First, there's an input of influences. I listen to the things that other people make and sometimes I think they're neat.
Next, to varying degrees of success, I attempt to make my own neat things.
And finally, I get involved in a community of other people who like similar neat things.
To recap:
1. Input.
2. Attempt at creation.
3. Involvement with others in the community.
This is a picture of my friend Mark at the end of the first day of shooting a big blockbuster movie. He normally doesn't look like he just got run over by a truck.
In brainstorming for this assignment I knew I wanted to do something with music, and something with film because these are important and somewhat unconventional literacies that have played huge roles in my life. Figuring out how to organize them in a way that told a story, however, was a bit difficult. But this challenged me to think about these subjects in new ways. How were these things related? How could I tell a story using these images? While I have a background in visual storytelling (i.e. filmmaking), this seemed like a much different kind of task. I wasn't just telling a fictional story, I wasn't planning a documentary, instead I had to tell a story about literacy, which is something that I don't usually consider to be a very visual subject.
As I started to determine what images I would use, I simultaneously started to figure out what the story would be. In a lot of ways, this mirrors my process for writing a more typical paper, where I have some idea of what I'm going to say when I start, but where I don't really figure out my point until I've been working on it for a while.
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I know we don't need a resource link for the week but I came across Wing Young Huie's column in the Star Tribune and thought you all might enjoy his words of wisdom concerning the power of visual communication:
http://www.startribune.com/yourvoices/40430412.html?elr=KArks47cQiUdcOy_9cP3DiU47cQULPQL7PQLanchO7DiU
I really liked your choice for photos/topic in you visual essay. I think that this would be an important assignment to have our future students do (especially the reflection part), because you need to somehow make sense taking something that isn't normally a visual subject and turning it into one. The reflection part can really help students understand their writing process!
ReplyDeleteI really like that you tried a unique way of organizing your images, and how those images interact with the text you wrote.
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoy the simplicity of your blogs... unlike some other rambling cohort members... ahem
ReplyDeleteVery neat, Center.
ReplyDeleteYour choice of images and choice of topic was very cool. It is amazing how much 6 photos can reveal about an aspect of someone's personality.
Oh, and I just got done watching this weeks episodes of 24. I find it amazing how volatile the presidency is on the show. There have been like 6 presidents on the show, two of which were Vice Presidents who obtained the job after the President was incapacitated, one was impeached, and there are at least 2 or 3 assassination attempts a season. What a crummy job.