Digital Story Reflection for Let It Burn by Ezra Gibson
What separates man from beasts? A question pondered by philosophers for centuries. Perhaps the only answer satisfying to me has been our stories. Human kind’s ability to entertain, learn, empathize and express individuality through storytelling is truly a trait that is uniquely human. What started as tales of the primitive hunt transformed to stories of the we tell to understand the human condition. Whether it is sitting around a roaring campfire or in front of a glowing screen our stories connect us. The digital story produced for this assignment is no different. The video that streams over our internet serves as our connection.
My digital story describes my transformation through a traumatic experience. The arch of the story relies on the “hero’s journey” trope, but could also be seen as a coming of age story. The story begins with exposition describing springtime on the campus of my north east small college. The music used to underlay the images and voiceover is Edvard Grieg’s "Morgenstemning" from 1875. The music easily recognizable, even cliched as a morning, or spring themed classical song. This music was chosen to be subverted by the darker nature of the story. I then explain my state of mind as a young student. Choosing The Dave Matthew’s Band’s "What Would You Say," as this music was wildly popular at the time the story is set. You couldn’t walk through a dorm in the late 1990s, early 2000s without hearing this kind of music. Again, the mood of the music is cheerful, fun and light hearted. The conflict of the story changes the mood, and with it the music shifts to something much darker and and aggressive. DMX’s "Ruff Ryders Anthem" underscores this section of the story. The song’s aggressive chorus growls, “Stop, drop / Shut em down / Open up shop” it is not coincidental that the “Stop, drop” lyrics remain as they play on the fire safety instructions to, “Stop, drop, and roll.” As the story shifts to feelings worry and uncertainty, the music changes to the droning "Open Heart Surgery" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre. The next piece of music, "Stone On the Water" by Badly Drawn Boy feels pastoral, and natural with acoustic instrumentation. The music denotes the positive shift in my life, despite my dark mood. The next shift occurs when I impact my life for the positive by buying a train ticket and starting my journey west. The music changes to Ryan Adams’ "29" a jangly, freewheeling blues riff that sounds reminiscent of a train chugging along the tracks. To add a moment of levity, when I arrive in Seattle the theme song from the sitcom Frasier briefly plays. To me, it represents what I knew of the city prior to my first visit. The final shift is a more determined, triumphant and appropriately titled "Wisdom" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre, which takes us through the denouement of the story. All of the music was chosen as music that I listened to at the time the story took place. Personally, the songs themselves remind me of this time in my life, so I wanted to bring that to the story as well.
The selection of the images was much less thoroughly articulated, as finding license-free images proved difficult. I attempted to create cohesive theme through color as each piece of the story has a dominant color in the images. Blue and brick dominate the exposition and discussion of fun times at college. This changes to washed out gold, yellow and orange to compliment the fire in the initial conflict. Greens and golds represent the uncertain time period between the fire and getting on the train. The train ride reintroduces blues intermingled with small amounts of green, pink, and yellow. Blue again representing the positive in the story.
This project could be translated to students as project exploring mood and tone in storytelling and how those literary tropes can be explored through media. By articulating mood through music or image rather than word students could gain a deeper understanding of the terms as well the use of these elements in film. Students are well versed in digital media, but have not necessarily developed a critical eye for it. By producing their own work, they can become more discriminating consumers of media.
Creating digital stories could fulfill the criteria of a lesson plan, but more importantly it fulfills the need to create, and express our stories using the tools and grammar of world we have created.
Follow this link to my Digital Story: Let It Burn