During the first ten minutes of class, write and edit your summary memo on chapter nine, “Social Media and Storytelling” from Miller’s Digital Storytelling. After you have had a chance to post your memo into the comments of this blog entry, we will discuss the chapter and look at some examples.
This movie highlights the importance of good communication skills and what can happen when things are not clear. Good communication skills are key to connecting with other in life, work and relationships. Without effective communication, the true meaning of a message and can turn into error, misunderstanding, and lead to frustration.
Good communication is when both parties understand the same message and meaning.
Reflection
Making this short movie was fun yet challenging. Coming up with an idea was really hard because I know so much but could not think of one idea right away. I kept waiting for some magical inspiration to define my movie. I think if it was something I was constantly thinking about, it would have been easier but spent many hours just brainstorming.  After a while, I decided to think about what I already know and decided to use communication skill—the subject of one of my blogs—to formulate an idea.
Once I established a concept, it was easy to come up with an idea for the script. Deciding to use only two people was necessary to show how communication can become confusing and taken out of context. Also I thought it was good to include that we should not take anything for granted when communicating but question whether a connection has taken place.
As my original photos of Barbie and Ken dolls were not accessible, I decided to use PowToon. I found it easy to use and create content and story. The little animated figures were quite easy to set up but my biggest challenge was the timing. Having set the images first made the timing difficult to coordinate. If creating another video, I will narrate first and set the images to the narration. I also learned how easy it is to upload a video on YouTube and present is a viewable content.
The process has taught me that it take planning to create a video and that it is important to look at each part of the process before filming. The challenge of making a video that people will want to watch and make sense yet short and simple has helped me to build my skills. Also using a storyboard was instrumental to the process.
Analytics
My video has 11 views and I have four subscibers to my YouTube channel. In order to get this video to be more visible, I have added tags and shared it with friends.
This is an archive of my fictional digital story entitled Rock Bottom: PTW Survival Guide. The film is to help not only Professional and Technical Major students here at City Tech but also other college students. In order to achieve this, I tried to execute a script that was both relatable and entertaining. I hope you enjoy.
The experience of creating this YouTube digital story was insightful a few distinct ways. First to start off with, I have made videos before but never have I produced one in the sense that every decision I made before, during, and after shooting this video was carefully thought of. When I wrote the script for Rock Bottom: PTW Survival Guide, I wanted my language to be able to reach students in the major but also to be understandable and relatable to all college students. I wanted the video to be shareable and I believe I was able to capture that in the humor I created with the storyline and to some effect showcase my knowledge on participating structures. Although, I probably could have executed some of the scenes better I believe that the overall production was quite effective. The choice to make short scenes on Snapchat incorporated my learned knowledge of how attention structures work. I also incorporated and to my knowledge effectively showcased character arc as well as a strong plot, and good overall story structure in the allotted time for this project. Reflecting now, I can say my biggest takeaway from this project is how each detail affects the over process and progress of developing and producing a story. In this case, the script effected the filming, and the events to arise from filming changed the overall outcome of the move. This process has taught me that when producing a story, the structural components that come before are just as important as the execution of the movie itself. As I continue to create digital stories I hope to take these learned aspects and cultivate them even more.
Before having to delete my YouTube channel for specific reasons my video received 11 views and 2 likes. My overall engagement increased over 100% and I was able to gain 3 new subscribers.
Note all characters, concepts and ideas are solely of my creation.Â
This is a short fictional video about interns learning to work as a team to get a task done. They’re not used to working together or sharing the lime light so they agree to separate the work and just stick it all together at the end. They come to find that this isn’t productive as the pieces of the project rely on the other elements to be effective and cohesive. Through some persistence and encouragement they manage to share the work and get it done surprising even the boss with their job well done.
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REFLECTION
This project was really fun and engaging from the start, though at first I had no idea what I was going to do or how I’d carry out any idea I came up with. I finally settled on the idea about a lesson in team work because A its something I hate doing and B something I’m learning about in another class of mine. I aimed to make it funny but clear enough that users would be able to clearly identify the purpose. I wrote it for a general audience so someone who was 4 or 44 could use and understand it, I kept it simple. I shaped it to have a 1 2 3 structure, Problem, chaos, solution. I didn’t want to over complicate or crowd the main idea where it was too long and unappealing to watch. The most difficult choice for me to make was to have the characters voice the script or to make it a silent movie. Being that I was working with minions and they’re known for not having “human” voices I elected to do a silent style movie with simple sound effects. I think the sound effects add to the humor and make it light to watch, over all I would say the video has a simple and easily achieved goal. I believe the video though super low budget and simple gets the point across, its not too long or complicated and the subtitles are short and easy to read.
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ANALYSIS
Based on the analytics of my YouTube video I would say strictly numbers based it flopped. Thats not to say though that in three weeks it could have hundreds of views. I think it has its purpose, though that may be limited to industries or even classes that focus on group work 4 views in 1 day is pretty cool being that nobody really knows its out there. I would like to keep publishing videos maybe of different genres to see if they have similar or completely opposite results to compare to this one.
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DISCLAIMER: The Minions are a trade mark of DISNEY, I do not own the minions and I did not create any of the figurines in this video.
Post a link to your YouTube Project 2 video into a comment on this blog post.
During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary memo focused on your reading of Chapter 8, “Your Audience” from Miller’s Digital Storytelling. We will discuss this after you have had a chance to write down your thoughts, and we will consider the questions raised by this chapter in regard to your current project.
During the first ten minutes of today’s class, write a summary memo on the topics that stood out in your mind while reading Chapter 7, “Structure in Digital Storytelling” in Miller. There are rich descriptions of types of structures. Which of these can you think of examples of? We will discuss these after you’ve had a chance to write your memos and collect your thoughts.
During today’s class, begin writing a memo about your plan of action for filming and editing your YouTube video. Where do you plan to film? Who will be helping you? How will you be editing? We will reserve some time during our next class for me to help in any way needed to move your projects forward. Post your execution memo as a comment to this blog entry before our next class.
During today’s class, we will start with your beginning of class writing assignment, discuss the reading, and then turn our attention to your scripts and storyboards for Project 2. With the remaining class time, you can plan the execution of your video (filming, editing, etc.) and record it in a brief memo.
To begin, spend the first ten minutes of class writing a summary memo of your reading from Chapter 6, “Characters, Dialogue, and Emotion.” This chapter is packed with information, which we will review together momentarily. For now, memorialize what you took away from the chapter as being important or useful information. Did you think of examples from your own experience that connect to the different topics in the chapter? Make a note of these in your summary and tell us about them during discussion and lecture.
Before class on Monday, Feb. 29, write your YouTube video script and draw your storyboard. Remember, the script should capture setting, action, edits, and dialog, and your storyboard should depict the video shots you need to capture to create your video. By thinking through your digital video story with the aid of these documents, it will give you a solid plan for capturing and editing your video, which saves you time and energy later in the process. Put another way, measure twice and cut once.
Bring five printed copies of your script and storyboard to class on Monday, Feb. 29, and copy-and-paste your script (text) into a comment to this blog post. Save the PDF of your storyboard for your completed project in your portfolio.
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