SamanthaSturman
Reflective Essay
As we wrap up our work on our service learning project, I have had a lot of time to reflect on what we have accomplished. This has been a unique learning experience and an exercise in personal growth. I have had the opportunity to work with a great group of people, both in my group partners and the representatives from the community agency. I am coming away from this project with a new found understanding of how important it is to protect intellectual freedom, and a working knowledge of some digital programs I had not used before. Most importantly, for me though, are the lessons I learned about writing in a digital format.
Our project was a little different than the others in the class in that we solicited the project from the community agency instead of the other way around. Because of this, we were able to do more in terms of creative license than some of the other groups. Our community agency did not have any specific ideas about what they wanted, so we were able to take the lead with the video. This was both a positive and a negative aspect. It was positive in the sense that we were able to be creative, but it was hard to create a project for someone else with very few parameters.
I felt a little behind the group in the beginning stages of the project because I was not familiar with Banned Books Week. I was interested in learning more but I wasn’t sure what exactly I was looking for when I was doing research, so it made the process a little tough. The fact that we were presenting our idea for the project to the community agency instead of them giving us guidelines for what they wanted made it even worse, because I wasn’t sure what our purpose was. It just felt like I was gathering information without a solid reason for doing it. I decided to just learn as much as I could about Banned Books Week in general. I explored a lot of resources that gave overviews of the event, when it was started, who is involved, and why it is important. My portion of the film script ended up being centered on that, so it worked out well.
In one of our first meetings, we sat down and talked about what kind of feel we wanted the video to have. Ken Burns instantly came to mind, because he does such emotionally jarring work with photographs, voice-over, and music. His films are both beautiful and moving, and because of the heavy reliance on still photography, the transitions are seamless. In that meeting, we decided as a group that we wanted our film to have a sort of Ken Burns style. I later learned that the program we used (iMovie) actually has a “Ken Burns effect” built in that creates panning and zooming motion on a photograph. I think the end result definitely achieves a Burns-like effect.
Because we started the project with the letter of understanding, community analysis, and annotated bibliography, we had a ton of research. I think this was a bit of a hindrance in the beginning stages of the project because we were all engrossed in the raw data and didn’t really have a plan as to where to put it or what to include. One of our first planning meetings ended up being a pretty big source of frustration for me because I felt we were lacking cohesion. We sat for over four hours, each conducting research on our own and randomly throwing out interesting facts or data without a solid game plan. We finally put together an outline for the project that day, and from there on it felt like we had good direction and focus for the project. In fact, our final product sticks pretty closely to the original outline.
One of the elements that helps with the overall feel of the movie is the music. We discussed a lot of options in our initial meeting, and decided since this movie would potentially be seen by a wide audience, we would have to be careful with the music so as not to break any copyright laws. We talked about having local musicians create the soundtrack, but in the end, Joshua was able to create a very fitting soundtrack in the program Garage Band. We all had ideas in our head of what we wanted the music to sound like. I was picturing a sort of folksy guitar music as a backdrop (probably because of my tendency to listen to Damien Jurado in the winter), but Joshua’s vision was more perfect than I ever could have dreamed. The string riff that loops in the introduction creates an almost suspenseful, action movie feel that pairs so well with the visual element. That track has become somewhat of a legend in LA207. The other TA’s have all heard it repeatedly as they have come through during our working meetings, and most leave with it stuck in their heads.
The visual elements in our film were put together primarily by Linda and Joshua. They are both very skilled Mac users, and were able to easily navigate iMovie. Throughout the process, I did a lot of over-the-shoulder learning, but did not have the chance to really learn how to use the program. It is something I regret in this project, and I would like to do some work in iMovie over the break so I can utilize it in other projects in the future. It seems to be the most professional looking format to create a video in, and is very controllable. Linda was able to time the opening book sequence in the movie by assigning a time frame of as little as a tenth of a second to each image. The fade-ins and outs of the music and images feel very smooth in this program as well.
Once we had the outline, we were able to start piecing the video together. We talked about how we wanted to structure each section on the screen and slowly started collecting images and writing scripts. The writing in the film was pretty evenly divided. We each took a section, wrote a script for it, and compiled images to be shown while it was narrated. Tyler was instrumental in gathering images and quotes for the film. There is a warehouse of data files on our Wix site that shows the breadth of his work.
We went through a lot of different options for the section of the film about why books are banned. Our original plan was to do some sort of animation for this section. I explored a couple of free online animation programs, but none had free images that were fitting for our project. It was a great learning experience though. I think I have more programs downloaded onto my computer from working on this project than I have put on there in the three years I have had it. We also tried our hand at a very rudimentary version of stop motion animation using a white board and Joshua’s iPhone. Though I am a little sad that my stick figure drawings did not make the final cut, I think our visual representation of the reasons books are banned in the final version of the film is more cohesive to the overall feel of the film. In the end, we took a cue from a Banned Books Week display and wrapped some books in brown paper. I stenciled the word “BANNED” on them, and we photographed them on bookshelves in the library, surrounded by books banned for different reasons. Joshua, Tyler and I spent a couple of hours in the library compiling lists of books, looking up call numbers, and gathering them from the stacks. It was fascinating to see how many books the library had that had been banned or challenged in different parts of the country. It also brought up some issues of access, as some of the books in the children’s literature section of the library were made difficult to find. One book had the spine removed, making it hard to spot on the shelf.
The work done in this section of the film made me feel like I was making a tangible contribution. In other aspects of the film, I felt like I was more of a passive participant. I didn’t know how to use the programs the film was created in, so most of the technical work was done by Joshua and Linda. Tyler was the one who initiated the project, so he had an idea of what he wanted to do from the beginning. I came into the project at the ground floor. I learned about the topic through research, did as much as I could in terms of planning and detail work like image farming, and scripts, and then did work on the reasons section. I do feel like I made a real contribution to the project, but it was hard to not have any hands-on input into the physical creation of the piece.
Because of my desire to do some hands-on technical work for the project, I volunteered to create the Wix site. One of the main reasons I took this class was to learn more about digital media creation, and I wanted to have the experience of working with technology for this project. My work on the Wix site was fun and frustrating at the same time. I knew I wanted to use a template because I am not proficient with the program and did not feel confident creating something from scratch. I started with one template, changed some images and page names, input some information, and realized it just didn’t have the right feel, so I left it. The second template I chose ended up being the one I used in the final version. I found a template that had a book on the cover and it seemed obvious, so I started playing around with it.
My work on the site functioned as a self-taught learning experience for the program. Through trial and error, I learned about the different layers on each page, how to isolate each layer to work on it, and how the data on each layer effects the overall site. I spent a good amount of time cursing at the screen, but in the end, I was able to navigate the editing options effectively. I spent far too much time looking through images housed on the Wix site to put on the home page, only to cut the image I found and manipulated in the final version. It does say a lot for rhetorical choice though. I just wasn’t having a positive reaction to the image I had on the homepage, so even with as long as it took to produce it, I had to go with my decision to cut it.
I am really happy with the way the website turned out. There are a few things about the program that I was not happy about, like the inability to place an audio file in the site without it automatically opening an audio player. I wanted to put a link on the site for people to be able to download the ringtone Joshua made of the intro song on the video, but since Wix will not allow you to store an MP3 file on the published version of the site, I was unable to pull it off. Aside from the minor limitations of the program, I am pleased with the final product, and my group members were happy with the site as well.
I have to say, this project has taken me far outside my comfort zone and opened up a lot of new possibilities for me. I think the most important lesson I learned through all of this is the importance of cohesion. Without a cohesive vision in the beginning stages of our project, we ended up scattered and frustrated. It was not until we decided on a storyline for the movie that the real work began. We worried a lot initially about what we would create for our agency. After we sat down with the representatives, went over our story line, and got feedback from them, we felt like we were on the right track. We went through a laundry list of options and effects for different sections of the movie, but only when we found elements that worked cohesively with the overall feel of the project did we feel satisfied with what we had done. I played with a number of different images and fonts and layouts for the Wix site. I was not able to do productive work until I found a template and images that worked cohesively with the message of our project. As a writer, I understand the importance of consistency, but this project showed me that element of writing in the digital world. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have worked on a project like this and with the people in my group. I am confident that I will be able to use the lessons I have learned from this experience with me into other situations as a teacher, a student, and a professional.
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