Here is a look at my second try at digital storytelling. It's all about my family and our adventures together. Let me know what you think!
Early in the process...
The story for this second video is taking me a little longer to hash out than the first one. This time, I gathered my pictures very quickly. It helped that this is about my family and I am an obsessive picture taker when it comes to my kids. I had a lot to choose from.
Honestly it really came to narrowing down which pictures I would like to use for the project. Obviously first things first, no pictures that are embarrassing or make me look ugly. But beyond that, I simply looked for those that highlighted what it is that we do as a family.
I decided to stick with using iMovie since I used it last time and felt like there was more to offer than I really used it for the first time. Since I have a basic working knowledge of how it worked, I feel like I will be able to do more with it this time around.
When I pulled all the pictures together into iMovie, it honestly surprised me at how quickly I hit the four-minute mark. To me four minutes just feels way too long for a family video. I think it reminds me of the idea of being trapped at someone’s house, watching their slideshow from their vacation. I do not want people to feel that way!
So with the pictures ready and knowing what I am going to be talking about, it made finding my music easy as well. First I went through what iMovies had to offer and there was not a whole lot that I liked. Most of their songs and sounds are very short. For this being a longer video, it would mean a 45-second song playing on loop the whole time. That would drive everybody crazy and I sure don’t want to lose my audience, especially that way!
So I searched out Creative Commons royalty-free music and found something I felt fit in well with the lightheartedness of the video. I wanted something light and breezy and happy. I used my final slide as the credits for the song.
Even though I know what I want to talk about, I am not really sure of the exact things I would like to say. My family loves kayaking and road trips and to try new things, but I am trying to figure out a way to express that and it mean something to my audience. I am not quite sure if that makes sense. I guess what I am trying to say is that I do not want my audience sitting there thinking, ”what do I care where you go on vacation?”
I don’t want it to be just a scrapbook of us taking trips. I would like for it to have a purpose and be engaging. I would like for them to walk away and get something out of it. I am just not certain how to go about doing that yet.
Story number one was much easier in this stage, as far as writing a script goes, because it was a story that I have heard a thousand times. I knew the plot. I knew the character. I knew where it was located and filming and taking pictures was relatively easy. (Until I realized how unsteady my hands are!)
This time, I am struggling more with fleshing out the story. I believe that the struggle I am having stems from this being a story about me and my family. It is personal, so that makes it a little tougher.
I am learning through this entire process, that I need to craft my voice in storytelling and build my confidence in that I do have something to say.
After it is all said and done...
I enjoyed creating this second movie so much more than the first. Even though the story was easier the first time, there was just something that clicked for me going through the process again. Knowing that, makes me very excited to continue trying to make digital stories.
With the first story I had a full script and I recorded it in one long recording. I wish I could say I did it right the first time but it took multiple, multiple tries. In the end I struggled with the audio of that first story and was never fully satisfied with what I got.
With this second story, even though I did not have a script only a direction, I just felt like it was such a more creative and organic process. I enjoyed it so much more. I think I realized this was the best way for this video to go when I was getting my older son to record his ideas and thoughts for the video. I realized I did not want to put words in his mouth. I wanted it to be genuine. I wanted it to be real. It could not be those things if I was telling him exactly what to say, so I left it up to the kids and my husband to choose their own words.
I gave them a theme of what the video was about. Since I already had the pictures put together and had music with it, I let them watch what I had so far and started off by asking them how it made them feel or what it made them think about in terms of traveling, families, and that sort of thing. From there, the story really begin to take shape on its own.
Once the narrative began to come together, I did have to make some changes, mostly in picture layout. I took a few out all together and found some others that fit better with the story.
I understood the iMovie program much better this go around as well. This gave me a lot more flexibility. I added captions to explain what was happening or where we were. I was also able to split clips and break up audio. It allowed me to weed out the dead spaces and keep the story flowing.
I worked a lot more with the audio this time, adjusting volumes, adding narration and background music, and weaving different people’s narratives together. It was a lot more satisfying and I felt like the finished product was more in line with the vision I had for it to begin with.
I was surprised, though I should not have been, at the amount of time I spent in “post production.” There always seemed to be some little tweak or change or edit that I felt had to be made. It was both enjoyable and maddening. I cannot imagine what it would be like to do that type of work on a feature-length film. I would never be done with it! I finally had to make myself just stop so that I could turn it in before deadline.
It really makes me want to go back and re-work the first story on the Gray Man.
I must say, one thing I did not like about iMovie is that it made saving the video into a file and sending it cumbersome. I am supposing it is such a slow process because the file is so big. It takes quite a while for my Mac to convert it into a sharable file.
In in the end, I am pleased with how it turned out and grateful for the experience. Nothing quite trumps experience when it comes to creating something. All the tips in the world are nothing without rilling up your sleeves and doing it for yourself.
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