ENG 3960: Digital Course Portfolio

Digital Story

Composer’s Letter

At the beginning of this class, I had no idea what a digital story was and never gave any thought to the concept. I certainly didn’t think that I would be able to create one myself. However, it’s incredible the things we can produce when we devote all of our attention. I’m such a procrastinator that I stayed up all night putting together a project that I am exceptionally proud of because I had no idea I was capable of pulling this off.

For my digital story, I decided to build on and decorate the story of me being the first child that I describe in our sound story project. This story is important to me because being the first child and oldest of five has had a significant impact on the woman I am today. It’s a role that has brought me as much strain, as it has joy and fulfillment. I want viewers to experience an understanding of the situations that a first child may face but, also take pleasure in a story that is meant to highlight the good and the bad in a lighthearted way. The story itself is beyond valuable and now being able to bring it to life through this digital story is a priceless feeling. After the sound story project, I was able to walk away no longer hating the sound of my voice. Now after listening to myself a million more times, I can say that I genuinely do not hate the sound of my voice anymore and I put together a project with multiple parts using iMovie.

While the sound of my voice helps to keep viewers engaged in the story, the images bring the story alive by immersing viewers into the movie that plays in my head when I think about this experience. After choosing what images that would best help me bring this story to life, my next task was figuring out the order that would be consistent with the flow of the story. I must have reorganized the images a thousand times until I was satisfied with how they flowed throughout the story. After completing what I believe is the hard part of the project, I added a little background music to increase the flavor. I also just wanted to see if I can put all these moving parts together and I think it worked out pretty well.

Feedback:

• In your opinion, does the background music add or take away from the story?
• After watching this a million times to get it right, my judgment is a bit biased. Is there any feedback you would suggest for me to improve this piece that I may not be able to see?

Composer’s Letter:

When composing this piece, I started to think about all of the events in my life that created or added to my role as the first child and oldest sister in my family. One funny event that kind of puts my personality into perspective is the fact that when I was two years old, I changed the diaper of my cousin who was also two years old. Of course, my mom and the other adults who were around to witness this were as surprised and amused as I was proud of myself. Regarding my role in my family, I thought that this event would be perfect to start with because it served as the perfect segue into describing my experience.

I intended to describe how being the first child and the oldest can usually place a ton of pressure on the person in that role. However, I still wanted to keep the energy light-hearted with a little bit of humor. One of my goals of this piece is to allow my audience to feel transported into this role and will enable them to picture themselves in each experience that I explained. I hope that my audience will be able to laugh but also walk away with an understanding of how hard it can sometimes be to be the person playing this role.

I tried to alternate my tone of voice and keep a certain rhythm while speaking to make this sound story easy on the ears, while also igniting the emotions that I wanted to my audience to feel while listening. I don’t like listening to the sound of my voice, so this experience was especially cringing, having to record myself, play it back and figure out how I should say things differently and then repeating until I was satisfied. One thing that got in my way was the fact that no matter how many times I tried to re-record, there were still words that I stumbled over. I am also not experienced with Garageband, so it was hard to use. Nonetheless, my youngest brother Noah, who is five years old and had to stay home from school today because he has asthma, does not understand the concept of keeping quiet to allow me to pay attention and record.

Using only sound, I think that I was able to describe my experience better than images or simply reading text could convey. The range in my tone of voice allows my audience to understand the points that I want to emphasize, parts of my story that made me feel excited or stressed, and merely the emotions behind the story which are very important in understanding a story. Text or images are not always able to convey emotion. However, using only sound similarly poses the limitation of maybe the audience not being able to visualize as they could with images or fully grasp your context as they could with text.

After listening to my sound story, does it come off as cheesy or cliche? Is it not detailed enough? Does it contain too much fluff and as a result is not concise? Is there anything you would recommend that I add or remove from this piece?

Sound Story

For this project, I chose to focus on the Personal Path.

A place that’s very important to me is Eastern Parkway, in Crown Heights Brooklyn. When I think about Eastern Parkway and what it means to me, I immediately think about the West Indian American Day Parade that takes place every labor day, beginning in front of my building on Eastern Parkway and Buffalo Ave and ending in front of the Brooklyn Museum. Since my pamper stage, I have participated in the Parade with my family; it has become a tradition, reminding us of Trinidad and Tobago, where my family originates.

In this photo story, I show images from Kiddies Carnival in 2004, showcasing myself and my family indulging in this time that brings us so much joy. Kiddies Carnival takes place the Saturday before the main parade on Labor Day. I had the most personal images that my family took of Kiddies Carnival, which I why I decided to use them instead.

I want viewers to feel the same sense of joy that shines through these pictures and take away a curiosity to learn more about the parade and maybe participate in it themselves.

Click here to view my photo story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My name is Nakia Moore and I am a 21 yr old Taurus, born on May 20th. My family originates from Trinidad and Tobago so, I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY as a proud West Indian.

I am currently a senior here at Baruch majoring in Corporate Communications. After dabbling in event planning and taking a few Public Relations courses, I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in PR.

Fun Facts about myself:

• At 12, I almost drowned in Waimea Valley Falls in Honolulu, Hawaii.
• I hate hearing my voice played back to me.