Digital Storytelling Schedule: Summer 2017
4 weeks between 5/26 and 6/23
First Half: building blocks
Friday, 5/26
Introducing the course, setting this schedule
Friday, 6/2
Create the blog site, choose a “skin”, (modify it as you wish). Accomplish the following on your blog:
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Make a first entry that introduces yourself and includes images and organizes them mindfully. Place your introduction in an “About” page for the blog. (You will likely want to edit this as we go.)
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Make a digital illustration, either still or animated, that combines words (written or spoken) with image elements.
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A good example made by a student.
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Suggested apps for “meme generation”, a layering of memorable text over image. Check Pitt’s Software for Students and see if you can afford the discounted Adobe Creative Suite.
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Create something with a voice clip. Use Adobe Voice? Or some other tool.
Friday, 6/9
It’s week 2. Let’s think about time, and its role in narration. Structure a narrative that moves through time, even that explains a process or delivers a sequenced experience. Deliberate sequencing is required. Do not bore your reader! Imagine an impatient audience who needs to be engaged in a few minutes with pithy and precise language and effectively p(l)aced, vivid images and sound. Surprise your audience with something startling or profound within 4-5 minutes. Condensation may be key: You may find yourself writing and speaking (expressing yourself) a great deal more than you include in the final post. What you complete by Friday 6/9 should count as the two Image + Design projects worth 5% of the final grade. These are experimental starts that build toward the more formal assignments.
Second half: formal projects:
In the second two weeks you will complete the formal assignments for this course, in what order you choose.
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You need to complete two “photo essays” in which images and/or media content = 50% and text is 50% and each component is evenly balanced on the screen. The text and digital elements must fit together to tell a story that can’t be told with only text or only images.
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You need to produce one “sound essay
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As your “grand finale” assignment, you need to produce one short video narrative : a narrative film (length = negotiable, but 3 minutes is a standard for this assignmnet). This could be an “animated short” film, a sequence of edited images that you weave together, a video-complemented reading of a poem or short story, etc. Suggestion: a silently glossed oral performance of Lord Byron’s “The Prisoner of Chillon”, applying image with text.
Friday, 6/16
Suggestion: complete and post the photo essays
Friday 6/23
Suggestion complete and post the sound essay and video narrative
Sidenote: Digital Mitford Coding School Info and Registration