A+Short+Commentary+2

A Short Commentary

I found this task quite difficult. It required a lot of different aspects being brought together, and you could not ignore any or place a higher importance on one without bringing another down. All in all, I'm not completely happy with my final product, though I am proud of the work I put into the digital story. I learned a great deal about using Windows Movie Maker, taking photo's and creating a mood with an image.  For this assignment, I used Audacity, Windows Movie Maker, a mp3 recorder and a digital SLR camera. Both Audacity and Windows Movie Maker are free programs. This is excellent as schools can easily download and use these programs.  Photo stories or digital stories are a great way to get students enthused about writing. It is especially useful for students with learning disabilities who struggle with writing. recording your story and placing drawn pictures or photo's along side can be far more effective than just writing on a page, and often students will feel more accomplished with the end result of a digital story.  I would want more practice with both these tools before teaching to others however, as I did struggle at the beginning.

 This task required a great deal of time and organisation. I had never previously used Windows Movie Maker, but after learning a few helpful hints from my tutor and my housemate I was able to use it quite competently by the end.  I chose to interview someone for this assignment, as I did a commentary for Assignment 2. I began this task by finding a subject to interview. I decided to interview my friend Casey who is an Indigenous Australian who is passionate about his people and the plight they endure on a day to day basis. he was very eager to be interviewed. I then created a mind map of the questions I wanted to ask, this lead to the interview schedule. I tried having a large variety of questions and leaving them open ended. I changed the order of questions and added some to encourage a natural flow to the interview and giving me an opportunity to create a beginning, middle and end.
 * Planning and Preparation **

 The recording was harder this time. I had difficulties finding a quiet place to record as we were meeting on campus. We booked a room, and although it was not overly loud, there were issues with noises interrupting the recording. Some of these I was unable to edit out as they occurred mid sentence or word. The completed interview came to 9:28. After some editing and removing a lot of 'umms' and 'errs' I had got it down to 4 minutes. The issue then was to pick the most important things and to choose what I wanted to focus the story on.  I chose to add music to my piece. I had some difficulty finding royalty free Indigenous Australian music as it is mostly restricted and protected. I ended up using 2 different songs as background. I believe they work well together and add something to the story.  I found my first piece of music 'Red Sky' at [] and my second piece, 'didgeridoo' at []
 * Recording & Editing **

 I found this section the most challenging. To convey a story through photos is a highly difficult task. It requires a lot of skill and creativity. I found that not all the photos I had taken (75 shots) did not match my edited interview and I needed to take more and find some on creative commons on flickr. Getting the photo's to match the story and convey a message and emotion was an arduous task. I was not aware of the knowledge behind matching a picture to words. I was told that we should be able to follow the story from just looking at the pictures. I even found the taking of the photos complicated as I had never used a digital SLR camera. I had borrowed it from my housemate and only used one setting as I was unsure of how to use the others.
 * Photo's **

 Although I am not completely satisfied with my end result I found the process very interesting and useful. I would happily do this task or one similar with students, although i think more guidance and a longer period to complete the task would be needed. I would have liked to have had access to better recording equipment and a quieter place to record. External noise created some issues when editing.  The final product consisted of 17 tracks, two music tracks, a two-minute room track and 38 photos.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Final Product **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> I had many issues during the making of this digital story. Many of which, I have already discussed. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> I had a number of computer related problems. I had difficulties publishing my final piece from Windows Movie Maker as my computer kept crashing during the final process. On the fourth attempt I managed to complete the process and get it saved to my desktop. The story board was frustrating. I completed it in Word, because I am more confident using it, the downloading from my wiki takes approximately ten minutes. This is a problem for people viewing my site. In the future I would work directly off my my wiki. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> At first there was an issue with the content of the interview containing content on homosexuality and the subject did not want it placed on Youtube. However, through the editing process I removed the problematic content and was then able to upload it to Youtube. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> There were difficulties finding royalty free music as the vast majority of Indigenous music is protected. I used two of the links given to me by my tutor and eventually found some appropriate music. One of the pieces is actually a boy using a PVC pipe as a didgeridoo. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> However, I think my biggest problem was getting the perfect photos for my story. Getting them to match the words and convey the emotion I was trying to create. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> Most of the issues that arose during the process I was able to find solutions for the majority of them.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Issues **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> As said previously. I think this task was challenging, but also very interesting and useful and i would happily re-create this task or one similar with my students in the future.

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