Working with Images, Audio, and Video

To break down the digital storytelling process, we worked with three main modes in this class – images, audio, and video.  Some assignments required us to only use one mode (such as the image story assignment and the audio story assignment) while others (the video story assignment and the research-based digital story assignment) required us to use multiple modes.

In order to more clearly flesh out my experiences with each mode and to describe how rhetorical principles can be applied, I’m going to break this post up into three sections that center on images, audio, and video, respectively.

Images

The image story was sincerely the most difficult assignment for me this semester. In a way, I felt inhibited since we could only use images, but what I learned later is that such a limitation can be very powerful.  I’ve often heard the saying “less is more” and have often scoffed at it, but I finally saw the validity of that statement while composing my image story.

My image story consisted of a bunch of farm-related pictures that gradually shifted from a happy, early-morning scene to a damaging storm to a peaceful night of restoration. In order to evoke those kinds of emotions, it was necessary to imply them by paying attention to the little things. I chose each transition carefully and set each picture’s duration to achieve a specific effect (the longer pictures were meant to promote peacefulness, the shorter ones to portray sudden, intense movement, etc.).

My revised image story is included below, and as you go through it, you can almost “feel” the change of pace through both the transitions and the length of each individual picture. You noted in your feedback to me that the lightning scene “seem[ed] like the most stand-out and change-like moment,” and you probably came to that conclusion because the images beforehand were light and their pacing was slow and smooth, whereas the lightening image and the one before that were rather abrupt and rough.

One might not think that such tiny details are important, but they truly are. I was surprised to find myself agonizing over such minute things because, more generally, I’m always concerned with my words when I’m creating a story. In this case, though, there weren’t any words, so all of the smaller details added up to share the weight and importance of the project. Rhetoric in this sense was shifted from paying attention to how words are read by readers to how images and their transitions come across to the watching audience, and it was interesting to see how that core attention to audience is still present and very influential when composing an image story.

Audio

The audio story brought about its own challenges, but for me, the most difficult part of the assignment was telling a complete story in a two or three minute timeframe. I started it off as more of an introduction to my larger project, but I realized that, like with the image story, the smaller details were the ones to add up and make the most impact. Concerning audio, these are things like the pitch, inflection, and pacing of a voiceover, little sound effects, the duration and intensity of music, and various other things. My audio story is included below.

In order to be rhetorical with it, one has to really think about how his or her audience will react to things. I didn’t anticipate things well at first (in your feedback to me, you mentioned that you didn’t understand why there was the sound of a gas burner at the beginning, and I had actually thought that sound was the “coolest” of my story and didn’t think it would be a problem). I relied heavily on what my immediate audience (my mother) thought (she loved it), but I didn’t check with other people to get different viewpoints and thoughts.

Audio seems to be a very personalized mode. Music taste (which is a specified genre of audio) is one of those things that is unique for each and every person, so audio effectiveness is definitely a hard thing to fully predict since different people might react in their own ways. It’s still important to tamper with, though (I mean, how can we do anything right if we don’t know what we do wrong first?), and though I changed many things throughout the making of my audio story, I could have done more.

It was interesting how I used many seemingly simple things to create audio sounds. I recorded the gas burner of my stove, my fingers snapping, and my mom and I clapping, to name a few of the sound effects in my audio story. I relied heavily on Dorwick’s work with recording mundane sounds and making them sound eerie or distorted (even though I chose not to necessarily go that route). In the end, I feel that the only digital resources I really used for this project was my phone, voice-recording app, my computer, and Audacity, but it all came together to create a simple yet complete audio story, though I could have revised the sound effects and music to make it more effective.

Video

My video-making abilities have developed tremendously over the course of this class. I actually used the same video-editing software for my video story/digital story that I used in the past (Windows MovieMaker), but my rhetorical training and knowledge (both from this class and from my writing and rhetoric major itself) really came through to make a difference.

To better help you see this transformation, I’ll show you a clip from a video that I made during my senior year of high school and then a clip that I made in this class (during my senior year of college). The high school assignment was one where we had to make a multi-media project that addressed the concept of “the other” in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The drama geek that I was, I decided to film and act out a type of documentary using my smartphone and the resources available to me at the time (aka, not much except for my phone, computer, and house).

Here’s a video in which there is an image sequence:

            

You’ll notice that I used a popular song (at the time) to play during the sequence, and I also had pictures devoid of any words. I didn’t give any attribution to the song or pictures (disclaimer: it was used for educational purposes), and in sum, it just feels very simple.

Here’s an example from my research-based digital story where I used images, sound, and words to evoke a certain meaning:

Hopefully it’s clear that this image sequence is more nuanced and purposeful in its duration. I timed and matched sounds to create an eerie sort of feel, and I put words atop of the images to more clearly convey my message and be clear to the audience.

One of the things that I know now at twenty-two and didn’t know at eighteen is that so much more goes into an effective video than just the video itself and a couple captions. Audio (either a voiceover, music, sound effects, or other elements) can really have an impact on an audience. As Lambert notes, “in a story, we are listening for the shape of an organic, rhythmic quality that allows us to drift into reverie” (p. 18), and this rhythm can be attained mostly through sound but can also be enhanced by images and the interaction of different modes (so words on videos, music on images, voice on videos, etc.).

What I learned overall from experimenting with video-making is that some of the principles of writing can still apply. You want to obviously consider your audience and make sure you’re appealing to them in some way (in this case, the audience is both you and, for my final project, students who are looking to study abroad), and you want to still draft revise in a way that you would when writing a paper. Another post later in this blog details my drafting and revision process throughout this class, but as it relates to working with all these different mediums, I’ve learned that some of the basic drafting methods can still be employed but that the changes and previewing shifts to a different kind of form (i.e., mainly visual and auditory, not necessarily written).

Conclusion

Overall, I did a lot of trial and error to complete the image, audio, and video assignments for this class, but my process still mirrored that of my writing process. It required me to think in different ways, of course (for example, when writing a paper, you don’t have to worry so much about font and background color since everything is uniform), but still, there was some transfer of basic skill sets. I was able to draft and then revise as I agonized over small decisions (video transition, audio clip, slide duration, font color and size, etc.), and in the end, I learned how to (and how not to) compose my digital stories by trying everything out and then adjusting according to the feedback I received.