Digital Story #mymelbourne

Connect to my digital story #mymelbourne, via the link below:

http://emmaodono.tumblr.com/

REFLECTION:

My digital story has taken shape on the blogging platform tumblr.com, I discovered this was the best way to showcase my digital story in a logical, aesthetically pleasing and easily accessible way. I changed this from my original plan to use wordpress, as tumblr I felt had a better ability to showcase my story in a way that demonstrated the narrative and my intention to paint a picture of #mymelbourne . This change in platform was informed by the flipped lecture ‘Visual Storytelling For Web: Tips and Techniques’, which highlighted the importance of composition, ‘the placement or arrangement of digital elements in a work’ (Source: Filizefe 2009, Accessed at: http://www.slideshare.net/filizefe/visual-storytelling-for-web-tips-and-techniques)

I think I was successful in giving my story a united feel, and attempting to carry out a similar aesthetic through all six photographs. I was able to do this by, as proposed, using my iPhone 5 and the panaroma function. I then used iPhoto to edit these images in order to manipulate the brightness, contrast and hue to make all the photos have a similar style. I increased the brightness and exposure slightly and significantly increased the contrast to give the images their bright vibrant appearance, which I think captured the essence of what I was trying to say I felt about Melbourne as a city.

The six locations I chose were significant and important because I think they captured the key elements of Melbourne I love and enjoy. The architecture, studying, exercising, the outdoors, food and cooking. I think they provided a good amount of variety in; location, appearance and purpose. The variety in my opinion helping to maintain the interest of the audience.

I used text sparingly, as I was attempting to let the photographs themselves do most of the talking and tell the story, I thought a great deal of text would distract from the beauty in the photos. I wanted my audience/viewer to spend the majority of their viewing time shaping their own perception of the location I had posted. The text I did use took on the same skeleton for each image, once again in order to create a sense of unity throughout the piece. Using single words in a list to describe what draws me to each location, I think was enough to give the audience a taste, hopefully imploring them to want to find out more.

My use of hyperlinks is also very integral to my story as it allows the level of interactivity with the audience, that through my research, I thought was a very important aspect of keeping a digital story engaging. The links are optional extras, but allow the audience to find out more through; maps, websites, blogs, reviews and videos. This was my attempt to make this digital story a trans-media type presentation and to engage the audience on a more secondary level. Trans-media story-telling is raised in the flipped lecture ‘Getting Started with Transmedia Storytelling’, ‘“Transmedia storytelling” is telling a story across multiple media and preferably, although it doesn’t always happen, with a degree of audience participation, interaction and collaboration’ (Source: Robert Pratten 2011, Accessed at: http://www.slideshare.net/ZenFilms/getting-started-in-transmedia-storytelling).

This idea of interactivity is similar to that discussed in the digital story-telling flipped lecture ‘Creating an Interactive Adventure’, ‘Stories must have a reason to branch.’ (Source: Edwin, May 2012, Accessed at: http://thefictionengine.com/2012/05/creating-an-interactive-adventure/). I interpreted this quote in a non-fiction sense for the structure of my story, and the reason to branch was a desire to find out more.

I used social media quite extensively as I was creating my digital story and at it’s completion in order to gain a wider readership, as noted in the flipped lecture ‘A Perfect Storm’, where it was noted marketing must be ‘A cross-platform explosion’ (Source: Mel Exon, Accessed at: http://www.slideshare.net/melex11/the-perfect-storm-the-social-web-storytelling-and-brands-08-07). I will post some screen shots below, to demonstrate the way I did this. By connecting through the hashtag #mymelbourne, and posting as the story grew, I was able to allow people to follow the story as it developed. I have received lots of feedback from my connections on these social media sites, many of the comments revolving around the quality of the photographs and their interest in the concept.

Please see my twitter profile @emmaodono to directly see the tweets relating to my digital story. These can be identified with the hashtag #mymelbourne.

Similarly connect to me via my username emmaodono on iPhone application ‘instagram’, to see my use of this social media platform, relevant photos will be linked with the hashtag #mymelbourne.

SOCIAL MEDIA SCREEN SHOTS:

#mymelbourne Instagram on Twitter:

#mymelbourne Instagram on Facebook:

#mymelbourne on Twitter:

#mymelbourne on Facebook:

This is definitely a story I want to continue building on. Hopefully as my readership grows and people begin to post their interpretations of the hashtag #mymelbourne, these too could be added into the blog. This would create a greater texture to the story and hopefully widen it’s scope around Melbourne. This draws on the idea raised in the flipped lecture, ‘The Perfect Storm’, which highlights, ‘People are spending more time with content made by people like themselves’ (Source: Mel Exon, Accessed at: http://www.slideshare.net/melex11/the-perfect-storm-the-social-web-storytelling-and-brands-08-07). Also on reflection this idea offers a great potential for any city or town around the world. If one blog could be created where readers could access multiple countries #mynewyork #myparis #myberlin #mykenya, I could see this digital story becoming a means of researching potential travel destinations and connecting with people all around the world,  ultimately this idea of connection being the notion this course Networked Media is based around.

Locative Media: Is it ok to eat or not?

OK so my story starts with me sitting in what I would describe as the casual section of RMIT Swanston library. There’s couches, tables at a coffee table height and people not reluctant to have a good old chat about anything really. There definitely doesn’t seem to be a strict ‘only study’ policy.

So I sit casually watch my lectures, post in my blog, do my study. My stomach starts to rumble. I look around and wonder do I have to give up my prime position (might I add I had a powerpoint right next to me, to charge my almost dead computer) just to crack open my tupperware and eat the fresh, mango I’d cut up this morning. I sat for a while longer, normally not one to study in the library, I started to regret my location of choice, I don’t know the etiquette.

I look around, no one else is eating, in fact no one else even looks like they want to (maybe that was just my ridiculously hungry stomach affecting my vision). So I sit for a minute longer, unable to decide what was more important, that I was a good citizen of the library or whether my stomach, that was now making audible grumbling sounds needed to be satisfied by that delicious mango.

So I took the risk, I reached into my bag, trying not to draw attention to myself. Each movement calculated so it didn’t make too much noise or attract any degree of attention. I pulled out my tupperware. I ate it! The whole thing once I started I couldn’t stop, that was it my self control was gone, now miles away.

And to my surprise no one really looked at me too strangely and I didn’t get abused, or told to leave immediately. Maybe my apprehension was all my head.

So if you ever wanted to know whether you could eat in that part of the library, as a person like me who struggles to go two hours without a quick snack, you can use my experiment as a guide.

So I placed this QR tag to the very location in the library where this momentous event took place. Just so you know exactly where it is you can without judgement eat your morning snack.

Infographic: Level 1 Marking Reflection

Infographic: Level 1 Marking Reflection
Created at: piktochart.com

 

What’s in an ‘app’?

It took until the 6^th version of the iPhone (iPhone 5) for me to make the switch from my trusty Nokia smartphone, to the much cooler, more sophisticated world of the iPhone. With the switch came the question, “What apps do you have?”. I don’t know if I’ve spent too much time with my Grandma, but to me a phone is very much still for making calls and sending text messages, although I do now thoroughly enjoy being able to check my emails and bank balance in an instant. And this I guess is what ‘apps’ are all about, making life easier, ensuring we’re absolutely connected and providing hours upon hours of procrastination techniques and entertainment. So what exactly is an app?

In his blog Ian Bogost draws on a comment sourced from a Gamasutra article about the new Mac App Store:

‘I think the primary thing that Apple did was create and market the concept of the “app” as a $1-5 unit. They’re doing to software what they did to music: they broke it up into little pieces and then gave consumers a nice place to shop for the pieces. Before, the channels of distribution were much clunkier and inert. This is very much a good thing for smaller devs. Apple has removed so much of the headache of marketing (“Just find it on the AppStore!”), setting up payment systems, installation, etc.’ (Source: http://www.bogost.com/blog/what_is_an_app.shtml) 

In my opinion this sums up the technology aptly, way before the ‘app’ itself was invented or created we were playing games, creating documents, editing photos online, on our phones and on our computers. Although the ‘app’ has introduced a world- where essentially many applications we have used previously are organised into a neat and easy to navigate store, which can be searched for in an instant and downloaded onto our phones and computers just as quickly. Apple, as in my opinion it has done in many instances, turned a technology that has already existed into a ‘new’ phenomenon that’s easier to use, therefore marketable and somehow inevitably ‘cool’.  Of course the ease of accessibility and the fast paced downloading, can only be viewed in my opinion as a pro the world of ‘apps’ that Apple has created. This sentiment is supported by the following statistics, that clearly demonstrate the massive success of the product:

‘Every day, 46 million mobile applications are downloaded from Apple’s App Store, according to Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers partner Mary Meeker.’ (Source: Meghan Kelly 2012, Accessed at: http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/30/app-store-downloads/)

So what are the cons? Well in my opinion it rests in the ease in creating an app and therefore the absolute masses of ‘products’ that appear as a result. Because of the huge number of apps that are available finding the one that is appropriate for your specific need can take a number of attempts. Also breaking into the world of ‘apps’ a creator can prove just as difficult, as Kelly of venturebeat.com reflects:

‘Many of app developers say that it’s difficult to be found in the sea of billions of apps that live in the App Store. Crawling up to a “top 25″ spot on one of Apple’s app lists, is also difficult, and based on download numbers.’ (Source: Meghan Kelly 2012, Accessed at: http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/30/app-store-downloads/)

It cannot be denied that in many cases ‘apps’ have the ability to make our lives easier, we can check the weather anywhere around the world with a click of a button, connect with friends anywhere around the world in a second, check and send emails from our smartphones and track the progress of public transport. But it must be noted that not all ‘apps’ improve the quality of our lives, many merely occupy the ‘app’ store with a very limited user base, making the process of finding the ‘app’ that’s right for us often a longer process than what it may have to be.

Reflection: Six Degrees of Separation. How connected are we?

Resources:

1. Thomas Berman 2008, ‘Six Degrees of Separation: Fact or Fiction?’ , ABC, Accessed at: http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2717038&page=1#.UHT_aBZrbSE-

2.Tu, Zhang, ‘Six Degrees of Separation in Online Society’, journalwebscience.org, Accessed at: http://journal.webscience.org/147/2/websci09_submission_49.pdf

3. Internet World Statistics, Accessed at: http://www.internetworldstats.com/

Prof Comm Student Charter

So the challenge was to see if we as students of ‘Professional Communications’ at RMIT University we could improved the prescribed charter. So how to go about this? Well google docs file sharing apparently. I found this experience rather confronting at first, I think the challenge lay in the fact that the document was open to such a large amount of contributors, so many that material that had been changed and edited was difficult to follow and further improve myself. Therefore this experience taught me that perhaps when using online file sharing and editing programs one must be very specific about the content and the intended use and development, as well as the amount of people the file is shared with. A vast and open arena of online editors and contributors in this case proved quite problematic.

Although in saying this I did find the experience quite enlightening and interesting. As such an open forum allowed for a wide range of ideas and sentiments. Annotated in the screen shots below are the changes I believe were most important to make and the points I thought could be added.

SCREEN GRAB 1

The screen grab above shows the three new points I added to the charter

1. Involve yourself actively and often in discussions during tutorials. It is important to have the ability to voice your opinions in a public space, and draw and develop upon the ideas of others.
2. Utilise the resources that RMIT provides (technical equipment, academic resources, tutors and lecturers) wherever possible in order to get the most out of your degree.
3. Approach the course as an active and ongoing learning experience. Students are expected to push their learning boundaries and step outside their immediate comfort zone, in order to get the most of the course

I attempted to write these goals in a formal and direct style in order to suit the already existing points within the charter. Whilst also aiming to be descriptive and clear.

SCREEN GRAB 2:

Visible in the annotation on the screen grab I made some changes to three of the points already posted by fellow students. With these changes I aimed to improve clarity in expression and description. As well as attempting to make the wording and expression within these points more in line with the original charter (Seen in Figure 1, Figure 2,Figure 3).

Digital Storytelling: How do you do it?

‘BEAR 71’

The first digital story I watched was ‘Bear 71’ an interactive 20 minute documentary from the ‘National Film Board of Canada’ by Leanne Allison and Jeremy Mendes. It follows the story of a grizzly bear who was collared at three years old and followed around Banff National Park.

My initial response to this digital story was amazement. The ability to navigate around a map of Banff National Park, was extremely creative and the ability to follow the movements of Bear 71 and other animals within this habitat. Although a great strength of this piece I believe is the continuation of the narrative voice-over whilst allowing you to explore the interactive map. Keeping this narrative thread going throughout, whilst allowing the viewer to choose their own path in my opinion ensures a continued engagement with the piece and prevents the viewer getting lost within what is a quite complex layout.

The use of music throughout the piece also greatly added to it’s sense of narrative and flow. I think the instrumental soundtrack selected added to the serious tone of the piece, which really communicated the ‘realness’ of the plight of the bears within this deteriorating habitat, rather than just presenting the story as a fictional narrative or an interactive ‘game’.

The narrator speaking as though they were Bear 71 also proved effective, it provided the bear with humanistic qualities the viewer can relate to, thus providing the basis for emotional connection with the character. On a personal level it wasn’t until the concluding videos in the series (which were not viewer selected, but presented within the story as a compulsory element), that I realised how following this character so closely for 17 minutes had pulled me into the world of the story.

In my personal opinion the weakness of this piece of digital storytelling was in some ways it’s complexity. For example the map in which you could navigate within seemed almost boundary-less, which meant at times you felt as though you were searching for quite a long time to pin-point a particular video. I also think in this regard a system could have been implemented to show the viewer the videos they had already viewed within the map, to avoid the chance of re-watching.

In terms of the development of digital storytelling I see this documentary as an exemplary example of the the integration of viewer interactivity, as well as the employment of a range of different mediums, from video, to music, to on screen text. The absolute complexity, yet the presented simplicity in the integration of these mediums, in my opinion is the future of digital storytelling.

‘TAKE THIS LOLLIPOP’

Wow, what an incredibly effective way to tell a story. This piece is not what you expect when you see the opening page, an innocent blue lollipop. The twists of this digital story make it highly effective, as well as it’s unpredictability.

The way in which it highlights the dangers of social media is incredible, and by utilizing your own personal facebook images, it draws you immediately into the story. I felt a knot forming in my stomach. Despite every user essentially seeing the same skeleton of a story, by accessing personal images and information the story becomes personal, and this truly captivates an audience in my opinion. The development of character is also very strong in my opinion, the acting is believable and the setting adds to the threatening and intimidating nature of the story. The use of quick changes between a variety of different shot sizes, close-ups most regularly help contribute to the fast paced nature of the story and create a sense of intimacy and a feeling of watching something that you shouldn’t really be seeing. The option to share the story to Facebook at the completion is also a strong feature, allowing the story to reach a wider audience through the very medium it critiques. Such a convention makes the audience, I know particularly in my case really think about ‘sharing’ and what facebook really has the power to do. Which in my opinion is the story’s main contention. The short, succinct length of the piece worked quite well for the subject matter that was presented, it helped develop as a sense of fear, as the viewer is forced to feel as though such a story starts and finishes in just a matter of moments.

In comparison to the first piece ‘Bear 71’, this story is far less interactive. Perhaps it could be improved by offering the audience different options within the story, asking them questions and allowing them to control where the story takes them. I see interactivity as a convention that can improve engagement with the story structure and narrative, as the viewer is consciously active within the story itself. But in saying this perhaps the beauty of the story itself is the inability to take action, just having to watch the internet predator and not be able to do anything about it. Maybe to strengthen the piece the author could add an interactive second episode or prequel, in order to further engage the audience.

In regards to the development of digital storytelling I think this piece highlights the way in which online mediums are perhaps most effective in commenting on online issues. The way in which this story uses facebook (the very social media outlet it critiques), highlights the way in which digital storytelling can draw from such a wide range of online mediums to tell it’s story.

‘ROME’

Rome is an interactive digital story that aims to tell the story of  ‘inspired by the music of Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi (featuring Jack White, Norah Jones and renowned composer Ennio Morricone’s original 40-piece orchestra from Italy)’ (Source: Mashable.com Layla Revis 2012, Accessed at: http://mashable.com/2012/01/31/digital-storytelling/). The piece essentially takes you on a journey through a number of different graphically produced environments; city, desert, countryside using the music as a catalyst for where the journey takes you.

One of the main strengths of this piece in my opinion is the ability for the viewer to be able to navigate through the different environments using the mouse. The story directs you in a certain forwards direction, although the viewer can navigate up and down and side to side. This I believe added great interest to the piece. The movement of the mouse throughout the journey also prompted the creation of new graphics in the direction the viewer chooses. This allows the viewer to make his or her own connection with the music, and direct the story the way in which the music makes. For me personally this gave the story a whimsical feeling, creating an almost dream like state. Therefore I think the most significant strength of this piece of storytelling is the mood it is able to create through the effective combination of graphics, music and interactivity.

I think this piece could potentially be improved by adding the ability to ‘click’ using the mouse controls. I know a couple of times I subconsciously tried to ‘click’ on certain areas of the digital environment. I think by doing this would allow the user to engage in yet another layer of the digital storyworld. Perhaps by ‘clicking’ you could open up certain elements of the landscape that is presented. I also think the piece could be improved by the use of some form of text, perhaps that related to the lyrics of the songs, or that appeared depending on where the mouse was moved. Once again adding another layer within the story. I also think some of the graphics within the piece could be improved to make the images clearer.

In terms of the development of digital storytelling in my opinion this example highlights a potential direction for music videos in the future. This medium allows people to engage more with the music and gives them the ability to interact with it, perhaps establishing a greater connection.