Exercise 17: Final Response: Evaluation of Storytelling, Processes, and Social Media Venues
Subin Park
Dr. John Higgins
Digital Media Production
Spring 2014
Exercise 17: Final Response: Evaluation of Storytelling, Processes, and Social Media Venues
Storytelling:
Project 1: The storytelling development processes followed in the class was very helpful. Beginning of the class when we did not know each other we had to write a short story about ourselves and tell a story in a circle, even though it was short I was able to get an idea of what I wanted to tell for Project 1. Than I wrote a story that I wanted to tell to the class. We were able to listen to each other’s story, listening to each other’s rough draft’s of story, we were able to give comments such as what can be less or included and for speaking maybe slower or louder. After another around of circle to listen to each other’s story and give feedbacks, we were able to record our story. Even though it is recording, we had to practice several times to make sure we have good record of our story in two cuts. After all the writing works, I chose to make a video using iMovie for storytelling. I have never used iMovie application before but I wanted to learn and use it for storytelling. So I play around the program, research Internet, and also ask questions to classmates, who had better knowledge about the program. I edited my video several times, such as timing, less photos, photo effects, and cutting my recorded story of audio. We had another opportunity to look at each other’s final cuts in a group before final version to give feedback and it really helped a lot because my classmates were able to see other good ideas that I was not able to think of. And also as an audience of other works I was able to give them some feedbacks of what I liked and what can be improved. I was able to get good feedbacks such as fewer photos, and timing of photos, while narration can be slower. It was easier to tell a story to classmates because it was about my story and what I accomplished. I think people tell best storytelling what they know, experienced, or about themselves.
Processes:
I think all of the processes that I did during class was very effective and helpful. All of the instructions were very organized, so that we can follow step by step. Before we actually do something with the program or think about the story to tell, we read readings from Cookbook, it helped me a lot because it was very specific how to tell a story by story of myself or others and each give specific what to think about and also give questions to connect to what and how I am going to storytelling. And after that it was mix of group work and individual work. To do group work, we had to be prepared as an individual work. Individual work was mostly like creating our own story, my perspective as a producer, it was helpful to have individual work and groups work so that I have time to prepare what I want to ask and tell to the group and discuss as a group. When we had group working process, everyone really helped each other a lot by giving feedbacks and also what they like about and it really gives me strength to continue to do the work to make it better. Sometimes we had big group work and small group work, I think small group work helps better because we can hear each other better with more specific ideas, because sometimes bigger group work makes similar and same comments and just takes longer time.
Specific Technology:
For project 1 and project 2, I used programs iMovie and iPhoto. Using these two programs was new to me, but I did not really have problem with using it because it was not very complicated. Also, I was able to ask questions to classmates who had better idea of these programs and research on Internet. These two programs were pretty similar to use but iMovie has just more applications to use than iPhoto. iPhoto is good to use for slideshow with photos and captions and for iMovie more applications to use to make a video slideshow. But sometimes it was annoying with few applications, for example, for iMovie, when I put a music as a background the amount of time I want to play kept went back to the original music time, and I had to click each photo and change the time. But few days of playing around with the programs it was much easier to use with both of the program, editing the photo lights, timing of the photos, and putting captions in each photos was a lot fun to use once I got used to it.
Online Platforms/Venues:
Using different online platforms and venues was very interesting to learn. Most of the venues were new to me. As an audience of these online platforms, I think travel photos are best told through Flickr, because you can post many photos as you want and audience can just click the button and it will move on and on the right side, there is a place where creator can put captions, short descriptions, and also it shows what camera they used and tags. For my project 2, I used Flickr for one of my source and I put short descriptions on each photo to show to the audience and appropriate tags. Cowbird is not really appropriate to put introducing new place because it can only post one photo and it is more of writing description, but introducing new place it is very with visual effects like many photos, so I don’t think cowbird is right place to post introducing some place.
Mobile (phone-based):
I really liked using ‘Videolicious’ application for Exercise 15. Most of the time making short videos, I used ‘RoadMovies,’ but I like Videolicious better because it let me use videos from the album and put it in the applications. I think it is helpful because it creates one-minute short clip video using the clips I already have recorded.
Conclusion:
All the works from this course was very helpful and effective. I was able to learn many new online platforms and application to use in future and other applicable ideas such as different kind of storytelling procedure. Also, with lots of exercises I learned that it is always good to get used to the program or application to actually use it. In order to do that the best way is to use it often and always play around. And there is many online platforms and venues that fits for different kind of stories, I think it is also important to choose what kind of venues I am going to use for different stories.