A journey toward completing my first video project

Take II -- My doctoral journey by David Peck: click here to view

Produced by: Maddening and insane projects

This is an amazing project, and I don't want to tell you how many hours I have spent, learning both through failure, and through a few successes along the way.

I need to state again for the record that I am fairly adept at technology, I have a good understanding of filmed stories, and a good eye toward what works together. The difficulty lies in the mix of my expectations and ability to get out of this box and screen what I know can be produced and what is actually being presented.

With all of the learning from my first draft, and comments from the academy reviewer, Dr. Ohler -- I took a step back and started from the beginning. I spent an evening recording the VO, again. My expectation was that it would be seemless, and I would not have any issues. Incorrect statement #1, as my headset was giving me troubles. I'll be going back to Best Buy today.

I was more successful in my narrative pacing, but then created an issue with a need for more images, as I had increased the length of the video. 

From there, I removed some of the music, added some additional background effects, and began to go through the details of aligning all of the different pieces up. AHHHHH! An adjustment with the VO, would cause an adjustment with the picture, and then the sound effect would be off a half a beat.  

Several hours later, and now completely jadded toward my project, I have posted Take II, for all to see. I think it's a bit better, but am at the mercy of technology and time as I have again exhausted the allocated time for today. But it's just a three minute video... yeah... right. :)

Outliers. In life, they are people who are unusual, abnormal or different. In statistics, they are data points, or small sets of data that are outside the normal curve, and yet can present significant meaning or relevance. For Malcolm Gladwell, they identify  unique stories of success that tie to people, behavior, opportunities, and hard work and sometimes being at the right place, at the right time. So, what does that have to do with storytelling you ask? Nothing. . . and everything. Everything in that stories tend to be about the way we frame a question, problem or issue in a manner that helps us to identify a problem, and then transition to a solution. Outliers by nature tend to be different, or sometimes are identified as problems.  Problems tend to have solutions because people like to solve problems, as compared to people solving things that are already solved. Make sense? If not, check out Outliers, as it's a great book and an interesting read. 

What sticks and why?

Heath and Heath present a facinating look at ideas and why some stick, and others don't. They identify six key principles or qualities to creating ideas that stick. They are:

Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotional, and stories. While I'm in the process of reading through this book, I find it interesting to compare Heath, Olher and Haven's different and yet similar perspectives on the elements that come together to create a great story. One of the key learnings identified early in the book is the manner in which we frame things from our perspective, and are blind to looking at anything from an external perspective. I wonder if this is tied to humanity, or if this is a western thought and behavior? So what is the key to this posting? S.U.C.C.E.S. is presented through simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, and emotional stories. It's the stories and the way we present them. They are the critical component. 

A reflection about the creation of "My doctoral journey"

What an amazing project! It's amazing to consider the amount of time and effort that it took to create this 2:30 media piece and the learning curve that accompanied it. 

I have a new level of respect for editors, voice over specialists, special effect artists, as well as all of the usual suspects (actors, directors, producers, musicians). 

My history with movies has always been on the distribution side, or as an executive with some vision that was handed off to someone more capable and adept at crafting the story from an audiovisual standpoint. 

Linked is my review of this first project.  Click here for the media review.

click here to watch

It's done. The first video is done. Whew. What a task, and a great learning curve. I feel like I'm between the ages of 3 and 5 and all of those synapsis' are all firing at once. There's so much to comprehend, so much to discover and some much to get done. So, here it is... My Doctoral Journey. 

Enjoy and remember that it subscribes to the 80/ 20 rule. 80 % of this project took 20% of the time. The remaining 20% of the project, took at least 120% more time. O.k.... so the 80/20 rule didn't apply for my first project. Perhap for the next project.  

My first project...An autobiographical media experience

For my media project, I have been asked to create an autobiography. I need to create a story map, and then a script. From there, I have been tasked with creating a digital story using the tools and techniques presented in the literature and through our session. The script was more difficult than I thought, as I had to rework it so that it was written for the viewer, as compared to being written from my perspective. It has been a great learning experience, and has definately challenged me to test and try things out, and to not be aftraid of making mistakes and or using new applications that I previously had not used. Applications like imovie, photo booth, and Google docs. My doctoral Journey script has been linked through Google doc's. It is listed here. My doctoral Journey Script.

Stories, meaning, and life. . .

It's 9:43 a.m. on a Saturday morning in Southern California. We've been on storm alert for 24 hours -- receiving several inches of rain in a short amount of time. Today however, the sun is shining and everyone is out and about in the village. From listening to live music at the local guitar store to walking dogs and kids -- the coffee shop where I study is buzzing with activity. With each passing person, I wonder what their day holds? What their weekend will be consumed with and most importantly. . . what is their story?

For that matter. . . what is a story? Kendall Haven, in storytelling fashion isn't about to easily give up his definition or provide a few tight sound bytes on his summary. Rather, he is interested in walking us through the context of storytelling, and at this point. . . what it is not. It's an interesting process and goes against the grain of today's immediacy and urgency for information. I wonder, are soundbytes downsized stories that will present any lasting memory? Are they crafted for the urgency in the moment? Only time will tell.   

In the era when many believe that everything is a story, Haven provides an interesting statement which he calls the "Blanket Myth." It's quoted from an epiphany that a writer, Nora Ephron shares. He quotes her as she states, "the beginning of my understanding that just about everything was a story" (Haven, 2007, p. 14). Haven answers her response stating, "Everything is not a story -- but it could become one" (2007, p.14). 

     

Social media story telling and Twitter... Is there a link?

I recently stumbled upon (a friend sent a link) a short presentation on the constructive uses of Twitter and learning. It's facinating to think that a hyper-connection site like Twitter could create and organize a learning mechanism around story telling. Check out the link to Google docs as this blogger posted this presentation on the different uses. The narrative use of Twitter.

I've now jumped into Kendall Haven's book Story Proof: the science behind the startling power of story and am really enjoying the desconstruction and reconstruction of the foundations and argumentation of stories. Haven does a great job of transitioning the simple perception of what is meant by the word "story" into a more thoughtful and engaging conversation about its deep and rich meaning as it relates to the way that it is described. Haven challenges us to think broadly about our definition stating, "If stories are uniquely effective inside the human mind, then let's use the recent advances in cognitive sciences, developmental psychology, and neural biology to understand the specficis of how the human mind processes, understands, creates meaning from, and remembers incoming narrative information. We will then use the elements of that process as the foundation of our definition of story" (Haven, 2007, p. 19). Wow, good stuff to challenge as he aptly shares our grey matter or goo so that we transition from an older framing of one's childhood memories of storytime into a more robust discussion about a rich and full definition that includes all of the complexities of the process.