9/8/16
Fraser explains the public sphere as a universal connection where different means and interrpretations can be examined by everyone. She says that the sphere is a medium that allows everyone to discuss politics and share culture. Fraser discusses that there are three discussions in the public sphere that are problematic assumptions. The first one is that social equality is not a necessary condition for political democracy.
Work Space
(Picture retrieved through Creative Common as: https://pixabay.com/p-820281/?no_redirect)
-during the recording process in an interview you need to hold the mic 4 inches BELOW the interviewer to have the clearest sound.
-When preparing for an interview you should have several topics you want to discuss and then some subtopics to help ask more questions.
-It helps to sometimes tell a personal story of your own when conducting an interview. It may make the interviewee more comofrtable, and it can help get more details out of him or her.
-During the editing process, adding music can help the flow of the interview. It can help tranistion topics and turning off the music helps signal that what the person is saying is an important topic.
-When you are editing a section you need to try to make sure the auido still flows after you cut a piece out. For example, in the text they were trying to match the low tones of the room and fit it in between what the interviewee said so it would have a better flow.
9/12/16
The challenging part about writing this poem was deciding between multiple ideas and narrowing it down to one for each section. There were memories that I had and thought it would be fun to share and add into the poem, but I knew that doing all of them would not flow. This made me reflect on my experiences because I had to close my eyes and try to grab the first thing that came to my mind when I thought about each topic. This was important because I knew that the memory that came through my thought process first would be the one that was important to me. Then looking at the finished product helped piece together all the memories in my childhood that shaped who I am today.
9/15/16
9/19/16
What is a good starter question(s) that would help begin the interview process?
What type of questions do you think aren't asked enough, from your experiences, being asked about your story?
What questions help bring up your past?
What types of questions are you uncomfortable with? And why?
How does I respond when I get a remotional reaction froma question?
9/26/16
What I most want to remember from our conversation with Chanda and Sana is how much emotion and passion they had talking about the issues of the crisis and making people aware of it. Going in, I knew there was going to be emotions but even talking about issues that were not even specific to their family they still had a lot of passion about the matter. I want to think about that going into the interview process with the other refugees. Instead of thinking about talking to someone who is just telling you about the history of the matter like a history teacher explains the past to students. These are people that were affected directly and I need to consider that when I am orchestrating an interview. Two important point that I also took away from their conversation is that I should not try to give sympathy to the interviewee if they start to get upset. Instead I should just stay quiet and give them time. I also took away how important it is to do background research about the culture of the person first. It can be insulting if I go in to interview him/her and I did not even put in the time to learn about their way of life first.
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Part B: After doing group revisions I heard feedback regarding my music. The volume was a little loud so it made the audio more difficult to hear. I was told it gives a vibe like you could see me walking down the street as I was telling the story. They also said I felt comfortable telling my story based off how the audio sounded. I plan to continue editing with the volume levels between the music and the narrative.
10/13/16
Chapter 4 was about story structure and about how it is not always structured in the order of a "first to last" format. They mention in the book that when you produce an interview you might want to order the story so it creates scenes that flow smoothly. For example, in the book they did a story about a child with a food disorder, and instead of listing off seven pages with of problems he had they broke it up into sections that would break down the information. This not only made it easier to follow, but also made it more interesting for the audience. Another important topic they discuss is signposting. This is when the writer or story teller drops hints to the audience that something in the story is about to change, or something in the story is about to get interesting. This is important because it helps keep people in the story and prevents them from getting lost and following behind.
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This chapter is important for our interview story project because it will help us understand how to structure the life of the refugee we interviewed so it makes sense to the audience. We need to structure it so that we do not lose any value from the story, but also cut it down so we do not confuse the audience in 60 minutes of recording. This chapter also talks about whether there should be a reflection section in the story. This is important for us to consider because reflection would be good for our project if we want the audience to understand the importance of the story they heard about. We may not want to include a reflection section so the audience can form their own thoughts on hearing the life of the refugee we interviewed.
10/24/16
Sound is metaphorized as the deep sea because it provides an effect that cannot be visualized on the surface of the story. In the text, they described sound as a way to take a normal scene or event and turn it into something dramatic. When they showed it in the text, the two characters were in the boat on the calm water. However, underneath them there was a giant whale that they had no idea was just below their boat. In this case, the people in the boat are the audience that is unaware of what is about to happen. They think everything is fine and normal, but if a sound effect is played it makes the scene more dramatic. Then the audience will be watching the scene and expect something epic to happen because the sound effect conveys that tone. The sound effect signifies that there is more to the story then what is just on the surface. The sound effects tell the audience that something is about to happen, and only the creator knows what it is. In terms of our video story, we can use sound to let the audience know where the important key points in the story are. Also, we can use it to let them know that there is about to be a new turning point in the story.
The primary purpose of the edit is to take all the footage or material that was produced and then cut it down to the main points that are considered to be important. Even though you may have worked very hard to create your film it is important that the editor is honest and gives feedback about the problems the product actually has. This is like our community storytelling project because we are currently in the process of taking all video and trying to turn it into five minutes of key topics from the interview. Then we need to clean it up and organize it to make it look nice and have flow so the viewers will be able to follow along.
Signposting is labeling for the viewer that something important is about to take place. It put more emphasis on a section so the view can recognize that a main point is about to be revealed. Framing is when the film is put into sections that breaks up the story to understand the topic. This can include and introduction that sets up the rest of the story, and then it is followed by other main topics that are separated for the viewer to easily follow the organization. Framing tries to connect a topic so it can be more universally understood.
11/3/16
Based on our draft that we were able to get feedback on, our biggest concern is reducing the length of the video. We reorganized the structure so that it was broken into separate sections that help the flow of the story. However, one section is a bit long and we were told to edit it down because it starts to drag and becomes confusing. Our problem with that is there is so much in that particular section that we feel is important. It is tough to decide how we would get rid of it. No one seemed to think that the pacing or the transitions were too fast. Our second draft definitely showed improved transitions, which not only helped with the pacing but also the flow of the video. However, our ending is too abrupt so we need to work on a way to continue the flow all the way to the end.
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My outside viewer believed that the purpose of our particular story was centralized around the theme that Liberian refugees had to fight for everything. He made the point that in our story, Ma Mary was beaten up by army men because she wanted to get her food back that they stole from her. She had to stand up for herself and her children, and she sacrificed a lot to help her family survive. He started to get confused in the middle of the story when Ma Mary was beaten up because he did not understand who was doing this to her. The take away from this comment is that we need to put in some background information about the Liberian Civil War and where Liberia is. In order to fix this he suggested a few slides that clarify the history that was can work into the beginning of the video to explain it. Along with this, our group should also adjust the font because they are hard to read. These are easy additions to our project that will enhance the quality. The problem now is deciding which part we should remove.
11/10/16
11/14/16
Part 1:
After looking at the background reading for the Olive Project I learned that oral history can be a collection of information and sound to help us understand past events. Oral history tries to take multiple elements and may years of a story and condense it down so the reader can take away key moments in just a few short minutes. When I hear the phrase; "co-constructed process of narrative composition," I think of multiple levels of narrative and sound layered on top of each other to produce a composition. It seems like it also has to do with a dialogue between two people constructing the story based on sharing the past events. In the video there were several clips happening at the same time, and multiple voices were speaking over each other. I think this helps the viewer understand the large amount of history attempted to be condensed down into one short video that can definitely not cover all the life that was lived in the 78 year period. This also has to do with mapping coherence onto the disorder of lived experience. For our Quest for Refuge project, the implications of these questions tell us that we are responsible for not drifting away from the purpose of the story told by our community partner.
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Part 2:
This project helps me think about multimodal composition because there were multiple levels of communication happening between the viewer and the story being told. There were short audio clips that were of Olive telling her story and reflecting of things she recalled from her past. Then there were photographs that helped us visuals the story she was telling. They helped set the scene so the viewer can picture him/herself in the moment with Olive as she is telling the story. Another element were the short paragraphs under the pictures that were specific quotes picked out from the audio that helped amplify there significance to the viewer.
This helps me think about writing for a public audience because it shows how multiple levels of communication can help explain a story better. It is not just about what is written down on paper or listening to the audio that was recorded. It is about combining all the elements so they work off of each other to make the story clear and provide as much detail and elements to the viewer as possible.
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This story helps me think about what it means to represent someone else's life because it shows me how important it is to keep the story authentic and not drift away from the purpose that our community partners wanted to share. We have to be able to combine multiple elements of information to help the viewer understand who our community partner is, and we need to make sure we do not misrepresent who they are.
11/17/16
1.) The purpose of this article is to show the process of going through a multimodal project and shaping it to show how people can derive a purpose from it. The form helps communicate a purpose because you can use the elements to explain your thoughts, or let the elements speak for themselves. For example, the rose metaphor is compared to the multimodal project. Like a rose, the project can organically bloom and let it take its own shape, or it can be pruned and shaped to better fit the purpose of the viewer.
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2.) From the second part of the "What's in a Name?" I learned that from audience oriented definition many people do not understand what modal means. When discussing multimodal with an audience you have to explain it in a way that the audience will understand the concept. This leads to the second idea that everyone in the English field seems to have a different meaning to multimodal. This is an interesting concept because it leaves the idea open to debate and interpretation. Although it does not provide a lot of clarity to people, it does allow authors in that field to interpret it anyway they want, which makes the road ahead more interesting. Another concept I took from the Historically - Situated definition was that new media still has its roots. For example the concept of a blog is not new media, but the form it is taking in a multimodal setting perceives it to be new. Before blogs could just be a form of text, but now it can incorporate sounds and visuals which makes it seem like a new concept.
11/21/16
1.) Before we conducted the interview I helped write our questions to conduct the interview. I also helped write the group contract and made sure I attended all the assigned meeting dates to work on the project. During the interview I worked the camera and uploaded our video online so we could share it. For the editing process, I helped decide what out main focus was and what video clips and sections we would use. I also helped to figure out the flow and how each section should transition into the next. For each draft I helped decide on all the areas we needed improvements on and made sure we all agreed on the edits that needed to be made for the next draft that was due.
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2.)The part of the video that most pleases me is our ability to cut down all the footage we had and turn it into a short video that makes sense to viewers unfamiliar with this project. The amount of work that went into figuring out incorporating both Ma Mary and Henrietta especially pleases me. I also really like the different close up shots we have of Ma Mary because they seem like it provides more emotion to the story. I am most displeased with our inability to shorten the video, but most of that is dealing with two speakers in the story.
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3.) If we could do this project again I would focus earlier on at the central theme I wanted from the story. It was hard to figure out what we wanted to make the theme of the interview and base it off what the community partner seemed to mkae the most important part of his/her story. I would also make sure the story has enough background information so people can undertsand our piece before they watch it.
12/5/16
1.) Based on the final reflections I saw today I like the layout of both reflections. One reflection was incorporated into a group reflection where they each wrote one part and analyzed a specific piece. They connected it to their Quest for Refuge project and had each page flow to the next to discuss another part about how their project connects to the learning objectives. The other reflection went a completely different way by making another website to explain how the learning objectives were met through projects conducted in class. In this reflection I like how it was broken up into sections to easily follow how she connected the learning objectives to the class. I will revise my reflection to have more distinct sections that are easy to understand the learning objective I am discussing in each section
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2.) Moving forward I need to keep editing my presentation of the reflection. I want to make it transition more steadily from section to section, and I also want add heading and images to make it look more like a final draft. I also want to add in a couple more connections to the reading we did in class, and how they relate to the learning objectives.