Short multimedia videos from The New York Times

"Girl Boxer"



"This is What a Refugee Looks Like"

 


 "Midnight Three and Six"

 

The Power of Music

Source: Music for Makers

Best movie dialogue of all time

We'll revisit this later when we start talking about dialogue in movies, but these clips might also be useful for your podcast script.

How do I post a recording from Audacity to my blog?

1.  Record your snippet on Audacity. 

2. Save your snippet. If you don't save it, you can never go back and edit it. 

3. Go to file and click "export audio."

4. Save the file in WAV form on your desktop or in your Audacity files. 

5. Log in to Sound Cloud. You will have to create a user name and password to do this, but you do not have to download software. 

6. Choose the option to upload your file (upper right hand corner). 

7. Find your file and press "open." This action will then transfer your file to SoundCloud.  

8. Save the file in SoundCloud. You can add details and even a related picture. 

9. Click on the link to the file you've just uploaded.

10. Find the "share" option. 

11. Click on it and choose the "embed" option (in the middle). 

12. Copy the html code. (it will start with soemthing like this "<iframe width="100%" height="300" ........</iframe>

13. Open a new post on your blog. 

14. Choose the "html" option on the upper left corner, next to compose. 

15. Paste the html code into the document. 

16. Select "compose" to view it. 

You are now able to share this with the rest of the world via your blog. 

Billy Collin poetry

"Workshop"
BY BILLY COLLINS
I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title.
It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now
so immediately the poem has my attention,
like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.

And I like the first couple of stanzas,
the way they establish this mode of self-pointing
that runs through the whole poem
and tells us that words are food thrown down
on the ground for other words to eat.
I can almost taste the tail of the snake
in its own mouth,
if you know what I mean.

But what I’m not sure about is the voice,
which sounds in places very casual, very blue jeans,
but other times seems standoffish,
professorial in the worst sense of the word
like the poem is blowing pipe smoke in my face.
But maybe that’s just what it wants to do.

What I did find engaging were the middle stanzas,
especially the fourth one.
I like the image of clouds flying like lozenges
which gives me a very clear picture.
And I really like how this drawbridge operator
just appears out of the blue
with his feet up on the iron railing
and his fishing pole jigging—I like jigging—
a hook in the slow industrial canal below.
I love slow industrial canal below. All those l’s.

Maybe it’s just me,
but the next stanza is where I start to have a problem.
I mean how can the evening bump into the stars?
And what’s an obbligato of snow?
Also, I roam the decaffeinated streets.
At that point I’m lost. I need help.

The other thing that throws me off,
and maybe this is just me,
is the way the scene keeps shifting around.
First, we’re in this big aerodrome
and the speaker is inspecting a row of dirigibles,
which makes me think this could be a dream.
Then he takes us into his garden,
the part with the dahlias and the coiling hose,
though that’s nice, the coiling hose,
but then I’m not sure where we’re supposed to be.
The rain and the mint green light,
that makes it feel outdoors, but what about this wallpaper?
Or is it a kind of indoor cemetery?
There’s something about death going on here.

In fact, I start to wonder if what we have here
is really two poems, or three, or four,
or possibly none.

But then there’s that last stanza, my favorite.
This is where the poem wins me back,
especially the lines spoken in the voice of the mouse.
I mean we’ve all seen these images in cartoons before,
but I still love the details he uses
when he’s describing where he lives.
The perfect little arch of an entrance in the baseboard,
the bed made out of a curled-back sardine can,
the spool of thread for a table.
I start thinking about how hard the mouse had to work
night after night collecting all these things
while the people in the house were fast asleep,
and that gives me a very strong feeling,
a very powerful sense of something.
But I don’t know if anyone else was feeling that.
Maybe that was just me.

Maybe that’s just the way I read it.

Audio: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhyar6_billy-collins-workshop_creation

Podcast script example

There are three things a listener hears in a radio drama: 

• Dialogue
• Music
• Sound effects

Each of these audio components is called a "cue"—because they come at a specific time in the script and the director may have to physically point to someone ("cue them") to produce it. An instance of dialogue, no matter how many lines, is considered one cue. All cues are numbered and music/sound effects are additionally underlined.  

1.  MACBETH:          That will never be. Who can impress the forest?

                      Yet my heart throbs to know one thing. Tell me,

                      if your art can tell so much, - shall Banquo’s issue

                                               ever reign in this kingdom?

2.  SOUND:            THUNDER (2X).

3.  MUSIC:            WEIRD MUSIC-UP. DUCK FOR VOICES.

4.  ALL WITCHES:      Seek to know no more.

5.  MACBETH:          I will be satisfied. Deny me this, and an eternal

                                    curse fall on you! Let me know!

6.  SOUND:            INTENSE BUBBLING-SLOWS-STOPS. THUNDER (1X).

7.  MACBETH:              Why sinks that cauldron? And what noise is this?

8.  FIRST WITCH:          Show!

9.  SECOND WITCH:     Show!

10. THIRD WITCH:        Show!

11. SOUND:           THUNDER (3X).


Podcast Plotting Device: The focus sentence

• Start with the idea that you have a character in motion toward her goal. 
• S/he has a motivation for doing that thing (a desire). 
• But somehow, that thing is not going to be easy to overcome (danger/challenge). 

DRAMA = Desire + Danger

Focus sentence: Heidi goes back to where she used to work because she wants to know what happened to her, but the government (and her own memory) are against her.

Homecoming Podcast, Episode 1

https://soundcloud.com/homecomingshow/1-mandatory

Class gif stories

Good work last night creating these mini-stories using either giphy.com or gifpaint. This exercise will be useful to you when we start doing our video work, and also in thinking more closely about the elements of fiction. All of your gifs have taken on the challenge of starting in a moment of crisis, developing that conflict, and then resolving it, all in five or six short frames. Keep this idea in mind while you're drafting your podcast scripts and later when we're story boarding the video. You can also use these tools to integrate interactive into your videos down the road.

Here are the stories from Thursday night.

Brielle's story.

Ali's story.

K's story.

Savannah's story.

Jake's story



Jhimmily's story.

Chris' story



Jeffrey's story.

Kaila's story




Diego's story.

Wilson's story



Caelan's story.

Story-boarding and GIF projects

Annie Wilkes on Writing

I've been looking at clips from King books that were made into movies, and one of my favorites is Misery, in part because Cathy Bates is so amazing (she's excellent in the another SK remake, Dolores Claiborne. Here is a clip from Misery where she is explaining to the writer/captive that he can't cheat in his writing; he can't make it all a dream, or give the main character an emergency blood transfusion--he has to figure out a way to get her out of the grave, because that's where the last book ended. I like this advice. You write yourself into a corner, you have to write yourself out. You can't use trickery or fake it, because your reader/audience will call you out.

Writing Assignment: Showing vs. Telling

Choose three of these paragraphs and rewrite to add specificity of detail, names, descriptions, setting and sensory details. Stay in scene and in the moment. Be as creative as you want.

The little boy woke up from a bad dream and went to the bathroom. When he got there, he saw a terrible scary monster. The monster was some kind of dog and it looked horrible. He screamed.

I was driving with my friend and he saw a car that he liked. We argued about ti. He made me stop and take a look at it. The car was totally in disrepair. It looked bad, really bad. But he seemed to think it was cool.

He found himself in bed, and his brain felt foggy. The lady came in and gave him a pill. She looked unsteady. At one point, he couldn’t breath. He wondered if he was in danger. Then, he knew he was—she was crazy.

The girls were in gym class. One of them was awkward. Nobody liked her and they treated her badly because she was a weirdo. 

He wasn't sure if he should go into the hotel room because it was scary in there. Should he go in or shouldn't he? He felt frightened and unsure. He thought maybe it was haunted because he had heard things in there and he didn't like them. He decided to open the door.

Analysis of the Louis CK joke we heard on the first night of class

An intelligent analysis of each sentence in the joke about playing Monopoly with his six year old and nine year old.

Poetry + Images compilation

Adobe Spark makes it easy to create and share videos that you can make in less than half an hour. This one took about that amount of time and the most complicated part was completing the search for the poem and the artist to go with it. They offer music selections and also allow you to add your own music if you'd like.

 Pros: Free so far. No download required.

Cons: Requires attribution. Slightly confusing to figure out how to download for sharing on YouTube.




 Here is the same idea produced via Giphy.com. This format is best for short gifs--not a lot of words. You can see that the full poem doesn't completely fit here. You also cannot manipulate the sizing of images or add music or narration.

 
via GIPHY

Photo Stories

Most good portrait photography does more than one thing. It captures a startling image of someone, and hints at an underlying story. Choose five of these images to create both a description of the person and a few sentences about what the story is behind the photo. Who is each person? What are their names? They're background? What do they want? What are they most afraid of? What happened just before this photo was taken and what happened immediately after?

Experimenting with digital story-telling platforms

Weird video made with Adobe Spark, which will want you to buy it later. Easy to pull these images off the computer and/or the web, as they provide icons and Flickr account photos for free. Music was chosen at random. The purpose of this platform is to be able to quickly create videos for promotional purposes. No thought but into story, so the result is jumbled. I also don't like the way my voice sounds (like a five year old kid). Can't see that this platform would be useful for longer pieces, but would work for quick, professional-looking videos.

Creation time: Literally five minutes.
Link to software: https://spark.adobe.com/sp

   

Multimedia Examples

It's almost over-whelming once you start looking for examples of multimedia. There are photo blogs, and video blogs, and interactive games, and online word poetry repositories. For the purposes of today's class discussion, I will provide a sampling, but there are many, many more out there.

Story and pictures from The New Yorker on first-time voters.

And music and video...

Sam Frank's “Happy Russia” from https://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/issues

Kate Greenstreet’s “locating faraway objects”

Ander Monson’s “For Orts”" 

Jesse Darling's Tumblr: Brave New What 

Words and Objects Video Project

I wanted to illustrate that even when you're writing quickly, in class, with no preparation, you might find that what you come up with has a shining sentence or two or three. I chose the sentences from each in class free-write that had the most potential for opening lines or for an intriguing beginning as well as sentences that included emotional resonance.

Process:

1. First, I took photos of each piece of paper and then emailed them to myself.
2. Next, I downloaded the pictures and saved them to a folder on my computer.
3. Then, I opened Windows Movie Maker and pulled in the photos in no particular order.
4. I then choose an animation style that would make the photos look more interesting and applied that style to all.
5. Next, I searched through the transition styles to see what I liked best and also applied to all of the photos.
6. I selected the caption option and found a sentence that worked to include with each picture.
7. It took a while to then adjust the length of the caption to fit the timing.
8. I watched the video a few times to correct spelling mistakes and check for timing.
9. Next, I added a beginning title and end credits.
10.  I saved the project and then published it.
11.  Finally, I uploaded the project to YouTube and published it.

Duration of project time from beginning to end: About 3 hours.

Challenges: I had trouble placing the text properly because the words behind some of the photos got in the way. If I were going to do this again, I would zoom in on the pictures themselves, and email them to myself as a bigger file. That would have made it easier to have the words going over just the images instead of fighting with the text on the page. I also still have not figured out the easiest way to match the caption time and photos so that they flow properly.

Ideas: Music or voice-over narration would have enhanced the quality of the video, though I still like the idea of text over photos for dramatic purposes.

Multimedia as a form of social justice and art

Anne Lamott discussing writing

Anne Lamott wrote one of the best books I know about the writing life and process. It's called Bird by Bird. This week, we're discussing one of her chapters, "Shitty First Drafts." I usually assign this piece because it's good to remind writers that no one gets it right the first time, the second time, the third time. Writing is difficult, and anyone who says differently is full of it (or a bad writer). The main challenge of writing is sitting down every day and giving the time to the page, the screen, the whatever you use to get your thoughts down. The second hardest part of writing is revision, but we'll get to that later.

Here's a short video excerpt of her discussing process. I just love her weirdness and honesty.

http://bigthink.com/videos/a-writing-teachers-favorite-writing-exercises

Podcast list

For future use, here's a listing of the best storytelling podcasts.

Story Structure

I love this excerpt about storytelling structure in cinema. I've only seen about half of these--maybe less than half. What have I been doing with my time? Not watching The Gilmore Girls, that's for sure. More on that later (maybe). I don't like how the two main characters talk to each other in these quippy, unreal ways.

We'll talk more about these approaches to story-telling in class on Thursday.

 

The mystery of the wet socks

First class today and we did the usual--going over the syllabus, talking about expectations, trying to get students to speak up so they get comfortable using their voices. We went over telling details--why it's more interesting to write that someone loves Yorkshire Terriers than to say she likes dogs, to describe her hair as braided and falling over her shoulder rather than simply brown. They had to then talk to each other and write a paragraph about their partner. We also did the object exercise, where each person chooses a slightly weird object and draws it, describes it, and begins to write a story about the object's meaning. Somewhere along the way, I mentioned this abandoned pair of socks I've been seeing as I walk to and from the train. I promised to take a photo of them if they were still there. I decided to do a video instead. In part, it's to convey the idea that if you're thinking like a writer or an artist, you should always be curious, always questions your own assumptions, always keep your eyes wide and ears open. Why are the socks there? Who left them? Where do you have to be in your own head to say, "I'd rather go barefoot then walk another step in these wet socks?" Who does that? What does it mean? How can we find empathy and understanding in the person who left these things behind? And also, why are they still there? If you're the guy/woman who took them off, do you not want them back? Are you not passing them every day and feeling something--embarrassed, amused, annoyed? There's a story in there somewhere. Luckily, they were still there. Perhaps it's a clue to a mystery we'll solve as the class unfolds. Note: I added subtitles to the video in YouTube, which makes it pretty easy to include words and songs if you want them. Click the "CC" button if you want to read the words that accompany the video. I didn't add music because I liked the sound of just the air moving as I was walking forward.

From The Moth

Many, many excellent examples of nonfiction storytelling from The Moth.

Here is Timothy Bell on revisiting his mother's space after aging out of foster care.

First day of class

We'll have to establish the expectations, rules, boundaries, pet peeves, likes/dislikes, cat/dog preference, and overall, gauge the tenor and tone of the group.  First classes are like blind dates--you're not sure what you're getting, if you're interested, if you will be able to keep the conversation going, if it's going to be a good fit. I'm excited to discuss storytelling and technology, so I have confidence that the class will go well.


We need to look first at what story-telling is. I've yet to find a good video or Prezi or interactive piece that captures the central ideas, so we'll have to go back to some basics about the differences between a good story and a bad story.


We all know people who are bad story-tellers (mom?). They start from the very beginning ("I went to the grocery store to buy apples"), they interweave unimportant details ("the golden delicious were on sale for 49 each. I was thinking of baking a pie or maybe a strudel"), and often, when they reach what they think is the climax of the story, it's underwhelming and possibly even unrelated to all of the information that's been told previously ("and when I left, I realized that I had a flat tire").


If we're lucky, we also know people who are great storytellers. They hook you in early ("The kid who slashed my tire was someone I'd made enemies with in high school"), the details they give you matter to the telling of the story ("he had a brother with a stutter who I used to make fun of"), and, when the story finishes, you have made a discovery of some kind, related to what's come before ("I confronted him a week later and he said his brother was over his stutter until he saw me at ShopRite. Just seeing my face made the stutter return"). Or something like that. Good storytellers weave the details and the scenes together to create a whole piece, one that has a sense of completeness; a feeling that without each particular sentence, the story would fall apart.

Here are some examples.

And an excerpt from Louis CK's stand up about the boredom of being a dad. 

The birth of writing

I like the video below because it's two things: a short history of writing, and a clear example of how to visually marry words and pictures in a video form.

Ideas for class

Should I share Post Secret with the class? It's slightly disturbing sometimes, but I think it might be an interesting assignment--to have them make a confessional on an image. I'm considering breaking the class down into three sections--nonfiction, poetry, and fiction with assignments getting increasingly more complicated.