Pocket Scavenger #5

Location Found: the coffee table in my living room

Time: about 1 PM

Date: December 10th

Story: This elephant was drawn by one of my friends that lives in the apartment across the hall from mine. It was a small part of a bigger page of a note that she left for us to find after class. Here is the whole note:

This is a really nice gesture considering finals week has rolled around once again! It's a nice little reminder during a stressful time. This little elephant drawing is one she draws on everything. In our heads, we associate elephants with her because she loves them and has them all over her bedroom. 

"Do something fast without really thinking" -As the alteration, I hung this cute note and drawing on our bulletin board in our apartment for everyone to see. That was the first thing that came to my mind to do!

Pocket Scavenger #4

Location Found: My bedroom

Time: 3:15 PM

Date: December 11th, 2016

Story: This ticket was to see singer, Kate Voegele, perform in a small cafe located in Pittsburgh. I went with my cousin and her friend to this event and we were soo soo, way to excited to see her! We watched her on our favorite TV show, One Tree Hill, over and over again for years before this. We enjoyed her performance very much and after the show we had the opportunity to meet and talk to her. We could not believe it really happened and it is all we talked about for weeks! This ticket was from last year and in a couple days we have tickets to go watch her again in Pittsburgh. This time will be even better because another former One Tree Hill character is touring with her. So we will also have the opportunity to see Tyler Hilton perform!

The pocket scavenger told me to combine my ticket with a photo. So here it is: when we met Kate Voegele! (pictured second from left)

Class Group Activity

Our professor had asked each class member of Digital Storytelling to gather a few digital pictures of body parts for our next class meeting. During this class meeting, we used these pictures to work with group members to construct a figure with. We also had to alter the pictures and create a specific rule for each group member to follow throughout the creation. There were lots of giggles heard from the entire class during this process. This is the crazy figure that my group came up with:

 
Our rule that we followed during the creation was that no body part could be in the spot it was supposed to on a human body. We had three members in our group and each member contributed and altered two images before combining them to make one. My contribution was the arms of the figure, that are actually pictures of feet. I used the platform, Paint, to airbrush colors onto the feet/arms. I also gave it dots using a variety of colors. The other picture that I contributed and edited was the nose picture, which is actually standing in as an eye on this figure. All of my group members used Paint to complete this mini-project.

Device 6?

To help with our upcoming interactive narrative project, we turned to interactive game play. My professor brought in iPads for the class to play on. We were split into groups and each of the three groups got to experience a different game. My group got to play a game entitled Device 6.

The game, Device 6, has a few chapters to it. As a group, we only made it through the first chapter. The game begins with giving the viewer a game player number. This element makes you feel like the controlled of the story, similar to game play. When first launching Device 6, I was thrown off by which way to hold my device (iPad) during play. I quickly learned that I had to hold my device multiple different ways throughout the story. The story was one the player had to figure out how to solve. My group and I found this part to be unexpectedly challenging. Yet the game definitely had us intrigued, we just had to figure it out!

After a pretty lengthy amount of time attempting to solve this puzzle, we admittedly turned to the internet for assistance. Although we were unable to solve it on our own, we realized we had come pretty close. I noticed the importance of sound in this piece, in which I was not expecting either. There was a statement regarding it's importance in the beginning of the story, yet I kind of ignored it at first. Along with the sound effects needed to solve the puzzle, the game had lots of great graphics to experience. I particularly loved how the pictures moved with the frame as you scrolled through, allowing more of the picture to be visible. I wish that was an element I would be capable of adding to my final project.

One of my group members, Lauren, pointed out that Device 6 reminded her of iSpy games that she played as a child. I agreed with her and thought maybe the creators could have somehow based the idea for this story from something like that.

Overall, the game had very interesting graphics and sounds. The puzzle the game player had to solve though, was rather difficult causing us to give up. We did not even make it to the remaining chapters the story had to offer us. The game also gave me a bit of a headache with all the spinning around of the device, despite that the experience was overall enjoyable.

Final Project Brainstorm

We made it to the final project of Digital Storytelling class! This project is creating a multimedia, interactive digital story. We have created many digital stories now for this class but the difference in this one is that it is required to have an interactive element. This interactive feature can be hypertext, game play, or anything that classifies as interactive. This story must include at least three of the elements we covered in class out of video, image, sound, and text.

I had no immediate ideas pop into my head when first learning about this final project. I first thought I need to figure out a digital platform to put together this project with first. So I did some research and found ideas such as Prezi or Google Docs. I eventually came up with some starting points to go off. I thought about putting together something for a college student with an undeclared major to explore. Or I could go a communication major route for it and have different options of ways they can use the major for a future career. I thought those two ideas could possibly be done on Prezi. I also thought about using my image, video, or audio story by adding addition elements to them on a different platform, yet still keeping the same idea. This may be a good idea for my image story in particular. I could apply it to Google Docs, taking the audience to the different locations. With the location idea, i also thought about doing something with a unique creature that I was introduced to while vacationing in Mexico last summer. This unique creature is called a Coati.

So those are the ideas I have at the moment and I have the rest of my Thanksgiving break/weekend to decide which one would help me create the best final digital story project! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! ☺

Investigating Nature

This idea came to me in remembrance of a Netflix piece I watched over the summer about some of the world's cutest animals. Red pandas stuck out in my mind and I have been interested in knowing more bout them. Their scientific name being Ailurus Fulgens, which I would have no clue where to begin in pronouncing that name. Kinda like how when you think of sunflowers, you don't imediately think of their other, less common name: Helianthus.

 **

The red panda species are endangered. They usually have a life span of 8 years when living in the wild and usually weigh 12-20 pounds. The pandas use their tails as wraparound blankets in the cold mountains they live in.

**

Red pandas unlike most carnivores, are not actually carnivores. They are mostly herbivores. They eat bamboo and leaves, like the well-known black and white pandas. Unlike them, they also eat things like fruit, acorns, roots, and eggs. They are also a fan of fake sugar.

**

This adorable species can be found in Nepal, northeastern India (West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh), Bhutan, and parts of China.

**

Red pandas are generally solitary, yet there are a couple of exceptions to that. Young red pandas grow rather slowly and develop extended associations with their mothers. This can last for over a year in time. The red pandas also have short relationships during annual breeding seasons.

**

Video Story Tell-All

My video story was inspired by a real event that took place in my life regarding one of my close friends. I had written a poem about this event for my high school English class. At the time, I did not reveal the actual meaning behind this poem, with respect for my friend, being that my friend went to that high school. I just let people believe that it was just concerned with an overall world view of one's purpose in life. Then in college, I was enrolled in a class called Creative Non-Fiction. For this class, I had an assignment to come up with a segmented piece of writing. This assignment gave me the idea to find that poem I had written in high school and to break it down with the written story of my thoughts during this time, in between each stanza of the poem. So that is what I did. Then for this Digital Storytelling class that I am currently enrolled in, I turned this new piece of writing into a visual, a video story to be exact. The words of the pieces of the poem, broken down by stanza, scroll on the screen in silence scattered throughout the video. In between stanzas I used my voice-over of reading the descriptive parts of my thoughts during this event. Occasionally throughout the narration, I added sound effects under my voice that went with what I was talking about at the moment. For example, I used hallway ambience noise, laughter, thundering rolling, and a brief part of a song. This added an extra element for the audience to relate to my feelings at the time. I also used some slow motion video shots. Overall, I was happy with the result of my video story, though there are a couple parts of it that I feel like I could've improved, had I had more access to certain places or people to film.

Video Story Reviews

Classmate's Reviews:

Lauren F.- "UPJ Campus Tour":

My favorite part of Lauren's video was the view out of the window from high up in a building looking down on our campus. It was a beautiful shot! Lauren also had fun music playing in the background. She had many panning shots and walking video shots that really captured the greatness our campus has to offer.

Jacey- "Story for Noone":

I really enjoyed how Jacey had some of the same clips spread out throughout the video and came back to them to finish capturing the memory. I wish I would have thought of something like that, it was really effective! I also liked the narration scene, how she used her shadow as she walked while introducing her story.

Brandon- "One Last Time":

Brandon used a lot of ground scenes made to be eye level by placing the camera on the ground. He also had a close up smoking scene and an upside down scene. I really like that Brandon expressed some suspense and darkness in his voice as the narrator. I also thought the blank screen was really effectively used in moments of description or thought.

Lauren- "A Place to Call Home":

Lauren had a lot of panning of the gym in her video. I thought that was an effective way to get a glimpse of the gym she saw many times in her coaching career. The close up scan of the gymnastics girls on the wall was also well done in helping the viewer get a sense of what a place she calls home is like. My favorite part was the closing line of narration when she stated the address and explained it is a place she considers home.

Jeff- "O Negative"

Jeff used pictures in black and white and also pictures from older times which showed the time period. I like how he used clips from the film and used narration to get his analysis of the film across to the viewers.

Melanie- "New Romantics"

This was a music video put together using a Taylor Swift song. She used different camera angles as following the girl around in her room. She included clips of texting and scrolling through Instagram. My favorite was the clip that was filmed through the side of the mirror during makeup.

Sean- "Alone and Thankful":

This video began with a clip following a person and dog walking on railroad tracks. I liked the time lapse and sped up parts through the nature trails. I also liked how in the video, the audience could hear the leaves crunching as the people walked over them. My favorite part was the clip at the end with the dark tunnel looking scene. It looked so cool with the light coming in around the person's body.

Video Story Practice

Click here to watch!

To gain some experience for our upcoming video story assignment, we worked in groups to conduct a brief story. We each picked a page out of the pocket scavenger to use as a guide. I picked a page that dealt with ticket stubs. I gathered a bunch of ticket stubs from my bedroom that I have saved from various events. We each practiced by being the director for our sections of the story. I filmed the very last part of our story using my ticket stubs. Once we had all of our videos done and viewed them next to each other, we discovered a themes in that we all had hands appearing among them.

Six Blue Things

Location Found: My bedroom

Time: 10AM

Date: 10/28/16

Story: Anyone who knows me, knows that I am obsessed with blue. Finding six blue things in my bedroom is definitely not a difficult task. Meaning... pretty much everything is blue. It's all about the shades of blue here!

 

            

Next, I flipped to a page that asks to switch things up or alter the objects in some way. 

I've never been able to explain why but I do not like the color yellow. Just something about it doesn't appeal to me. So here is a yellow highlighter on my bed comforter. A yellow highlighter is about the only thing yellow that I could find in my entire room.

Audio Story Tell-All

I have completed my audio story and received comments from my classmates. I received these comments also in the form of audio, through a voice recording. The comments were overall good ones and my classmates expressed their curiosity for how I put together this piece. Their guess was that the clips were short clips from home videos or recorded Skype calls. I enjoyed getting to listen to the feedback they provided me with!

When creating my audio story, I wanted to create a portrayal of distance between loved ones, yet ending on a positive note. As I stated in my narration, I have family members who live in California. It is not fun missing them all the time or wishing there were more holidays or life milestones you got to experience with them. This is especially hard when it comes to the two young kids growing up. I added one short video clip that my cousins wife sent me of their son in the middle of the story. I wanted it to be clear that the beginning and the end of just a blank/dark picture stood for the times that we do not get to see them. The short video clip representing the short amounts of time here and there that we do get to see them and experience things with them. After that though, it's back to blank & strictly Facetime calls to keep in touch. I used some layering and clock ticking sound effects to represent the passage of time. The layering came in with the beginning and end of sound clips in which the sound effects were added to. I actually used some of my ideas from my audio brainstorm post. I had baby giggles, loved ones voices, firetruck sirens, and my baby cousins voice. I also added the real baby heartbeat and clips of the FaceTime call of the baby announcement to myself, my mom, and my brother as well.

Pocket Scavenger- Something That was Part of a Tree- Practice Audio Story

In Digital Storytelling, we were assigned any page out of the pocket scavenger and to create a sound story out of it. I chose the 48th objective entitled "Something That was Part of a Tree." I took this idea of finding something that was once a part of a tree and made it into something more. I found a trig that was once a part of a tree and laying beneath it. The twig was near a road/parking lot and surrounded by many fallen leaves. It was also near a construction zone outside of Krebs hall on UPJ's campus. With this, we were asked to 1. Find a thing, 2. Record ambient noise from that location, 3. Record a sound of the thing, 4. Choose an alteration and record the alteration sound, and 5. Write up story.

Here is what I came up with!!

My audio story contained:

1. The thing found: Twig

2. Noise from the location:

• hear a car drive by
• leaves crunching under my feet while I walk to pick up the twig
• can hear construction vehicles at work on the Murtha building
• some fidgeting while walking

3. Sound of the thing:

• I repeatedly tapped the twig off a table

4. Alteration sound:

• I broke the twig with my fingers 4 times in different spots

5. Write up:

At beginning^

4 ' 33 ' ' UPJ Edition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_IwYN_ugJw

Audio Story Brainstorm

I began the brainstorming process for the next assignment in my "Digital Storytelling" class. This assignment is to create an audio story of our own. Here are a list of sounds that occur often in my daily life and may appear in my upcoming audio story!

Four of my favorite sounds to hear:

1) Bonfire crackling
2) Ocean waves breaking on the shore
3) My loved ones voices
4) Baby giggles






















Three loud environments I experience often:

1) Consol Energy Center
2) First Niagara Pavilion
3) Campus Commons Apartments



















Four sounds I remember hearing on a daily basis:

1) Hockey games on the TV or hockey sounds from a rink
2) Vibration from my phone
3) The oven beep when preheated
4) My apartment door opening and shutting



A sound that makes me angry:

-Loud cars 🚗



A sound that scares me:

-Sirens going off 🚨



Four sounds I wish I heard more often:

1) My baby cousins voice from California
2) FaceTime call ringing 
3) Waves on the beach
4) "Class is cancelled"

Image Story Tell-All

When creating my image story (found under a tab at top), I wanted to portray the ideas of a day and night through the different locations that I have experienced both the day and night of. I used text to name each location and also a short phrase about the significance of the day and night specific to that location that triggered memories for me. I also added a place I would want to experience the day and night of if I had the chance some day. The meaning of this was to express places of importance to me, somewhere in which hold a lot of memories to me (both in the daytime and night time). It shows somewhere that my life has led me at one point in time throughout it and the experience of day and night life there. The last two pictures wrap up what I was attempting to get across in my story, that every dark night has a brighter day.

In class, my professor had each student pull up the image story they created on their computer. We each went around and viewed our classmates work, leaving them written responses concerning the punctum and story. I enjoyed reading the punctum responses I got about my image story. A comment reads "I love the flow here! everything gently floats up or down based on time of day, it's really clever!" Some of my classmates shared a personal tie they felt they had to some of my pictures. All my classmates seemed to understand the story I was aiming to get across. Although I was surprised to see that one classmate had a hard time understanding that the pictures sequenced from a day photo and then a night photo at the same place. They had stated that the pictures seemed random and that they did not get it. I cannot please everyone but I believe I did a decent job getting my point across considering the majority of my classmates understood it. If I were to do this project over differently, maybe one thing I could have changed was to have made some kind of gap between the set of day to night pictures. This could maybe have made the sequence a little more pronounced to take away any confusion. 

I personally took all images used in my image story, except the two Consol Energy Center pictures, the two eiffel tower pictures, and the night Hollywood picture. Those five images were found on Google Images.

Image Story Blog Post

An old memory can flash back as far as a time when the cameras took photographs that printed within seconds of being taken and in a variety of black and white shades. Whether it's a recent memory of a 22nd birthday and beach trip with a special someone...

Or an old childhood memory of playing your favorite sport, with your favorite number, and receiving a gift from your mother who means so much to you.

These are the same memories that were captured in different ways in a time before cell phones. In the past, these memories were saved as photographs that printed from the camera in black and white ink with only one single copy to exist in the world. Today, we capture these memories on cellphones and with a click of a button can share them with an unlimited number of people. We can store many copies in different places. We can even store copies somewhere in an iCloud that exists, yet not many people can explain how. Needless to say, I use my phone for storing many important memories and other things... my life would be flipped upside down without it.

Objects can just be objects or they can be objects with meaning and a whole stack of memories loaded into them.      

Photography pics for class

Photographer Ansel Adams:

Photographer Man Ray:

Astray From The Path

When my group and I originally got the idea for this remix of Little Red Riding Hood story, our first thought was to film it as a video. As we brainstormed ideas for it, we thought it would be interesting to try it out in the form of pictures and videos stringed together to form a story. We contributed images, video, sound bites, and voice recordings. Working on this project taught me a new way of creating a digital story that I have not discovered prior to this. Click the link! Enjoy (:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfi75fG2S5g&feature=youtu.be

"Politics of Fiction" Ted Talk

This woman's name is Elif Shafak. She spoke in a Ted Talk entitled "Politics of Fiction." My favorite part of her speech was the part where she said imagination was the only suitcase she felt she could take with her. For some reason that just caught my attention so quickly. I feel like it is very relatable for many people. For example, someone feeling alone or like an outcast, an imagination is something that no one can take away from them no matter where their life takes them. Kinda similar to how when someone very important to you passes on. That person will still exist in your mind and travel with you wherever you go in that way but is just not physically there. Another part that caught my attention was when she mentioned about being expected to write true stories about herself because she was of a different nationality. She said she was told that she had a good story but they wanted to hear it from her perspective instead of a fictional male perspective of her nationality. She began writing fiction from when she was young. She didn’t think her life was interesting so she started writing about others from a young age instead of having a journal or diary of her own life alike a lot of kids her age at the time. She thinks of her fiction as local and universal. She ties this all back into her beginning topic of circles. She sees fictional stories as related through circles. Shafak related these circles into a personal tie of a story involving her childhood that she remembers about her grandmother.

Introductory Scavenger Hunt Post

On Monday, I began a class entitled Digital Storytelling. The first day of class we partnered up to complete a page out of "The Pocket Scavenger" book. We went outside on a scavenger hunt for any 10 items we found interesting, took pictures of them, and collected them to bring back to class with us:

The 9th item is the one that excited me! It is an item that appears to have fallen off of a student's backpack. 

Perhaps it has fallen off while a freshman student ran to their first class, frantic about having to walk in late and hold the glance of his many peers.

Perhaps this same freshman student had recently researched dandelions and came to the realization that they surprisingly had many health benefits. One of these benefits including Vitamin C.

https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/herbs-and-spices/health-benefits-of-dandelion.html

Say this new dandelion thought intrigued him. From there he decided to be healthier, he would grab a bottle of Sunny D before heading to class. This being the reason for his tardiness. The tardiness then leading to him dropping the cap to his Sunny D on his rushed, run to class. Therefore leaving it alongside the path trailing behind his former footsteps.