So, here's my very first attempt at "digital storytelling"!
The quality of the photos is mostly quite poor -- I used them because I already had them as a series that pretty much tell their own story. If I were doing this for more than a "trial run" experience, I'd re-shoot everything. (Think of the grainy photos as "impressionistic" and perhaps you won't be so annoyed by them...!)
Initially, I'd planned to find instrumental music to play in the background so that I could write and record a story in my own voice over the "slides." But once I thought of the song "I Believe I Can Fly" and got the timing just right, I decided that voice-overs would be too distracting. (I'm an auditory learner, and I find vocal music with narration on top of it highly distracting and extremely frustrating since I can't concentrate on either one and, thus, miss both.)
Plus, at this point I've already put more than 5.5 hours into the project -- I've gotta move on!
I did end up rearranging the slides to better match the music. I'd initially planned to put the slide of me riding Bella and smiling at the camera followed by the slide of me listening to my instructor followed by the slide of me jumping followed by the slide of me smiling after the jump. But the best emotional intensity seemed to come from aligning the song's words "I believe I can fly" with the slide of me jumping.
I also ended up hunting for a few more photos to "flesh out" the movie -- I wanted something cool for "miracle," so I found the photo of someone (not me -- yet!) riding through the waves. And the two closing photos I like because they are more up close and personal.
The "story" told by my project is more ambiguous than I meant it to be. If I'd actually scripted it and narrated it, I'd be talking quite fast, telling various stories about my training in English Huntseat as a child, all the times I got thrown but got back on the horse, cracking a vertabrae eight years ago and fearing I'd never ride again, etc. And I could still do this in the future -- as I tell my students, when a project goes a different direction than planned, save all the “goodies” from the original plan. They may come in handy later!
But this project went from didactic story to mood piece, and I think the ambiguity allows the viewer to explore his/her own longings to “fly.”
I started the project with 9 photos, a storyboard form, and Post-It notes (to re-arrange on the storyboard form.) But once I got going, the whole project took on a life of its own. It was time-consuming and messy and a bit frustrating but, ultimately, very rewarding. There's a LOT more I wish I could have done to make this a really impactful piece.
To be honest, I didn't just stop because I felt like 5.5 hours was enough time -- this is the stage of "drafting" at which I'd take a piece of writing to a critique group. It's done enough for input, but not so done that I'm wedded to everything about it. I'm open to suggestions, ideas, questions, etc. (Seriously -- if you've actually read this far, I'd love to hear from you! What worked about this digital story? What didn't? What suggestions do you have?)
And this would be wonderful to see happen in the classroom -- to have students bring their "rough drafts" with all the bits and pieces they're still pondering. They could have two or three versions of a particular segment and have the class let them know which one was most emotionally compelling. (Kinda like "real" movies, where alternate endings are field tested before the movie is finalized.)
I really got a feel for the process, and for me, at least, it really does mirror the writing process in MANY ways. One thing I'll be working on in the classroom is being intentional about using cross-over vocabulary to describe similar stages of writing and digital storytelling.
Click HERE to view the video "Horse Crazy Girl"!