Danielle W Digital Story Treatment
From LIS5313
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[edit] Summary
Title: The First Date
Description: I'm going to tell the story of my grandparents' first date more than 60 years ago. The story is funny and touching and was the starting point for their long, wonderful life together. I'll be telling the story from my point of view as their granddaughter.
[edit] Media Assets
I received most of my primary image and video assets from my Yiayia (my grandmother). We went through her photo albums and selected photographs from when she and Papou were dating, their wedding, and their early years of marriage. My Yiayia has three sisters and part of the story is that my Papou confused them when he came to pick her up for their first date, so I'll be using a photograph of all four of them and showing different faces at different points in the narrative. She was also able to give me some video footage from their engagement party and wedding that I'll be using. I will be providing recording the narrative myself.
I wanted to find some Greek music to use, but I wasn't successful finding any that had the right tempo or mood. Almost everything I found was more upbeat and energetic than I wanted. I found one that I liked for the last section, but it didn't blend well with the softer music I wanted in the other sections. So I went with three nice softer pieces...but I'm still on the hunt for Greek music that I can add as a post-production edit!
[edit] Pacing, Rhythm, and Juxtaposition
The sequence and juxtaposition of the video and images of Yiaya's sisters will contribute to the humor of the story as Papou keeps getting the wrong girl. I'm using a repeated photograph of the 4 sisters throughout the story to illustrate the "process of elimination" he went through as the sisters came to the door one by one. I'm also changing the music as the tempo of the story changes...it slows down a bit during images of their wedding, then speeds up a little when I talk about life after their wedding.
[edit] Narration, Dialogue, and Text
More than 60 years ago, my Papou Jim Kallimani knocked on the door of Gloria Psalidas’ home with a lump in his throat. They had met briefly at a church dance a few weeks before, and tonight the Bendix dinner dance would be their first date. A beautiful young lady answered the door. “Gloria!” he exclaimed. “Welcome, but I’m not Gloria,” she said. “I’m Mary. Please come in.” Moments later another lovely young lady came downstairs. “Gloria!” he said. Wrong again Jimmy. That was Stella. Finally a third radiant young lady appeared. “You must be Gloria,” he said, confident that he had finally gotten it right, and he had. Lucky for him Helen had recently moved to Washington DC. Three strikes, and he would have been out!
Four beautiful sisters, and one became his beautiful bride. And the fun didn’t stop there! Three children, three more weddings, and four grandchildren later, Jim and Gloria Kallimani have filled the world with a little more love and happiness. Σας ευχαριστούμε Γιαγιά και Παππού. Σας αγαπάμε πάρα πολύ. (translation: Thank you Yiayia and Papou – we love you very much).
[edit] Reflection
I still love Sony Vegas...I think. I absolutely love the way the project turned out when I watch it within the software and when I watch it as an exported .wmv file. However, I've had a horrid time trying to convert it into an .mp4. I've tried 4 different converters and a million different mix and match settings and still the audio and visuals are off. And timing is key so when they're off a little it kills the whole thing. I'm not sure if Sony Vegas is causing this or not, but it's been giving me fits. I finally called uncle and posted a link to the .wmv file to the media projects blog. Hopefully everyone can play it. In general this was a fantastic experience until the conversion nightmare. I'm really excited about the final product, and I can't wait to share it with my family! Especially my Yiayia :) Danielle W 00:25, 26 March 2008 (EDT)
So after this weekend I'm a BIG fan of Sony Vegas! It's very very user friendly so I've been able to add some bells and whistles to my story. I've replaced all of my placeholders with actual images, but I'm still missing music (that's my project for tonight). Also, the timing was messed up at some point going from a project file to an mp4, so right now audio and visual are a little off at some points. Hopefully I can get it to export correctly when I save my final draft. I might still try to add some additional "mood setting" images that aren't of people, and I would love to add a more recent picture of my Yiayia and Papou together at the end. That might have to be added after I turn it in though, because I don't have a copy of the one I'd like to use. I'm also still unsure if I like the red Xs...right now the off-timing is really killing them, plus the sound isn't playing correctly on the computer I'm using (it sounds fine on another computer - weird). But I'm not sure if it's fun or distracting. Danielle W 19:39, 24 March 2008 (EDT)
My rough draft still feels very rough. I've been trying to download the Adobe trial, but I keep having problems extracting the files so I made the draft with MovieMaker. I'm still hoping to make the final with Adobe! I have some placeholders for pictures and videos I still need to add, and I haven't yet selected the music tracks so there are some moments of silence between narrative sections that won't be there. I also want to add some text to the images - there's a picture of my Yiayia and her 3 sisters that appears several times, and each time I want to add one of their names to the picture. I also want to add some zooming on some of the images.
I'll add further drafts as I start filling in the holes! I welcome all comments - what's working, what isn't, what needs to be tweaked, additional ideas, etc.
[edit] Draft Media
- 2nd Draft: The First Date
- Rough Draft: The First Date
[edit] Copyrighted Materials
The videos are all home movies and most of the photos are family snapshots, so I'm not encountering any copyright issues with those media items. One of the photos I'm using is a beautiful studio portrait of my Yiayia, but I am using it under fair use since it is a non-commercial educational project that will not effect the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
