Chili XXX

https://youtu.be/dFHjlWrxO6A

The preceding video is my final presentation for IST 646.  In it, I use video, narration, photos, music, sound, and LOTS of transitions.  It's been a few years since I worked on something this involved, and wish I had more footage.

What I ended up with is pretty good, but the narration ends abruptly, otherwise I think it's great.  I hope you enjoy it as well, and I think I should probably load this onto my chili blog right after finishing this post.

This process was definitely time-consuming - shooting the video took an entire evening, editing it took me days, and finishing the written aspect of our final presentation should take me at least a few more hours.  There is some footage that I wasn't able to get - anyone actually eating the chili - because my toddler missed his nap and was being, for lack of a better term, quite a handful.  I also wish I got more footage of toppings and of my wife's cooking.  But I made do with what I had, and the result really isn't worse off for it.

Lastly, I forgot to say that I add 6 cloves of garlic!  I can't believe I forgot that one!

The Future of Storytelling

How do I see my own role in the future of storytelling, digital and/or oral?

I don’t see myself as a storyteller.  I think of what I do here more as a keeper of my own personal public record or an auto-documentary of sorts.  None of my posts reflect traditional storytelling structure, many do not have any lessons or morals, but they all seem to have just one thing in common: me.  If anyone out there is interested in what I have to say, then this is the only place to go.  While there may not be a demand for that sort of thing commercially, surely friends and family can get something out of it.  This is a personal record, and will probably be a great place to get inspiration for anyone writing my obituary.

So no, I don’t see myself having much of a future as an oral storyteller.  While I read to my son every day, I certainly am not going to turn this into a career.  Digitally, the stories I will probably tell most often will be how-to videos about placing inter-library loan holds.  Five years ago, I would have said that I wanted to be a digital storyteller, but now I want to be a librarian.  Now, I see myself as more of a story keeper than a teller, and I’m just fine with that. 

I hope that I keep up with my blog posts after this class ends.  I’ve been on here almost weekly for a little over a month, and looking at my recent activity, that’s more than the last five years combined in posts.  At the same time, I can’t justify spending time on something that is viewed so infrequently when I have what can best be described as a “butt load” of homework to do before the end of May 2016.  So, like all my other projects, I will continue to chant “May 2016” when anyone asks when I will get things done.  I’m busy now?  Just find me in May 2016 to find out what busy REALLY means. 

I will post my final project on here when it’s done.  Hopefully that’s not the last this blog ever sees of me, but if it is, then I’ll say thanks for reading and have a great day!

Popping the Question

This is my midterm project for my 'Storytelling' class at SU.

This is not the story I attempted to tell.  The first attempt at this was with video, not still images, and I was using FinalCutPro to edit.  It turns out, my version of FCP cannot handle High Definition video, and my laptop cannot handle the latest version of FCP.  So after a full day's work, I had to scrap the project.  I tried editing in other programs, but nothing gave me what I needed for the price I was willing to pay (nothing).

I may end up using that footage for an extra credit assignment, as the voiceover has already been recorded and music synced.  There is a computer lab where I work that has the software and equipment I need to finish it up.  Here's hoping!

On to this assignment.  It's fairly basic, I used Audacity (which I'm really enjoying more every time I use it) for audio and WeVideo to throw it together with pictures.

The story speaks for itself, and it's two minutes long, so I'll just let you see for yourself.

Silverstein's Engine

The following is from Shel Silverstein's 'Where the Sidewalk Ends,' and was completed through an assignment for my Digital Storytelling class at Syracuse University.  

First, I chose to read from this book because I thought it would lend itself well to my assignment of a self-contained story in 60 seconds, and in reading through the entire book today, this one was perfect in length and lent itself very well to easy-to-find sound effects.  

I recorded the audio using my computer's built-in microphone, which is frowned upon professionally.  I attempted to use an external mic, but after hours of fiddling with it both on my laptop and a nearby desktop, I decided to see how awful the laptop's mic would sound.  It turns out, it sounds great!  

In the background are files from freesound.org, I knew I wanted some train sounds, but ended up book-ending some birds chirping for a nice outdoor feel.  Of course (spoiler alert!) there's a big crash sound in there too.

I used Audacity for mixing.  Initially, I tried Final Cut Pro but having not done this level of sound mixing, I decided to use the other program as there was a 30-minute tailor-made tutorial of how to do this project.  Of course, there was a lot to learn, and I'm very happy that I have a little bit of a background in video editing, and Audacity was very similar to Final Cut in many ways.  That being said, the longest part of this assignment was tweaking the audio.  

I also ended up using buzzsprout.org to upload the audio as Blogger would not allow a straight-up audio upload.  I didn't include a song, as anything I could think of was either irrelevant or distracting.  I know the assignment required it, but instead I threw in three sound effects that are under my reading for the entirety of the piece.

Was this a boring post?  Probably, unless you're my professor or a classmate, then you might find this interesting.  Everybody should give that one-minute story a listen.  Even if you don't like my voice, the Shyamalan twist at the 50-second mark is a doozy!