Please share some reflections on the process of preparing your digital stories.
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What appealed to me was that this was a video making project. I’ve made videos using iMovie and Windows Moviemaker before, and I loved it. I strangely love the stressful manual work because I know my hard work will honestly pay off as an entertaining outcome. So, I was really excited for this project.
What challenged me was controlling the amount of information I wanted to share. I had to keep it entertaining and share my life with a bunch of people I’ve only been acquainted with for three months. I think that’s where I lost the entertaining aspect of my video. I liked what I came up with, but I don’t think I was too successful in engaging the audience to my story.
What I learned? Maybe I should have been more considerate of my audience. Yes, I admit it. It was quite abstract. But, my excuse is, this was a very personal project to me. My previous video projects were designed to entertain people, but this one, at least I felt was designed for me more than my fellow Macaulay students. I’ve never written a self-reflective poem before. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I wrote a poem. I knew I had to present my video in class, but subconsciously I made it so that it would make me feel good, I guess. But, I promise. My next video won’t be too abstract.
Even though it felt abstract and I wanted more, I was engaged. Some pictures you used were really good and I don’t think our projects were supposed to be ‘entertaining’ anyway. So I thought you had a good presentation.
I liked this project completely. It was a bit time-consuming but it was well worth the wait. Now I feel like I have something to show the world about myself. I think it would have been cool if we did more of this. As in focusing on different aspects about ourselves as different projects. I feel like I would be able to express myself well that way. It could be such a great way to look back and see how we were like as college freshman. Perhaps we could even do this as seniors and compare it to the one we made as freshman. There wasn’t much to dislike about this project but I do wish I could have shortened some parts of the video so I could include more details from the poem.
I feel like the video only showed a part of who I am. I found it interesting that I revealed my quiet nature rather than my upbeat nature especially because it was the viewers who noticed this (not me.) Overall it was a fun experience.
Our project was basically to describe who we are as individuals in 3 minutes. Trying to figure out what I should include, and exclude was a challenge for me. The main questions I kept asking myself were “What do I want them to know about me?” and “Who do I want to portray myself as?” Of course I didn’t want to be too open, but I also didn’t want to be too secretive. I thought using imovie would be a challenge but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was actually easy.
Using new tools was appealing to me even though I was a little intimidated by it at first. The thing I found most appealing was listening to (and watching) everyone’s story. For the most part, my classmates created very beautiful and unique presentations and they were enjoyable. It was also interesting to see how others perceive themselves versus the way I see them in class.
I obviously learned to use imovie, but aside from that I learned about my classmates. While some included a lot of pictures and information about themselves others chose to be a little more abstract. The ones who presented themselves very literally helped me to learn more about their backgrounds, their families, and what they enjoy. The ones with abstract projects gave me some vague insights about their lives and they revealed that perhaps they’re more mysterious, conservative, or shy. (I don’t mean to offend anyone if I misinterpreted then I’m super sorry!!!) I know that watching a video about someone’s life doesn’t mean that you fully know and understand who they are, but I appreciate this project because it was fun to see everyone’s creativity and it allowed me to see them in environments that weren’t strictly academic. I’m very lucky to have such diverse and unique classmates and it was great to learn a little bit more about them!
At the start of this project, I felt both challenged and excited to create and imovie for the first time. There seemed to be so much to learn and so much I could do with imovie, and to be honest, it seemed a bit overwhelming (mainly due to my lack of computer skills). I ended up having a lot of fun figuring it out, and I was happy with my end result.
I was also intrigued by the idea of writing about myself and where I feel I am from, because it is something I’ve never directly considered before. I went back and thought about all the highlights of my childhood and teen years, and I looked through albums and albums of pictures and cassette tape after cassette tape of birthday parties, swim meets, Halloweens, etc., which of course were both nostalgic and hilarious.
Besides the technological challenges I faced, the sheer amount of pictures and videos I found made it very challenging for me to make a movie of an appropriate length (and of course it did end up running a bit longer than I would have liked). I am also not much of a poet, so mine ended up being less poetic and more like a story. I would have preferred being able to make it a bit more abstract and aesthetically appealing, especially once I had seen how others had made theirs.
I felt I learned so much about other people from their poems (and I also learned a lot about writing poems and creating imovies from watching the others). It was so fun to learn about what has influenced their lives and see pictures and videos of family members and friends and native countries, etc. It was a good way to get to know other people, and everyone’s movie seemed to portray their personality so accurately.
Using iMovie to make my digital story was honestly a lot of fun. I’ve never edited or made a video of this sort before. Bringing in all the pictures my sister and I took in Albania made me so nostalgic. It felt like I was making a special kind of scrapbook. Playing the video of my cousins and I jumping off the cliff into the water with music in the background was a completely different experience than watching the video without the music; it gave me chills. Overall, I’m really proud of my work.
Seeing my classmates’ work was exciting as well. Everyone’s project was very personal so it gave me some more insight into the lives of my peers and their style of presentation. I also enjoyed listening to the poems very much.
Tim M
This digital story project was a pretty unique experience. It certainly I think is a prerequisite for what I will use for my Art Project (due at the end of the semester). To be honest I did not use IMovie because I have used Windows Movie Maker for all my life but using garage band to actually record my voice was something new for me. I have seen myself on camera before and heard my voice but I think this project just made me that more comfortable with hearing my voice.
The project helped me open up my imagination even more, challenging me to come up with a brilliant poem of myself (which I have done in the past but just not as deep) but also something that I had never done, try to come up with pictures and videos and creating a voice narration for my poem (something which I have never done). I truly was inspired by this project and this is the stepping stone for the final art project which I am excited for (the visual aspect).
Through this project I learned so much about others, some stuff from other’s people project stick out. At the very least I got a taste of what kind of person they are through the choice of music they had: at least I kind have a snapshot of what kind of music they enjoy (something that is so important to me). It was great to see the childhood pictures of my fellow classmates, and I felt that this project not only opened up the understanding of myself but more importantly others. All in all I thought this was quite an entertaining project and even though I did not learn much from IMovie, I learned so much from myself and others, and from garage band.
The digital story project was my favorite project so far in this class for two reasons. First, because it was different and a lot of fun using iMovie. Second, because it was awesome to watch everyone else’s projects and learn about their backgrounds and where they come from. I was nice to see all of the diversity in our class.
It was challenging at first to use iMovie, but after a while I got used to it. The hardest part was definitely matching up the pictures and clips with the voice over and the background music. Although somewhat difficult, it was a challenge I was actually excited to take. I enjoyed using iMovie so much that I will probably use it for my final project.
Aside from learning how to create a movie, I learned about all the other kids in class. We all come from such different parts of the world, but somehow there were connections and patterns with all of our stories. That is what fascinated me the most. I love learning about different cultures, and I have pride in my own culture, so I enjoyed showing my movie and watching everyone else’s.
The digital stories were also my favorite assignment in Seminar 1. It was great seeing the blood, sweat, and tears that we put into each of our stories and getting to just sit back and appreciate the efforts each and every one of us put into them. It was nice to laugh and learn new things about everyone; like how some of us have multiple backgrounds, some of us have (hidden) musical talents, and some cultures have a certain type of cake that never gets old (or just a teeny bit)
iMovie is also such a great and inventive tool; I’m so glad we had the chance to utilize it in both a creative, and academic way. It was a bit unnerving to have to listen to our voices in such a raw, personal way, but at the time, it was a valuable experience in its own. I loved it!
The process of creating and showing a digital story of my life has taught me a lot. Creating the movie through iMovie appealed to me because it was easy to use and fun. I enjoyed editing the videos as well as sequencing the different pictures and inserting transitions to allow them to flow in a sequence. The transitions were fun to play with and now I feel better equipped to do simple video editing. The part of iMovie that was difficult for me was adding my voice to the film because I had trouble matching my voice with the rest of the film in terms of timing. I definitely could have used earphones and learned to manipulate the sound volume of my voice. The content of my digital story forced me to look back into my childhood and I got the chance to appreciate the little moments while growing up. I used two videos that were from my time in a French international school and they reminded me of how grateful I should be to have experienced something out of my comfort zone. I also realized how much my friends and family have played a role in my life and I definitely did depend on them for being there. In the video, food was another aspect of my life and I enjoyed describing them and the culture where they originated from. In regards to the presentation of the digital stories, I was impressed by those of my fellow classmates because it seems as if they were masters of iMovie beforehand. A lot of them had great pacing, song choice as well as a soft yet unforgettable tone to their voice. There were aspects of their lives such as the sports and the instruments that they played which were eye-opening because I would have never known before. Watching them in their own childhood moments was touching. Overall from the process, I learned the basic techniques of presenting and I cannot wait to learn and use the new techniques that were introduced in class.
My main goal in for this project was to be honest and real. There was to be no foolish clichés or overused lines. However, the first poem I wrote was just what I dreaded. It lacked a certain level of honesty and had a few too many clichés. When I was working on my revision, I scrapped the entire poem and worked into the late hours of the night changing words, changings letters, creating words, and attempting to perfect it. When we received this assignment, I was appealed to the individualistic aspect of it. Each person has their own story to tell(so far at least) and this project allowed people to describe who they are, where they came from, what influences them and so on.
However, I had a few fears. First, I never made a video before. I’ve actually never owned a Mac before either (I’m a PC). I usually stick to non-moving images because they do not require music and transitions and voiceovers. This was going to require a lot of work.
Secondly, I never really recorded my voice and presented it to a class. At first it was odd hearing my own voice, but after recording my voice multiple times I was used to it.
Despite these two minor fears, the project was exciting. I’d get home from classes and I’d work on this assignment for hours without noticing. The project wasn’t merely an assignment; it was an artistic display of my life. The project allowed me to reflect on recent events and present these emotions in an artistic way.
While composing my story, I learned that sometimes you have to slow your speech in order to get a message across. Sometimes it depends on how you speak to portray a certain motive. In addition, I learned that making a video is not that difficult and I hope to use iMovie in the future.
I loved seeing other people’s videos because they were little cameras into that person’s life. Yes, we see the person’s exterior and their interests, but we can never really see into a person’s own mind. These assignments showed each person’s inner mind of where they come from. The family portraits, nostalgic foods, and landscape images. Everyone has a life beyond the classroom and it was great to see a small 3 minute version of it.
The project was very fun for me. I really enjoy writing poetry. Also, I thought this was a great was to learn about my fellow classmates. I feel like this gave me a deeper understanding of where everyone came from, an understanding that couldn’t be achieved by simply telling us about it. Poetry is good for that. All in all, I had a wonderful time and I hope to have classes in the future that embrace art like this one does.
What I enjoyed about the project was that it was the first time I successfully did video editing. I really liked the part where I did the voice-over and included the music because of the amount of attention necessary for the presentation to go along smoothly. I was only able to appreciate this once I finished the project.
Before that, I was annoyed with my computer, which had its own “Voiceover” command, which read me everything written on the screen. If Sam had not helped me remove “Voiceover” before I showed the video, the digital story would start like this, “(Mechanical Voice) Opened new window..” and drown out the voice-over. This was also successful in messing up my voice-overs many times because “Voiceover” changes the way the arrow keys function. Aside from the voice-over, finding pictures was difficult because I did not have a large number of pictures corresponding with the poem. I think I spent the maximum amount of time compiling different pictures from the internet, and taking pictures of film pictures (India did not have digital cameras when I was a kid).
From this project, I learned a great functionality of the Mac Book Pro. I am thinking of using iMovie for the research project. In addition, I also learned how to edit videos and voice-overs (the “Voiceover” disrupted many of my voice-overs so I had to patch different recordings for different paragraphs). Moreover, I found out a more optimistic way to view my life, because I emphasized the more positive aspects. I think I was whining a little too much previously. Finally, I also came to know a lot about the American childhood with “Matilda” and other features from the others’ stories, and saw how they represented the positive parts of their lives. The symbolism was definitely interesting in the few digital stories that had it.
This project refreshed a lot of old memories for me. Pictures that I pass by in my house everyday, I spent more time thinking about for this project. My whole family jumped in with suggestions for the multimedia aspect and everyone was excited to see it come together. My favorite part of editing the video was adding the transitions. The pictures provided were the main attraction but the transitions added a little bit variety to the presentation overall.
The most challenging part of the video was the voiceover. I left it until the last minute and it did not work. The voiceover tab was not recognizing the built-in microphone. I tried using a USB attached microphone but the sound was not playing back. I played with the speech and sound tabs in system preferences, and I learned a few things, but voiceover still wouldn’t work. Eventually, I figured out that I could record on GarageBand and drag the sound onto the movie soundtrack.
My first time using iMovie taught me the basics of the application. The app has access to all multimedia on the hard drive but I will say putting the work together takes a certain amount of patience and willingness to play with the app’s features. Aside from that, like Sam says, “it’s intuitive.”
For this project I focused on my early childhood while others went throughout their lives until present day. It was interesting to see where other people have traveled and some of the important parts of their lives. I preferred to stay in early childhood because most of my pictures are from that time when people could still force me to take photographs. It was difficult finding photographs that expressed my poem well so google was very helpful. I also appreciated how others like Alison and Hansol emphasized the artistic aspect of this project by focusing more on their poems and aesthetics.Imovie also made this much easier than I expected.I do not like hearing my voice, like others, but imovie made it sound better than most other recorders, even without the voice enhancer. It was fun to play around with the mac for this project, I have not made many videos before.
The project gave me a good introduction to iMovie. The program is very intuitive and good to know how to use. I’m not very poetic (I prefer to write in prose), but I enjoyed writing on the “I am from” topic. I remember writing an “I am from” poem in middle school and I am always surprised by how many different types of responses a teacher can receive from one writing prompt. The skills and techniques I learned from this light-hearted project will definitely help me when I make the movie for my final essay. I loved the process of presenting the projects. We are relatively new to one another, and this was a fun, entertaining, and instructive way to learn more about our classmates.
The thing about my project is that I really had no idea what to do. It wasn’t a good sign that I missed the first deadline. So I decided to do a poem with Limerick after seeing either Daisy or Ha Young (I don’t remember) rhyming probably just because I could… or because it flows better than a clinical reading, either one. I attempted limerick but didn’t quite have the rhythm down (see first stanza). Regardless of my poetic capacity, I got a draft into professor Perl… to which she said I should flesh it out. It was around Halloween, so I started watching a list of horror movies, one of them being Evil Dead 2. I knew that I could use it for the description of my grandfather’s house (it seems scarier each time I come back). While I was set on using that one clip for like 40 seconds, I had to use something for the style of the video. First thought, black and white drawings to underscore the project. I realized that full sized drawings might have been impractical for the project, so I thought index cards would suffice. The idea fell apart on the count that the poem wasn’t finalized as quickly as it should have been (the poem was edited on the morning of when I supposedly finalized it days before (by which I mean I finished it, then revised at the last minute)). I decided that I should use the style popularized by zero punctuation (power point but interesting to look at)… so I did. Got images from Google to match the wording and added various clips to break the monotony of watching otherwise unrelated photos. When I actually recorded, it was about one in the morning, so the recording sounded horrible because I wouldn’t project because my mom would have woken up. My brother woke me up that morning (he did a better job than mom has a tendency to). I headed over to school and re-dubbed my voice over. Everything was okay, until I check and found that my voice wasn’t recorded for a second, removing a word from the stanza (it was “creepy”). I hastily recorded over that because it was an otherwise good take and I didn’t want to push it with something that had to be presented relatively soon (hence why it stood out). After all was said and done. I uploaded it up to YouTube. Google being a company that I feel nothing but admiration and respect for (sarcastic tone) automatically muted the video because of copyright infringement. I took a small amount of time reading up what actually constituted fair use, and decided to call fair use on the video. It went through surprisingly quickly. Looking back, I really just wonder what I could have done better (the voice work isn’t up to scratch) or differently, or how personal I wanted to make the project (I omitted certain details which I prefer not to discuss). Regardless, I feel satisfied with the project… now a project on the artistic response to Katrina.
Oh, and it was extremely annoying to have the ken burns effect on default in iMovie. It was like having a helmet that took itself off every time you made it to an intersection.
I feel more comfortable to understand something when I watch it rather than listen to it. Compared to the moment when we shared our poems in small groups, it was easier to understand them when we watched video clips, which have visual and audio components at the same time. I learned that making video clips was one of the good ways to deliver information effectively.
It was not easy to make a video clip because I am not good at works with a computer. I used Window Movie Maker, which I have always used to make video clips, and I used a lot of pictures rather than videos because there were easy to get. However, when I watched other classmates’ work, I was surprised with their great works. Their works were very well made with great videos and story lines. When I saw their works, I decided to learn more about these movie-making programs so that I can make a better one next time.
I remember doing this assignment in my high school freshmen year. Four years passed and I compared my current work with the past one. My college freshman poem is a lot different from the one four years ago! In the old poem, I mentioned my parents’ names, my heritage, and other important things in a really specific manner. But they were said directly and the style was elementary overall. The current poem, on the other hand, described me through the places I lived in, the significant traits of those places, my mindset back then, and my religion. The style of my current work’s poetry seemed more unique too. It held a distinct voice. I also wrote the poem differently because I wanted to try a method which Professor Perl told me about- write prose in a paragraph and break it down to lines. Thinking about all of this made me realize how much I’ve changed. I began following my religion at the end of my freshmen year and my writing took its own form during junior year and senior year because of the short story competitions I participated in. Even though the two poems are titled the same, these changes made the nature of my 2011’s “I Am From” poem completely different from the nature of my 2007’s “I Am From” poem.
Making the video and recording the poem recitation were new experiences. I really loved working with iMovie and had a thrill searching through youtube, downloading numerous videos, watching them over and over again to see which scenes I would need, and going back to the search after making some progress in my video. I practiced a lot to recite the poem clearly and slowly as Professor Perl advised me to. I had to redo my recording many times, which was a bit frustrating. But it familiarized my ears to my voice, and I no longer cringe whenever I hear myself from the video. There was one particular part where the sound volume of the voice-over diminished, and I didn’t know how to fix that despite the countless re-do’s. Unfortunately, I had to leave the recording as it is despite that problem. I also found places where I could have done better in, but this work was a big learning process. The completed video made me see the poem in a dimension so foreign and amazing. This wonderful feeling made me more inclined to work with iMovie again.
Alhamdulillah, I really enjoyed the Digital Story project!
I really enjoyed doing this project because it allowed me to look at some the best times in my life. Although I did find difficulty in the technicalities of using iMovie and trying to transfer files, I feel now that my next iMovie project will be much better. I really enjoyed flipping through old photo albums and revisiting old memories with friends and some family I have not seen for quite some time, it even made me reach out to some older friends of mine.
It was my first time making any kind of movie and I had a very difficult time with the timing of music, my speaking, and the pictures. If I could do it over again I would have played around more with the affects for the pictures.
Also condensing my pictures and grouping them together was semi- difficult for me. I also was unable to download any videos from Facebook or from my old computers through online files, because it said the files for damaged. This was not only frustrating but disappointing because a lot of the videos were from me and my friends and me and family and they would have added to the fun memoir of my life I was trying to create.
For me, writing the poem seemed much easier than making the video. (Perhaps a little of which was complicated because of our inexperience with iMovie, although I was surprised to find it so user-friendly.) While putting the video together, I found I already had very specific images I wanted to use because they were the images I related to the memories, and while this didn’t quite complicate my making of the video, it made it so it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I found it interesting that many of the memories or events I referenced in my poem were things which went undocumented. No picture exist of me and my sister drawing on the underside of tables.
It was certainly an enjoyable learning experience both in terms of software and diction, but also of ourselves.
It was fun to see how everyone else tackled this assignment, and how some of us focused on short time spans either long ago or much more recently, or whether they wrote about all they could remember to present day. It was also interesting to see as writers, how my classmate organized their poems– If like Harry’s they were compartmentalized, or whether they showed a ‘stream-of-consciousness’ perspective.