Project Reflection

Through this project, I realized how many tools are available through different medias. Not only do you have words to explain your message, you have images, sounds, and interaction at your disposal to capture your audience. There is so much rhetoric available through all of these facets. In images, the colors, positioning, and subject all affect the feelings of the audience. A sound scape and music can add so much depth to the narration and image. Happy music or a busy city sound scape can take a very solemn moment seem less lonely. However, strategic silence can make a sad or reflective moment even stronger. It is a lot to remember and can be intimidating your first time using all of these things, as opposed to simply just writing a paper. It’s exciting because all of these things, done correctly, create a very engaged audience which means that the message is getting across much clearer than one that does not connect with the audience. However if it is done poorly, the story you worked so hard to compose is totally lost and maybe even criticized. Overall, the audience is the most important part of a narrative. The focus of a narrative is to deliver a message or view to someone else. Without the audience, there is very little use for storytelling.

Composition Summary

When creating my video I chose to use the “Design of Meaning” website as a guideline. I used this not only for my written narrative, but for the composition of the sounds and images in the video. While writing my video I chose to speak from the perspective of the subject of the story, my mother. While in some instances this could be considered strange, I felt it was a good decision because it allowed for me to be more descriptive. I also feel like hearing a story like this first hand makes it a bit more relatable. If I were to talk about such a minor event in 3rd person, I feel like it may have come off as a little trivial. If I were to have used 3rd person I would have needed to tell the whole story of my mom moving to a big city. This perspective allowed me to add the little details that made the story a bit more realistic. I went into some abstract descriptions about my mom’s hometown to make the idea of living in a small town for your entire life a bit more relatable to the average reader. I knew that most people would not immediately understand this life style so I thought that including those details would allow the audience to have a taste of what it is like to grow up in a community that small. I continued this when she moves to Washington DC by comparing the population of her hometown to one city block in her new city. I did not go into depth about the actually experience of eating the Mexican food for the first time because that was not the true focus of the story. The real focus and value held by my mother in the story was that anyone, even someone from a town as small as hers, can make a new place their home with a little bit of effort. When making the video, I chose images that were of the places I discusses. I used pictures of my mom’s hometown, my hometown and the areas of Washington that my mom frequented. I feel like this gave the video a more relatable feel and to show exactly what I am talking about in the narrative. I used negative space as a transition between my mom’s hometown and DC and then again in the transition between DC to Columbia. This allowed for the scene to change and the sound level and energy level to adjust gracefully. I tried to appeal to the senses by adding ambiance sounds in the background on top of the music that I chose. I did not add any during the beginning because sleepy southern towns are usually pretty quiet, but I added city and restaurant sounds to give the viewer the feeling that they are in a loud, noisy, chaotic city. I toned down the sounds again during the scene change back to Columbia because the narrator was reflecting on her experience. I feel like this video would appeal to young adults who are transitioning to new cities. The platform allows for someone to visibly see the difference between my mom’s hometown and DC. This would be comforting to most because most people do not grow up in towns that small, so it would make their transition feel less drastic and less intimidating. I think the title would allow the video to be found by audiences that it would not have reached if it was just on a story telling platform. When someone would search for Mexican food or Washington DC this video could reach them in that way.