Category: Paris Karstedt

Letting Go

Letting go and bringing a project to completion can be difficult.  

When you finish a project you get to take a step back and reflect on what you’ve created. Whether you love it or hate you’ve created something. You’ve taken an idea from your head and made it into something real. That’s pretty magical if you ask me. 

Though Advanced Multimedia Storytelling Dr. Kwami invited us to be not just students but professional women. She gave us the tools to create something real and valuable within our community. Finally letting these projects go, setting down our pencils and closing our computer screens was difficult because when it comes to your projects you will always find something that can be approved upon or added. The wonderful thing about our group projects and their use within our communities it that we were all able to pass them on to be used and added to with time.

The Final Projects

All your work culminates to produce a completed project.

This is your ta-da moment! 

My group project and individual project allowed me to build my skills in multimedia storytelling. Specifically my website development skills for my individual project and my video skills for my group project. For my individual project, I worked extensively within Wix. I build my website from scratch without a template and found that this gave me much more creative freedom in my design. One of the aspects of my website that I am very proud of is the use of a simple design I drew of an unraveling hand from an inspiration image to create flow through the parallaxing pages of the site.

Using movement in the site both with the parallaxing and the opening title that I designed within Premiere Pro makes the website visually interesting. Something I would improve upon with more time is by think link it tends to be glitchy. I’m proud of the video and happy with the powerful reminder I now have of the powerful women in my personal life.

Video creation for the group project was a fantastic opportunity to work with a foreign language in my video. I used subtitles for both English and Spanish. This will be useful in my work after school because I will inevitably encounter foreign languages when working on news stories. Another tremendous learning opportunity in this project was working with someone else’s video clips and bringing to life someone else’s image.  I’m especially proud of the opening sequence in the video and my use of movement in text and stills.

Take-Aways 

You’ll walk away with so much more than a completed project. By giving of yourself to your work you never know what you will gain in return.

This particular adventure of creating together – now that’s unforgettable.

This class has given me so much than portfolio pieces I’m walking away with friendships, confidence, and a wonderful role model in Dr. Kwami. Since the beginning of these blog posts, I have talked about getting your thoughts out of your mind and into space. For me, this was such a powerful opportunity in my individual project. There were so many times I didn’t want to do the project any longer, but it allowed me to give of myself and make something beautiful something ugly. That was such a powerful experience. This class truly has been unforgettable.

Evaluate 

The first step of the final production phase is to evaluate.

Sometimes getting started can be the hardest part. 

In my project, I have been continually evaluating where I going with my work. I still have a lot of editing and tweaking to do on my project. As my work continues I have encountered obstacles, as is expected. One of my biggest obstacles has been slow communication with interview subjects. During the final production phase, it is important to understand your skills and abilities. In crunch time understanding what you can do quickly and what will take you more time allows you to budget your time accordingly. What will push my project to be the best it can be is having a visually compelling video. This requires proper planning and execution. In an article written by Tom Kenny he discusses the importance of imagery. While he is focusing on images on websites is message also translates to video work. “Poor use of imagery can really drag the design of a site down and poor quality images (saving with too much compression) can make a design look messy and unprofessional.”

Chasing Creativity  

This is the time to dive deeply into your work and make the adjustments that will take your work from adequate to excellent.

Let your personality shine through in your work through the effort you demonstrate. 

In this final production phase, I am putting my energy into infusing personality and personal taste into my project. This is the opportunity to indulge my creative energy into the details. This type of work requires acute attention and dedication. I am planning color schemes and film locations. “Data storytelling is the blending of two worlds: hard data and human communication” (Katy French). Data storytelling is an important element of my work that I am working to incorporate. It is important to me that my work is taken seriously because it is about a topic that often isn’t.

Reflect 

The last step of the final production phase is to reflect on your progress.

Understanding where you’ve intended to go and where you ended up can help you see a path moving forward. 

My project has evolved tremendously over the semester. It is closer to my original plans than some plans that developed along the way through. I am on track to reach my goals. What I have learned about producing a comprehensive project is that having strong contacts makes your work run smoothly more than any other component of your work can. I have also learned the importance of having a strong narrative from the beginning and refining this work first and foremost.

… finalized work to follow, stay tuned.

Get Started

The first step of the production phase is to get started.

Sometimes getting started can be the hardest part. 

Put your pen to paper your finger to mouse pad or your camera to capture. However, this looks for you – just do it. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You might not even use what you first create, but create something. Just getting started can make your vision become more clear. You are going to generate new ideas and you are going to throw out old ones. But this is a time to be fearless. Take the first step. Don’t be too concerned at this point about the quality, and see what you produce. In my individual project getting started has been intimidating. At the beginning of my work on my individual project, I questioned if the story I was pursuing was plausible. When you take on a heavy and meaningful topic such as sexual assault you can become caught up in the fear of not sharing the message gracefully or in the right way. In Austin Kleon’s book Show Your Work he states in big bold letters “YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A GENIUS.” I had to remind myself that my work doesn’t need to be perfect right off the bad, and it’s okay if I make some mistakes. Any issues can be addressed as I proceeded. Peer review is a great asset for discovering errors you might have in the form you choose or the way you share a story. Ellen Lupton describes the use of others insight in her book Design is Storytelling “When developing a new product, service, or app, designers often seek knowledge from users.” Peer review and insight from my audience will be a crucial element of my project in later stages and choosing peer reviewers wisely will give me confidence in sharing my work. 

Get Your Hands Dirty

Second, once you have taken the first step to get things moving roll with that momentum.

Play like a little kid in the mud.

Let it carry you forward along your timeline of tasks. Be methodical in your work and try to stay your steps and timelines as closely as possible. Of course, your timeline and steps might shift over time and you might add or subtract elements as you see your vision coming to life. Get your hands dirty – heck, get your whole body dirty immerse yourself in your work and bring your vision to life.

Getting my hands dirty in my project has been moving slowly. Now that we have all our camera equipment I am excited to engage with visual elements of my project. Above you can see a gif I made with tweets from the hashtag #whyididntreport.

Get Problem Solving

Along the way, you will inevitably encounter obstacles. These obstacles may be big or small. Regardless, you are going to have to problem solve to surmount them.

Never be fearful of problem-solving sometimes the solution brings about the ultimate improvements

Problem-solving for me so far in my project has mostly surrounded my mindset. In feeling self-conscious about my work my problem solving has involved exploring the work of others to build my confidence. In my later searches, I have found great inspiration and outstanding storytelling. I have even worked on research communicating with sheriff offices throughout South Carolina to learn about rape kit procedure.

… post-production phase to follow, stay tuned.

 

The Vision

First, you begin with a vision.

Sometimes your vision is clear. Sometimes it’s a little fuzzy. But every vision has potential.

The goal of my individual project is to create a digital space for women and girls to strengthen their understanding of sexual assault to fortify themselves with knowledge. This idea grew from a speech I gave about the importance of reporting sexual assault and how doing so embraces the feminine nature of being a protector.

The Project Idea

Second, you take your vision and make it an idea when you give it a concrete framework for how you will share your vision with the world.

This part is fun. It’s where you get to think about your skills and resources. 

My initial intention with the project was to create a video interviewing individuals who were part of the reporting process, such as police officers and nurses. Considering this further, I decided that the sensitive topic and the camera shy tendencies of most professionals might make finding people to speak with me difficult. It was still my desire to create intimacy within my digital project with faces of real people though, so I thought that pictures with quotes would be an impactful alternative. I envisioned two separate parts to my online project within a single website. One part would be dedicated to educating woman and girls on the process of reporting and explain the steps in conjunction with the faces and voices (through textual quotes) of the type of people they would encounter along the way. The other part would focus on defining sexual assault and the importance of reporting. This was where my thought process was in the arch of development when I submitted my project proposal. Ellen Lupton talks about the importance of storyboards. Storyboards can help make your vision feel wayyy more concrete and allows you to share your project idea in a visual way with others “Designers use storyboards to communicate their ideas to clients and collaborators” (Design is Storytelling pg 38).

The Mess

Third, things get a little messy.

This isn’t the BLAH type of mess you shove in the closet when guests are visiting. This mess is productive it might lead to many different prototypes, or it might just refine your project slightly. But it’s your brain’s way of trying to find the best way to share your vision. 

My thoughts and intentions with the project have morphed since then. In another class, I read an essay analyzing the Iliad. The author, Simone Weil, uncovers the truths about the human condition in relation to war. Reading her text I was struck with how the relationship she drew between war and the human condition spoke to the experience of rape, specifically in a quote I recalled from a woman who had survived the Rwanda Genocide. I am writing a paper encapsulating my thoughts. This connection feels important to me. It explains something about rape and sexual assault that is difficult to understand. This is a piece of my work that can serve as my longhand text exemplifying my writing style more thoroughly than an informational piece could. I can frame it as – why it is important to commit to reporting to protect other women. This can replace the part addressing how to identify sexual assault.

…. haven’t got to the next step yet, stay tuned.