477 – Digital Storytelling

My Final Vision project is a guide to digital storytelling, which stayed true to my brainstormed outline, which you can read in my last post here. Most of it is a curated list of apps and resources, but the most significant portion of the project ended up being an approximately 5 minute video that I storyboarded, filmed, found sound effects/music,  and recorded voice-overs for. 

There were two major changes from my initial vision for the project. The first was that I had initially wanted to use Adobe Spark Page to compile the guide, as I hadn’t worked with it before and I thought it would be suitable. The more I worked with it, though, the more I realized that it wasn’t ideal for a project of this size; it provided no way to jump between sections of the page. I was worried that this would decrease the accessibility and ease of use, so I made a mid-project move to Microsoft Sway. Sway has a feature that allows you to jump from heading to heading in the document that works well on both computers and devices with touch and non-touch screens, and when I sent examples of both to friends, the Sway version always won. 

Secondly, I had said that I was going to use the simpler Adobe Spark Video editor to compile my how-to video. While I think that the production value might have been nicer if I had stuck to that model, there were many features that I could not get access to (like having the capability for 2-3 audio files at a time and autokey for green screen , for example). And thus, I decided to bring out Adobe Premiere Pro – which I had never used before last week. Fortunately, there are officially YouTube tutorials for E V E R Y T H I N G and although I could hardly upload a clip into a sequence at first and spent 20 minutes trying to unlink video and audio files from one another, by the end I felt… moderately successful. I learned some important lessons about ensuring consistent screen size between video clips that will come in handy the next time I do this. It was a big project – but I wasn’t going anywhere last week (spring break here in Manitoba, on top of school being suspended) so what else was I going to do? 

I am thankful for the opportunity to be able to play with and try out some technology and tech skills I had never personally used before. This included time-lapse video, trying out the new Samson Meteor Mics that I got for a podcasting station at school, and green screens. It was overwhelming to look through all the apps and programs that are out there that could be used for digital storytelling. Ultimately, I tried to keep my recommendations limited to an entry level + a slightly more complex option for most types of apps. There are still so many things that I could have/maybe should have listed. However, I tell myself that this project can be updated as I find new and wonderful things to try. If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears! 

Below you will find a video that shows you how you can navigate through my project from section to section. I think that it’s best viewed from start to finish, but if you are returning to refer to a specific resource – the navigation is handy.  

The cornerstone of the project is definitely my how-to video, but there are other videos to check out. The ones in the app section are simply to give a bit more background into some of the apps. I do recommend watching the example projects at the end. I’m pretty fond of those. So… without further ado here’s my project:

https://bit.ly/477storytelling – this is rather anticlimactic – sadly WordPress doesn’t support iframe embeds 😦

If you know someone who could use it – send it their way 🙂 

If you’d rather just watch the digital story about digital storytelling that I made, you can just watch the video below.

It’s been a pleasure getting to know and work with you all over the last several months. Although I probably won’t see you at any PD (unless you’re making a trip to Manitoba), I look forward to keeping an eye on your blogs and Twitter feeds. Until then.  To those of you who are done your course work – congrats!

All the best, keep your distance and wash your hands,  

Morgan