Media Production Spring 2008

Where will you go with the skills learned from this class? What technical skills will you plan to use in the future? How will you use them?

This course also introduced certain social skills of giving constructive criticism. Did this help you? Will you use this skill again?

The skills and introductions in this course may not work well in your future careers. If there is something you tried in this course that you will not use again, what is it? And why not?

Posted by Robbie & Penny

As information professionals, we are driven to provide information seekers with the resources and abilities that help them solve their information needs and, hopefully, improve their lives.  Many of us have chosen this profession because we are passionate about helping people as well as passionate about the resources themselves because they have had a direct impact on our lives.

How have the Web 2.0 skills that you have learned in this class impacted your behavior on the Internet?  Were you already using the benefits of Web 2.0 prior to this class?  Are you comfortable with Web 2.0 resources on the Internet?

The only thing that doesn’t change is the need to adapt to change.  Has your interaction with Web 2.0 skills this semester given you any insight into how you will approach future emerging technologies on the Internet so that you can introduce information seekers to these technologies?  

What types of changes have you made to your traditional research process for a paper that only your professor will read due to the fact that your web 2.0 article will be read by many of your classmates and even strangers? How does this change of audience affect how you will write your article? Which is better, a research paper or an article? Does any of this imply anything regarding your ethics or does it correspond to something else?

By Kelly and Natalie

How is your topic evolving? Have you found that what you initially thought would be a great topic is leading to a dead end? Have you made any changes or updates to your project? Now that you’re doing research and getting your ideas together is there anything that you would like to reflect upon at this stage that may be of use to your classmates? This is your opportunity to vent and share where you are in the ‘production’ process.

* Moderated by: LaToya D & Juli D

The required research for the Web 2.0 assignment includes “chapters, or reports that are relevant to your general topic, at least two of which are scholarly, peer-reviewed articles.” Please share how you are planning to do your research. Where did you find your scholarly articles? Are you having trouble finding research on your topic?

A component of our web 2.o assignment includes interviewing an information specialist who is using some aspect of web 2.0 and/or participatory culture in use.  Please share with the class how you will conduct your interview ( in person, over the phone, email).  What types of questions will you ask?  Do you think the interview will be helpful in better understanding your particular topic of web 2.0.   Please describe your topic and provide the name of the person you are interviewing, his/her job title and where he/she works.

The Web 2.0 article requires a digital media component.  If you have already decided how you will present this component,  please share your thought process.  What type of digital media componet did you choose? Why did you choose this particular format? How does it enhance your article?    If you have already created your digital media component, did you encounter any problems? How did you resolve them? 

We all have had different experiences using software programs to create our digital stories. Please comment on your experience with the programs you used. Tell us the name of the programs and please include a link to them (especially if they are open source programs). What program features worked well for you? Did you run into any program limitations during the creative process? Were you able to find a way to overcome or circumvent those limitations? Do you have a “favorite feature” in the program?”

P.S. This post is from Danielle W and Rebecca M.

Audio and visuals of one or more varieties are used in the creation of digital stories.  Throughout the process of creating your digital story, how have you decided what resources to use?  Did you go into the process with a firm idea of what you wanted regarding sound and imagery or did your ideas change as you have progressed?  Have your most useful resources been your (or your family’s) media or media you found on the Internet?  Has your intended direction led to frustrations in trying to find sounds/music or images/video?  Have your choices of one media been affected by the other (i.e. – sound affects choice of visual or vice versa)?  Give specific examples where applicable.

As you were searching through pictures to use in your Digital Story, what emotions were stirred up that you had not anticipated? Did any of these emotions surprise you or lead you to another time or place? Family pictures may have had a more serious impact but even wandering through Flickr could stir up emotions or reminders. Share what feelings you had when going through pictures for your digital story.

Question by Candice Valencia and Barbara Watson

The Digital Storytelling Cookbook defines storyboard as  “a place to plan out a visual story in two dimensions.  The first dimension is time:  what happens first, next, and last.  The second is interaction:  how does the audio information – the voiceover narrative of your story and music – interact with the images of video?  In addition, a storyboard can be a notation of where and how visual effects- transitions, animations compositional organization of the screens – will be used.” (Lambert, 2007, p.26). 

Are you using a storyboard for your project?  Why or why not?  If you are using one, what format are you using and why did you choose that format?  If not, what strategy or strategies are you using to plan and produce your video project?

Here are some storyboard templates that I found:

StoryCenter Format (please scroll down to storyboard template)

PDF Pad Format

University of Houston’s College of Education Format (click on Storyboarding and you will get a PDF file on how to create a storyboard using MS Word)   

Please include the link to other storyboard formats you may have found online which could be used for our digital story project.

Reference:

Lambert, Joe.  Digital Storytelling Cookbook February 2007. Berkeley, California: Digital Diner Press, 2006.

There are three general types of visual elements used in digital stories: photos, videos, and writing or graphics. How do you plan on using and combining these to express the meaning of your story? Will you use all three or rely more heavily on one or two? How will you transition between them to give meaning? Are there any other visuals you will use? If you have a good example of how people have combined these different kinds of elements to communicate expressively, please provide a link and describe how they use visuals. You might consider examples of other digital stories, or a clip/excerpt from a film or commercial.

If your plan for your digital story involves using a music track, how do you plan to use it?  Will it set the general mood for your story? Will it set the pace and rhythm for your edits?  Have you found any media clips or articles that have given you inspiration on how to use music in your digital story.  If you already have selected your music, share a link to it and mention how you chose it as well as where.  Feel free to offer suggestions to your classmates regarding terms and tags to use in the search.

In planning the layout of your digital story, what strategies and/or techniques are you employing? In editing your digital story, what methods are you employing? Please supply links to sites or articles that you found helpful along with your explanation.  Also include any tips or tricks you have found useful along with the name of the video software you are using.

In Chapter 11 of our textbook, Diaz and Fields refer to Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind regarding the shift from an Information Age to a Conceptual Age. Pink advises that the ability to tell a story will help people in this new age because “stories provide context for facts”. Dicuss how one could instruct a person or persons in a digital story format. Provide examples of digital stories that also instruct or educate. Could using digital stories benefit not only libraries but also businesses and other types of organizations?

I thought I would add another discussion question to the mix for this week. What do you think makes for a compelling digital story? I’m really interested in what you think, not just what the readings say. So do refer to ideas from the readings, but focus on your own experience and insights. Another way to answer this question is to provide a link to a specific digital story that you’ve found online and explain why and how you think it is compelling. What draws you in? What makes you care?

As Karen Diaz and Anne M. Fields note in their essay “Digital Storytelling, Libraries, and Community,” it can take a tremendous amount of time and effort to regularly produce digital stories. Then, once resources have been devoted to creating unique and effective digital stories, producers of those stories must decide how to share their stories. Diaz and Fields note that simply using YouTube or other Internet providers may not be the most effective way to reach the target audience. So, how can libraries, educational institutions, and other organizations best share the digital stories that they create? What types of specific outlets are available for organizations to promote their stories?

Some libraries or media centres find it useful to place digital stories on social networking sites as one means to increase patronage. What effect do you think creating a digital story about a library or media centre will have on user patronage? Can you think of any particular stories that illustrate your point? Please remember to cite from the reading and include a link to a story if you have one.

In Chapter 11, Digital Storytelling, Libraries, and Community, Diaz and Fields talk about how public and academic libraries can use digital storytelling but nothing is said about school libraries. On p. 131, they state “if hardware and software are kept simple enough, people of all ages and walks of life can create effective digital stories.” How do you see school libraries using digital stories?  Would digital stories be something that only media specialist would create or is this something you see students of all ages creating?  Give 2 examples of how you would use digital stories in a school library.  I encourage you to find examples that are already in use in school libraries.  Include a link or reference to where you found the ideas.

In the reading for this week, Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, it states that “Creators benefit from the fact that the copyright law does not exactly specify how to apply fair use.” (p.4)

There are four categories included in the Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use.  (A video, Fair Use and Free Speech (7 min 15 secs), further explains the Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use.  Also, examples of successful fair use in each of these four categories can be found on the Center for Social Media website.)

View the film High Calorie Advertising (6 min 19 secs) and using the best practice guidelines discuss and debate how the filmmakers have applied one or more of the categories of fair use in the film.

Please cite the reading to support your conclusions.