Author: susannahpazdan

As I write this last blog post, I am extremely sad that this class is over.  While completing my individual and group projects, I found myself overwhelmed but excited about the work I was producing.  These projects have been far from easy, but have been extremely rewarding.

Team Work

To say that I am proud of my group project and my teammates is an understatement.  We have been on a roller coaster this semester with this project, therefore seeing us get to the end was thrilling.  

For our project, I believe that my whole group would agree in saying that having to communicate in another language was the hardest.  None of us are Spanish speakers, therefore having to add subtitles into the trailer video and making a whole Spanish website was a great challenge.  Thankfully, we sought the help of a translator, who was a friend of Kirsten’s. Have a translator made the biggest differen

By the time we figured out the Spanish translations and the Spanish website, we moved on to making final touches.  Paris finalized the trailer, I made changes to the websites that Dr. Kearns asked for, and Kirsten created our final presentation! The most amazing aspect of the entire project was how each of us completed a part of the project that fit our strengths.

Even though I believe that our project was a success, there was several ways we could have improved. I wish that our group had been able to film more footage for our trailer, as some of the footage we were given was not great quality.  Asides from having lower quality footage for our trailer, I believe our project was extremely successful. I also believe that as a group, we could have communicated better at some times.

Paris and Kirsten – thank you for everything you did to make this project successful! Without you both, I truly could not have done it.  On our presentation day, I looked at you both with ample pride. I love y’all!

Akwaaba

To say that this was my favorite project I have ever done, is an UNDERSTATEMENT!

Although this project came with many highs and lows. First, determining what to write my long-form piece on was a challenge! My mind raced trying to figure out what to write about, but then I determined I wanted to write about an experience that brought me joy: Ghana.

When I decided to write about Ghana, I struggled with what exactly to say.  My three week long trip to Ghana encompassed many different experiences, people, and places. Therefore, I had to pick the parts of the trip that defined the experience completely.  It was not easy!

Eventually, I formed my story by breaking it up into “Acts”, which I found to be so successful.  By segmenting my story, I found that I could zone into different parts of the trip, therefore highlighting specific emotions and events that happened.  I believe that one of the best parts of my story was the way that I segmented it for my readers.

The absolute best part of my individual project was how I ended up laying it out visually.  I used the platform, Shorthand, which provided me with the tools to not only make my story visually captivating, but also help it come to life.  When publishing my story online, I tried many different platforms, but I found that none of them made my story come to life like shorthand. I was able to use my words in conjunction with photography and videos to express my story.  

I believe that I could improve on the overall wordiness of my writing, as sometimes I can be long winded. Aside from that, I believe that I put my full effort into this project and it paid off.  With that being said, I am beyond proud of how my individual story turned out, and I am thrilled to share it with others!

Thank You

Dr. Kwami – I can not thank you enough for believing in me not only in this class, but through my entire four years at Furman. You have pushed me hard in the classroom, while also showing me my worth.  Without you, I can honestly say that I would not be the woman I am today. Thank you an unbelievable semester full of fun, learning, and ultimate growth.

 

As I enter the final phase of my multimedia project, I feel as though I have several little aspects of the project to complete.  First, I have to nail down the written portion of my project, which I believe will be very easy after already going through two different drafts.  I am excited to tweak and edit the words to finally finish the development of my story.  

Then I have to continue gathering the multimedia elements of my story.  I have completed my first multimedia element which is comprised of the pictures of Winnie,  Esia Atta, and Joyce. I have developed captions that fit the pictures, while also going along with the narrative.  I feel really good about my first multimedia element, as these photos are not only beautiful, but form a deep part of my Ghana story.

The Struggles Begin

My second multimedia element is making progress, as I will be interviewing three people from our trip this week! I am excited to interview them and hear about what their favorite memories were from our trip, while also looking at their photos.  I believe that pictures hold deep memories, therefore I am excited to see which pictures they choose that correspond with a certain memory.

Although I am excited to interview these people, I know that compiling the pictures and interviews into a video will be a challenge for me.  I am not the best at videography, therefore creating this second multimedia element intimidates me! I have confidence

that I will get it done while also making it beautiful.

Another struggle I know I will encounter is publishing everything on a multimedia platform.  I believe I will be using Medium but I could also use Wix! When it comes to publishing my story on one of these sites, I know that I want the story to appear as engaging as possible. I know that I am properly equipped to utilize these sites to publish my story, but I still have nerves! I know that these will subside when I begin posting the story.

The Final Phase

As I enter the final phase of publishing and tweaking, I feel a little more at peace knowing that I have finished a large majority of my project.  I am continuing to encourage myself, while also making small tweaks, in little bits of time, rather than getting overwhelmed by the whole project. I found that the article, “What is your website for” that we read in class gave me some good ideas on how to publish my story on Medium or Wix.  Reading this article last week made me feel more equipped to finish this segment of the long-form project.

I believe that this final phase has to be the most fun part of the entire project, just because we are getting so close to the final product! Being able to display all of the hard work we have done is honestly exciting! Although I am nervous about publishing on a platform, I know that it will all work out with time, as well as trial and error. A quote from the article, “What is your website for” that made me excited about publishing my story was:

“Your website is where you can create unique reading experiences. With more of your content going to the platforms, use your website to deliver an experience that is different to everyone else’s…. You can experiment with new forms of storytelling. You can bring in third party technologies to create experiences for your audience that they can’t get from the platforms. That’s what your website is for.”

All I could ask for is for my story to be published on a platform that is engaging, while utilizing technology to make my storytelling impactful.  I have confidence knowing that I will be able to do that!

When I received the assignment of creating an individual multimedia story, I found myself daunted by several thoughts. How could I create a captivating story? How could I express all of my ideas without it being confusing to the reader? What does a story with multimedia elements look like?

These questions continued to daunt and overwhelm me as I mustered up the courage to begin writing my story.

In reality, all I had to do was BEGIN

I began to let the words flow onto the page of my Word document. I was no longer scared of how to express my ideas.  Instead, I found peace in the idea that putting words on the page was a start to a project that would be continually evolving.

With that being said, I have found that piecing together the words of my story has been extremely fun, while also challenging. I absolutely love the way I began my story, as I think it is captivating and engages the readers to envision the story I am trying to share.  

In the book, Multimedia Storytelling for Digital Communications, I discovered how important it is to have a “hook” in your story that engages the audience. I believe the beginning of my story does exactly that.

Here you can read the beginning of my story:

Although I have imperfections in the words of my story, I am continuing to make progress.  I am making changes continually to make it more readable for my audience, while also making sure that I maintain my own voice. Something that I need to work on is making sure that I maintain my voice and reflection instead of letting my voice sound academic. Now that I have an idea for how I want my words to read, I have been compiling the multimedia elements of my story.

Pictures, Pictures, and more Pictures

The multimedia elements I will be using are different variations of photo stories and I have made significant progress on them! Throughout my story, I will be using the power of photography to help guide my readers into the context and emotions of the story.

The first series of photographs I have accumulated are from my time at the Elmina Slave Castle.  Through these series of photos, my viewers will be able to connect what I am saying about the slave castle to what it exactly looks like.  My goal with this slideshow is to have the reader connect the emotions I portray in the story into real life with the photographs.

My goal of having the readers connect the emotions of the story to real-life images came from Multimedia Storytelling again, as Seth Gitner emphasizes the importance of having readers experience what you are telling them.

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Esi Atta, Joyce, and Winnie

The next multimedia element I have been working on is another photo story. This photo story focuses on the women of Ghana that deeply impacted my experience, Esi Atta, Joyce, and Winnie. I have chosen the photos I will be using of them and I am deeply excited to share how each of these women impacted me throughout my trip.  I am currently still determining the captions I will use for these photos, along with the specific stories I will be telling about these women.

Drawing on Other’s Experiences

For my last multimedia element, I will be bringing in the experiences of others from our trip.  I am currently still deciding who these people will be and what this visual element will look like.  I am thinking that I will have three people from our trip and I will interview them about their favorite pictures from the trip.

I will most likely ask for them to bring me three photos each and I will have them talk about what they were doing in the photo, how they were feeling, and general context of where this photo was during our trip. After doing this, I will layover the audio I get from the interviews over their photos and it will form a video using photographs.  My goal for this multimedia element is to use photos to interact with the readers in a different way.

Thinking Critically

Throughout this storytelling process, I believe that I have been almost too critical of the work I am producing.  As I delve deeper into the project and the different elements that it contains, I am hoping to give myself grace while also focusing on the importance of my story.  Going forward with the project, I hope to not be as critical of myself and instead enjoy sharing my Ghana story with the world. 

 

Every single day as I log into my computer, I encounter this picture from my trip to Ghana from May of 2017.  

As I look at this picture while heading to do other things on my laptop, I am met with several thoughts. Some of my thoughts include, how do I exhibit joy like the little girl in the pink dress and what is the little boy in the blue reaching for?

Each child in this photo is exuding a different emotion.

Reflecting about the setting of this picture, often brings me to think about what these children were feeling and how I could capture their emotions in a photo.

With that being said, the theme of emotion has been my main focus while developing my project proposal.  Throughout my project, I am hoping to relay my emotions from traveling to Ghana, as well as the other members of our group, and the Ghanaian people we interacted with.  

My overarching goal is for readers to feel emotionally connected to the story. I want the readers to feel the emotions not only I felt, but the emotions of what it is like to be in a place unfamiliar to you.  

The Popsicle

In order to effectively articulate emotions, I am breaking up my story into three acts. The first act is focusing on the emotions I felt before going to Ghana, the second act is focusing on the emotions I felt while in Ghana, and the third act is focusing on the emotions I felt upon leaving Ghana, as well as the emotions of some of my group members. 

In the beginning stages of developing my project, I was not going to segment the story into three acts, rather I was going to try to conquer everything at once.  After trying to see how that would work, I realized that segmenting my story into acts would help the reader experience the raw emotions from each stage of my trip.  I developed the idea of segmenting my story after reading Act 2 of “Design is Storytelling”.

In Act 2 of the book, Ellen Lupton focuses on looking at the three levels of user experience as a popsicle.  After studying the picture heavily and gathering the concepts of each layer, I realized that I had to change my idea to better match the “popsicle.”

Each layer of the popsicle fits beautifully in how I want my story to be portrayed. For example, the visceral layer will be focused on the emotion prior to landing in Ghana.  In this layer, the readers will gather a feel of “color, form, and texture” of my emotions. I want the readers to be able to feel what I was feeling, while also gathering insight into what I was about to go do. My goal for all of the layers of user experience is for the readers to be able to create an image in their heads of what it is like travel to another continent.  I want the readers to empathize with the story and to feel as though they were a part of it.

After developing a great understanding for the user experience popsicle, I felt confident with dividing up my story into three acts.  I knew that by segmenting what I wanted to say into these acts, the readers would become even more deeply immersed in my story.

Therefore, I feel confident in my final project proposal.  I know that my story will evolve as it is written, but the end goal will remain the same: connecting the reader to the story through emotions.