REFLECTION ON MY FIRST DST PROJECT

1. What is the essential story behind the piece you created?
The story behind my first DST project is an honest description of my decision to return to school to pursue a Ph.D after a two decade hiatus. It details the initial foray, the struggle to retain integrity, a scary leap of faith, my battle with bridging an arduous technological chasm and my current dedication to the balanced and patient pursuit of my goal.
2. What was your purpose in creating this piece of new media? Do you feel you were successful in communicating your purpose?
My purpose was, of course, a successful fulfillment of the required project. I also wanted to stretch my skills, master the technological conditions of basic digital moviemaking production and explore the art of DST. I do feel I was successful in the communication of my purpose, but, like all creative expression, the ultimate critique of how well I achieved that purpose will fall to others. Although, like many artists, I am really pleased with what I have created and feel extremely satisfied with both what I learned and shared through the work.
3. Who was your audience? Do you feel you were successful in reaching your audience?
My initial audience will, I expect, be my professor, course peers and also friends and colleagues with whom I have shared this project. Because we are required to also “post” the project on a public forum (I chose both YouTube as well as my personal Facebook page), I suppose that there appears no limit to the audience it will ultimately reach. I cannot know at the time of this writing if I will be successful in reaching my initial audience save those with whom I have already shared my work, but I expect that my professor and some of my peers will view it. However, I hope that others view and enjoy it as well.
4. Why did you use your particular approach to media production and media selection? Were you successful?
Because I have never attempted a project like this before, I was not quite certain which “approach” to attempt. Like all of the other skill sets I have attempted to learn, I utilized, I confess, a great deal of “trial and error” and must confess that it thrilled me to no end when a production element actually “worked!” I did enjoy creating the script and felt strong about being able to be honest in telling my story. I appreciated my professor’s guidance regarding editing; left to my own devices, the project would have probably ended up become a feature-length film and taken years to complete! My selection of media was drawn from imagining what images would best resonate with the words I have written. I explored a vast array of images and the ones I ultimately chose to include were those that just “felt” right to me. I was very pleased that I did not feel that I “settled” with any of them. I was pretty assiduous about my research and final selections because this is at heart a piece of creativity that represents me and I wanted it to retain the integrity I address in the actual story – both literally and metaphorically. I knew the song I wanted to utilize as a “bookend” to the piece and made the decision to whistle it at the beginning and sing it at the end as a creative choice that again, just felt correct. I chose the layout, fonts and title/credit styles because they seemed to me to best represent the flavor and tone of the piece. Regarding my success with any of this, again, unfortunately with creative work, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
5. What did you learn during the process of crafting your media piece that you can use in creating future new media narrative?
So much… As I explained in my answer above, this was all new to me. So, I learned a myriad of new technological skills, from crafting an autobiographical narrative piece meant to be married with visual imagery, to locating (then correctly uploading and downloading!) my chosen images, negotiating the creation and recording of computer-mediated audio, matching images to narrative, editing images to both appear at the right moment and also remain fixed for the right amount of time, revising and editing both to rightly express my vision and then, when all was completed, figure out how to publish and post the piece on a public forum! All of this was both a struggle and a thrill. I also learned, as with all things technological of late, that I CAN do it; I just have to be thoughtful and patient! I am hoping that future project will be easier to facilitate from a production sense, which will allow me to explore more sophisticated opportunities in presentation and value.