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.