When choosing classes for this semester, I really wanted to take DS106; I was going into my senior year as a Creative Writing major, and I wanted to explore different forms of storytelling beyond traditional written media. Now, at the end of taking DS106, I can say that I am so glad that I had the opportunity to take this class.
My Thoughts on My Final Project
My final project, which you can find here, was inspired by the personification and the creation stories associated with mythology, specifically Greek mythology. I am happy with this final project, even though I do not think that it is perfect.
I enjoyed making most of the media for this project, by my favorite part of the narrative was the spread illustrating the two women. This media was hard to create because I was using an old, broken drawing tablet that I wasn’t used to drawing on. It took a much longer time to draw than it normally would have, but in the end, this piece is my favorite because it perfectly illustrates the idea I had in my head of the two women. It isn’t perfect-Sun could use some more contrast between her hair and skin, and the background isn’t very detailed-but just looking at the image makes me happy.
If I were to make this project again, I would change how I distributed the multimedia aspects throughout the story. It was only after creating all of my media that I realized that my story was not balanced: many of the media fell at the end of the story. This drove me a bit crazy because it was hard to place the images of the barcode snowflake and the nature photos, so I would make different choices when choosing which media to make if I were to do this project again.
It was harder than I expected to create the tutorial video. I was expecting it to be easy to create because I was just going to be recording myself drawing. However, I needed to balance my phone camera on a table over the table that I was drawing on, and I needed to make sure that everything looked good even though I couldn’t see what the camera was recording. My camera did not record the first time I drew the rose, so I needed to rerecord the whole process. Simply put, it was harder to create this media than I expected when reading the prompt.
It was easier than I expected to create the sound effect of a clock ticking. Because I decided to vocalize the sound, I expected it to be hard to create the exact sound effect that I had in my head. However, because I was using a good microphone, it was much easier than I expected. It took some experimenting and some editing, but creating the sound was easier than I expected.
In making this project, I already knew the techniques I needed to create the media. However, I did learn how to draw a crocus flower. I followed the pattern of the image I referenced to understand the flower petals’ shape. Then once I understood the shape of the flower, I freehand drew the open crocus flowers.
Overall, I like the narrative I created for this project. There are definitely some media that I like more than others, but all of it makes me very happy.
My Thoughts on DS106
Overall, this class taught me the beauty of multimedia narratives. I already knew that I like multimedia narratives as someone who enjoys media like comics, video games, video essays, and more, but it wasn’t until I made my own multimedia narratives that I realized how impactful the form is.
Going into this course, I already knew many of the visual aspects of media. I have been drawing for many years, so I knew about things like contrast, color palettes, movement in visual media, and more. However, everything that I learned about audio was new to me. I learned how impactful different sounds could be in creating tone in a story. I also learned that you can edit which side of the headset that the sound can come out of, which I found very useful in differentiating sounds associated with different characters. In each unit, I learned something new about the medium I was learning, but overall, how to use audio was a big aspect of the class that I learned.
I would not change the fact that I took this class. As well, I would not change any of the things that I learned about or made in this class. However, if I took this class again, I would try to spread out my work better. I found myself largely relying on the weekend to get my work done, which was not a good system for my mental and physical health.
The project that I enjoyed the most was “Shattered Glass: A Collection of Fairy Tales Broken and Remade.” This is a book that I have been writing for a while, so it was fun for me to take that traditional form and use it to create a new multimedia trailer. The blog post is the story of how I become interested in storytelling to start with, and the video I created is the story of where I am in my storytelling journey now. It is a project about different characters, but it is one that is central to my life, which is part of why I enjoy it so much.
Conclusion
Overall, I learned very important skills for creating multimedia narratives from this class. I would not change the fact that I took this class, even if it has caused me to feel very overwhelmed at times. I think that knowing about multimedia forms has made me a better storyteller, and as someone who is pursuing a career in writing and publishing, I think that it will be important to my field.
Do you agree and think that multimedia forms are important to know about? Why or why not? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
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