diary segments was the footage as it happened on election night in November 2008. The interlaced segments were a combination of still images and video clips I felt would provide dramatic support to the overall piece. I intended for this piece to be a very dramatic and powerful expose into my experience that night. I do feel that the diary footage is powerful and well supported by the cut in materials.
The Outcome; The Best Laid Plans.....Again:
All the best laid plans don't always work out. In my case I don't think this digital story had the same impact as my first story did. I believe it is good at best, maybe just okay, maybe mundane and boring at worst (I know I should probably not bash my own work, especially when it is counting towards a grade and me making SAP, but I want to remain honest here)!! I believe the piece flows, well at times, and slowly at others. In some of the diary I am a bit long winded. In other parts of the diary I repeated myself thus rendering the footage useless in the final piece. I also believe the piece to be a bit lengthy. However, had I shortened the piece much more I think it really would have lost any effectiveness it has.
As far as production values go I think I did an okay job editing the piece together. There are a few things I continue to learn and practice with my editing that I will eventually work out and improve. I think I fell into the cliche traps that McKee warns about in his book Story. I used an image of a flag with patriotic music to open my piece. In hindsight it probably would have been better to open the piece with just the narrative and music over a black slug (screen). Some of my edits were a bit poorly timed, but that is due to my skills as and editor and not due to my design or understanding of story.
Overall I believe the piece captures the essence of the core I created. I followed the script and kept to my story map. But overall the piece, while meeting the requirements of the KA, probably will not be nominated for a student Emmy any time soon.
I do believe that this type of exercise is invaluable to both media producers and media psychologists. The process we undertook allowed me to have an much better insight into how good media is produced from the very beginning. It will allow me to improve my story planning, script writing and pre-production planning while I improve my post production skills! As a media psychologist the knowledge gained from this project allows me to better analyze not only the message being delivered, but it allows me to analyze the amount of effort that went into the planning of a story being presented. That I believe is an incredibly important element for me and my colleagues.
The Best Laid Plans....
My intentions for my second digital story for this KA were grand, and NOT as well planned out as I had hoped. One must always remember to have a back up plan in the world of production. In my case I had planned on going to the Democratic Party of Orange County's presidential election coverage and video taping the evening, focusing on a few specific people, and following their emotional roller coaster as the evening progressed.
What transpired was an error in communication leaving me with NO required press credential to film inside the event, and thus NO ability to create my planned project!! I was very upset, and completely unsure of what the hell I was going to do. Never to back down from a challenge I decided to video tape myself throughout the election night and document my personal roller coaster of emotions as the evening's events unfolded.
My Story Core:
The principle core of my story was simple, too simple in hindsight. The problem was my fears of losing the election, having no faith in the system, and losing my faith in my country. The transformation began to occur throughout the night as the election results came in. However, there was a good amount of tension-release and tension-renewal throughout the evening and the process. In the end the ultimate transformation came with the Obama victory, and solution being my renewed faith in the system, government, and my country, as well as a new hope for a better future.
My intentions for my second digital story for this KA were grand, and NOT as well planned out as I had hoped. One must always remember to have a back up plan in the world of production. In my case I had planned on going to the Democratic Party of Orange County's presidential election coverage and video taping the evening, focusing on a few specific people, and following their emotional roller coaster as the evening progressed.
What transpired was an error in communication leaving me with NO required press credential to film inside the event, and thus NO ability to create my planned project!! I was very upset, and completely unsure of what the hell I was going to do. Never to back down from a challenge I decided to video tape myself throughout the election night and document my personal roller coaster of emotions as the evening's events unfolded.
My Story Presentation:
Having taken an Apple Final Cut Pro certification editing course I felt as if I was truly ready to utilize the editing to make this a special piece. I utilized the video diary as the primary video, and cut it into segments with narrated video and still clips. The video diary segments was the footage as it happened on election night in November 2008. The interlaced segments were a combination of still images and video clips I felt would provide dramatic support to the overall piece. I intended for this piece to be a very dramatic and powerful expose into my experience that night. I do feel that the diary footage is powerful and well supported by the cut in materials.
The Outcome; The Best Laid Plans.....Again:
All the best laid plans don't always work out. In my case I don't think this digital story had the same impact as my first story did. I believe it is good at best, maybe just okay, maybe mundane and boring at worst (I know I should probably not bash my own work, especially when it is counting towards a grade and me making SAP, but I want to remain honest here)!! I believe the piece flows, well at times, and slowly at others. In some of the diary I am a bit long winded. In other parts of the diary I repeated myself thus rendering the footage useless in the final piece. I also believe the piece to be a bit lengthy. However, had I shortened the piece much more I think it really would have lost any effectiveness it has.
As far as production values go I think I did an okay job editing the piece together. There are a few things I continue to learn and practice with my editing that I will eventually work out and improve. I think I fell into the cliche traps that McKee warns about in his book Story. I used an image of a flag with patriotic music to open my piece. In hindsight it probably would have been better to open the piece with just the narrative and music over a black slug (screen). Some of my edits were a bit poorly timed, but that is due to my skills as and editor and not due to my design or understanding of story.
Overall I believe the piece captures the essence of the core I created. I followed the script and kept to my story map. But overall the piece, while meeting the requirements of the KA, probably will not be nominated for a student Emmy any time soon.
I do believe that this type of exercise is invaluable to both media producers and media psychologists. The process we undertook allowed me to have an much better insight into how good media is produced from the very beginning. It will allow me to improve my story planning, script writing and pre-production planning while I improve my post production skills! As a media psychologist the knowledge gained from this project allows me to better analyze not only the message being delivered, but it allows me to analyze the amount of effort that went into the planning of a story being presented. That I believe is an incredibly important element for me and my colleagues.
Digital Story 2, Story Map
The story map is a critical piece to creating a quality story. It allows the writer to put down all of the critical elements that allows the story to properly progress from start to finish. I produce my story maps by hand as it allows me to free flow with ideas without the distraction of technology.
Second story script
This is the script with a shot description that I wrote for my second digital story, My Election Night Experience. You can view the entire script here.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Shane Pase's Digital Story #2
My Election Night Experience. This media narrative fulfills the second major assignment in Psychology 767 - The Media and Psychology of Story. It captures my progression of feelings and reactions to the events that transpired on the eve of the last presidential election. I have posted it and invite you to view it on youtube.
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