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Chapter 4 Out on the Wire : Sound metaphorized as the "Deep Sea" 

     Chapter 4 of Out on the Wire discussed how sound effects help stir emotion and convey messages more clearly. Adding sound effects such as a cry out for help or a scream add relevance to the story and evoke emotion from the person watching/ listening. This small addition forces the audience to acknowledge through another sense what the character is experiencing. The deep sea is the unknown. Sound is metaphorized as the deep sea because the value that is brings in hidden. Sound as the deep sea is the hidden parts of the story.  Often times there is so much going on in a persons story,  that the sound deepens the story by hearing, what you cannot see. Changing the sound pitch or pace helps shine a light below th surface. Overall sound helps create more meaning. 

     Chapter 5 of Out on the Wire discussed how edits are used to effectively convey a story. The primary purpose of editing is to organize the order of the story line, create a clear representation of the characters and establish a pace at which the story should be told. The process of editing involves multiple looks at the video. Many people should watch the story, give back their opinion and other helpful feedback. This will help the editors to make the storyline clear to outside viewers as well as focus on what the true intent of the conversation in meant to represent. Framing a story makes the story more compelling by giving background information and additional details before and after telling the story for it to be more relevant. For example, the concept of framing the interview of Ma Mary with some context on the Liberian Civil War makes her experience more relevant because people are then informed on the situation. Signposting is a concept of storytelling that emphasis certain points of the story to the audience. By making this clear emphasis the viewers will have a lead on what are some of the most important points in the story. 

Chapter 5: Your Baby is Ugly: The Edit 
11/14/16

Workspace

10/24/16
11/03/16
11/10/16

     Chapter 5 of Out on the Wire discussed how edits are used to effectively convey a story. The primary purpose of editing is to organize the order of the story line, create a clear representation of the characters and establish a pace at which the story should be told. The process of editing involves multiple looks at the video. Many people should watch the story, give back their opinion and other helpful feedback. This will help the editors to make the storyline clear to outside viewers as well as focus on what the true intent of the conversation in meant to represent. Framing a story makes the story more compelling by giving background information and additional details before and after telling the story for it to be more relevant. For example, the concept of framing the interview of Ma Mary with some context on the Liberian Civil War makes her experience more relevant because people are then informed on the situation. Signposting is a concept of storytelling that emphasis certain points of the story to the audience. By making this clear emphasis the viewers will have a lead on what are some of the most important points in the story. 

Community Partnership Project: Feedback from Peers 

1. The first group of people that I asked to watch and critique the interview with Ma Mary was my roommates. My roommates had no background knowledge on the Liberian war. They said that they understood that the story expressed Ma Mary's struggles and her travels out of Liberia. My roommates did not understand who was forcing them out. They suggested adding more contextual slides and information to clarify. My roommates believed that the story was structured well and that the occasional header on the bottom was very helpful. They suggested cutting out parts on her jail time that seemed repetitive. The main suggestions my roommates stressed was providing background information, subtitles and condensing information to make the interview shorter. Based on the feedback from my roommates we plan to add background information and adding subtitles to improve understanding.

2. The second group of people I asked to watch the interview had a lot of suggestions on the overall appearance of the video. They suggested editing the on screen text and making it easier to read and standout. Additionally, my peers suggested adding text to the photos in the beginning of the interview in order to make up for the lack of background information provided. Overall my friends had a general understanding of the point and purpose of the story. But they did seem to have questions throughout to clarify what was going on. I think based on this it would be a good idea for us to add the contextual slides. Additionally my group and I need to shorten and cut out parts on sections ( labeled by title) to make each main point standout.   

Olive's Story Reflection: Oral History 

1. Oral History is sharing information through word to elaborate and give background on the story. Oral history as a "co-constructed process of narrative composition"  that combines the understanding of a story with the story. The Oral history works together with the composition of the narrative to deliver a clear message. This could help to "map coherence" or create a logical understanding of why something happened in the story. For example in the Ma Mary's story we are using background slides in the beginning that are similar to oral history (just without the actual voice) to help viewers make sense of the sequence of the story. This is necessary because storytellers often tell their story as they feel, rather then in an order that makes sense. The "disorder of lived experience" is evident in Ma Mary's story, through its disjointed manner. Including supporting background and creating a structured flow to make sense of the order and importance of the story is necessary when  presenting the story to viewers. 

2. The Olive Project makes me think about Multimodal media in a very different way. The composition of the website allows the creator to include, videos, images and oral speech to create a story and convey a message. This multimodal text was not very user friendly, which I felt took away from my understanding, but it has a unique way of presenting the information. I think it was interesting to use key phrases in the text to guide movement of the story. The Olive Story showed me that writing for public audiences involves a lot of explanations and clear answers. Although these are not very apparent initially in the website, she does explain why things are the way that they are.

     What was most interesting to me was that the story was not expressed in chronological order or in any order at all. The entire piece was disjointed. However I think the creator chose to make it this way because the readers do not really need to know the exact play by play of her life. The purpose of her creating this piece was to preserve some of her grandmas memories, not share her story from birth to death. I think it is interesting to organize it by key phrases to see how common ideas fit into peoples lives. 

What's in a Name? Lauer

The purpose of this article is to discuss, " new/muliti/modal/digital/media texts" (Lauer). Lauer has created a website that shows her academic work on "Whats in a Name?" the purpose of her website is to explore and discuss the idea through multiple texts and mediums. The The purpose is communicated through multiple sections in the multimodal text including the:  introduction, rose metaphor, technological journey. Lauer discussed how people use the words interchangeably, but they do mean different things. Theres a lot you can take away based on what people do with it. It is important to be precise in outlying your idea. Especially in other areas of expertise  that you might be lacking in when creating a multimodal text.  The rose text gives the perfect viewpoint of the idea of multimodal media. The rose can be planted or sprouted on its own and the petals smell different to everyone. This to me symbolized that a multimodal text can be seen through many different eyes and interpreted differently according to the way the creator structures the piece. 

Lauer discussed the qualities needed in a definition: audience- oriented, contextual, historically situated, limited, multiple, precise, relative. The most important concept discussed to me related to my Community Story project is the audience oriented. I think that understanding who will be viewing the multimodal text determines  the way it should be structured. For example, when showing our videos to our outside peers, with no background of the idea or on the project, they were confused about what was going on because terms used during the video were unclear. This leads me to the importance of understanding the context of the idea in order to see where the definition of refuge is defined from. This is especially important in our case because people see them in multiple different ways and define things as they see them in their own perspective and community. It is a special challenge in our case to give the correct perception of Ma Mary through her own eyes and wishes. 

11/17/16
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