This week is/was midterm week, and we had to use new software called WeVideo.
WeVideo was not too scary, especially after learning how to use Audacity last week.
I was originally going to use this week to formulate a rough draft for our final project, but ultimately decided to go back to Week 1 and revamp the story of how I met my best friend Taylor Williams.
I knew that creating a full video off of the original podcast would be a fulfilling process, and that pictures and the like would be readily available. It was particularly appealing because as I played around with the WeVideo software, I learned that one of the preexisting templates would work perfectly to tell this tale.
I would have liked to have revamped the narration, but I felt that the track I ended up using worked well with the music I chose, and created a cohesive story for this week's assignment. I feel that the pictures and the sequence I used them more than accurately sum up my friendship with Taylor, and I only wish that we had taken more pictures together during that first week of knowing each other.
Here is the link to the WeVideo I created. I hope you all enjoy!!
All My Friends Have Worlds, Mine Is Just Different
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Audio Mixing Success?
Hey all. So this week's assignment had us trying out a new tool called Audacity, which can be used to make a mixed audio file. While the task seemed a little daunting at first, I was able to learn the basic skills pretty quickly thanks to Marilyn's tutorials.
For the assignment, I found that when I first began to play around and get familiar with Audacity that the closest thing at hand (I was soaking an injured foot in a sat bath) was a small book by Tom Shay-Zapien called "Jingle All the Way". "Jingle All the Way" is an interactive storybook to accompany a stuff dog, which Hallmark sold/sells during the holiday season. I quickly discovered while the book was great for practicing, it also would work well for this week's assignment.
In the story, Jingle is a puppy without a home. One day he is outside of a school when either the recess or end of day bell rings (the story does not make it entirely clear) and Jingle gets to play with the children. Jingle has so much fun that he goes back the next day! I ended my audio recording of the story about halfway through the actual book, as the whole thing seemed a bit too challenging for editing, at which point Jingle is happy with his new friends. The story continues with Jingle being found one night by Santa, and he is taken to the home of one of the children and adopted for Christmas.
As part of the assignment, we had to add music/sound effects to the story to enhance the storytelling experience. I was able to find a song which I felt worked nicely to introduce and end Jingle's story. I also found several sound clips, one of a school bell and one of a dog barking, to emphasize several of the sounds within the story. I really wanted to find a sound clip of children playing, but after searching several sites, I was unable to find something which I found acceptable for this particular story.
Anywho, here is the clip for the story. Enjoy!
Click here to listen!
For the assignment, I found that when I first began to play around and get familiar with Audacity that the closest thing at hand (I was soaking an injured foot in a sat bath) was a small book by Tom Shay-Zapien called "Jingle All the Way". "Jingle All the Way" is an interactive storybook to accompany a stuff dog, which Hallmark sold/sells during the holiday season. I quickly discovered while the book was great for practicing, it also would work well for this week's assignment.
In the story, Jingle is a puppy without a home. One day he is outside of a school when either the recess or end of day bell rings (the story does not make it entirely clear) and Jingle gets to play with the children. Jingle has so much fun that he goes back the next day! I ended my audio recording of the story about halfway through the actual book, as the whole thing seemed a bit too challenging for editing, at which point Jingle is happy with his new friends. The story continues with Jingle being found one night by Santa, and he is taken to the home of one of the children and adopted for Christmas.
As part of the assignment, we had to add music/sound effects to the story to enhance the storytelling experience. I was able to find a song which I felt worked nicely to introduce and end Jingle's story. I also found several sound clips, one of a school bell and one of a dog barking, to emphasize several of the sounds within the story. I really wanted to find a sound clip of children playing, but after searching several sites, I was unable to find something which I found acceptable for this particular story.
Anywho, here is the clip for the story. Enjoy!
Click here to listen!
Thursday, May 29, 2014
The Story so Far
Once Upon a Time there was a college grad- or Anthony as he
was more commonly called- choosing his courses for his first semester of
graduate school. At the urging (very minor) from two of his student workers,
Anthony decided to take Storytelling as his third course for the summer
semester. “It sounds really interesting,” one said while the other noted “I
want to take that!” And after a previous “storytelling” experience in which
Anthony felt his skills were severely lacking, this seemed like the perfect way
to jump into things.
Due to the structure of the summer courses, it would
actually be his first course at the great institute of Syracuse, which led
Anthony to be nervous and wondering if he would be able to handle it. In the
weeks leading up to the beginning of the course, he found that there were
pre-course assignments or quests if you will. The first quest had Anthony
thinking that maybe he wasn't quite ready yet, maybe he should have waited
longer until he began his master’s program or maybe he shouldn't have taken
that year off. But once Anthony began the assignment he realized that he just
needed to let his brain reawaken into education mode and he developed a
successful plan for the final project, as was the quest set upon him.
During the first week of class, Anthony quickly realized
that he could do this. He was an inherent storyteller, telling stories every
day. Whether it be telling his supervisor his strange dream from the night
before, or explaining to his friends the awful customers he had to deal with
that day, Anthony knew how to tell a story. Sure he realized that more often
than not his stories were not that interesting, but it was the way he was
telling the stories that made them so. His second quest was just as successful
as the first, and although Anthony was tough on himself, he knew what to work
on going forward through the course.
From here on out Anthony resolved to work on his vocal
abilities (in particular to his pitch). Knowing when to work the right emphasis
in would only increase the interest others might have in his storytelling
abilities. He also knew he must work on showing and not telling when it comes
to the more creative stories he tells others. No one wants to be told how to
feel, but rather led to make their own conclusions about how they would feel in
the character’s shoes.
Keeping these goals in mind, Anthony set out to continue his
adventure, vowing that everyone would live happily ever after at the end of
this journey.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
My Very First Podcast
This week for class we were asked to record a podcast telling a story. We had the option of telling a folktale, family story, or personal story. My initial reaction was to record myself telling a folktale, but I no from personal experience that I cannot do a good Big Bad Wolf impersonation. Thus I have decided to record a podcast telling the story about my first meeting with Taylor Williams AKA Agent Best Friend.
You can listen to the podcast here.
Feel free to share how you met your best friends. I have many more tales of my adventures with Taylor, and maybe I will share some more of them with you all sometime soon.
You can listen to the podcast here.
Feel free to share how you met your best friends. I have many more tales of my adventures with Taylor, and maybe I will share some more of them with you all sometime soon.
Musings on Ganley's White Paper
In Barbara Ganley’s White Paper the main topic of the
relationship between storytelling and communities is explored in a variety of
examples. One part which particularly stood out to me was where she writes, “In
this hurry-up era, stories are both more natural and more difficult to wrest
from the blur of life…It takes slowing people down enough to listen” (24),
which stands out because of just how applicable it is in my own post-grad life.
Now that I am no longer in an academic/school environment 24/7, I find the
rapid pace of “real life” to be nonstop.
How many times while in the company of others does one find
his or herself at a loss for words trying to keep the other person’s attention?
Or even the opposite, where one struggles to pay attention to a story being
told? It is my sincere and firm belief that our brains have been hardwired to
run quicker than our attention spans. More and more children each year are
being diagnosed with ADHD, but what if this is just because the pace of
societal interactions does not allow us to focus on one thing at a time? In my
daily interactions I frequently struggle to concentrate on the task at hand.
Without my internal clock and dialogue slowing me down to take each step one at
a time, I find that I and those around me try to do too much at once.
Storytelling in today’s world works in much the same way,
with people either frequently interrupting one another’s’ stories or being
unable to pay attention and recount all that has been said. Taking the time to
be invested in stories is a skill, where before it was an expected trait. So
much is continually happening (technology only contributes to this fast pace)
which in turn causes our attention spans to be incapable of investment in any
one given happening.
I ask my friends what is new in their lives because I do
genuinely care and want to hear the latest story they have to share. Yet more
often than not it seems that the frequent response is that nothing is new. This
too stems from our incapability to focus on one thing. How can we be expected
to “wrest from the blur of life” any one story of what is new? Ganley’s article
makes it clear that our societal task needs to trend back towards community and
storytelling for a common purpose. But first we need to commit to our individual
storytelling abilities.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Storytelling Week One- Discussion Post One- Story Structure
Throughout my elementary/secondary education, I learned the
traditional story structure of Introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling
Action, Denouement, and Resolution. With every book or play we read we were
able to fit the stories to this pattern. In this week’s Topics section two
other familiar story structures are drawn out, which similarly fit into the
traditional story structure. This initial exploration of story structure
appears to set up each story as following a similar pattern, and begs to ask
the question if there is a different way for a story to pan out.
Watching the Kurt Vonnegut video on the topic of story shapes
seemed to also suggest that stories always end on a happy note. Stories may
begin at a different point of fortune for the protagonist (i.e. Cinderella at
rock bottom on the ill fortune spectrum), yet in each of his examples the main character
reaches happiness and good fortune at the end of the story. Having previously
read Vonnegut’s work Slaughterhouse-Five in
my senior thesis course and discussing it at great lengths, in know that even
within Vonnegut’s own works that stories do not always follow this basic story
shape. Not to spoil the ending of the novel for anyone who may not have read
it, but the story does not have the traditional happy ending and instead
concludes with death.
So does a story need to fall on this Good Fortune -> Ill
Fortune/ Beginning -> End scale which Vonnegut has put forth? And to a
greater extent does a story have to always start at the beginning and end at
the end? Sure there are plenty of novels/stories which begin with one event and
then backing up to explain how the character reached this point. But does this
sort of story structure differ that greatly from the epitome of one? Are there
other ways to tell a story? I know that there are a bunch of unanswered
questions in this blog post, but this has always tended to be my way of writing
(posing questions and not always answering them).
I personally find that Vonnegut’s first two examples on his
story shape spectrum fit the majority of books I have read, and stories I have
heard. There always seems to be a happy ending after moments of despair or
trial and tribulation. Maybe this is the main way to tell a story, and other
ways of structuring it are just that particular author/storyteller’s way of
trying to be different.
What do you all think?
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sorry
I want to apologize for not posting anything in over a month. I will definitely get around to writing something over Thanksgiving break. I've been swamped in homework and when I have had free time I've just been trying to figure things out. If I don't have anything written by Sunday I apologize
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