Fourth of July Lump: Doing the DS

I decided to compose a digital story on what happens to me every fourth of July when the band cranks up the Stars and Stripes Forever and in my throat I get that "old feeling." A lump occurs, I can't really swallow easily, I tear up, and I wait for the piccolo solo. We have a former band member who as a young girl, played in the band. Then she left the area, became a virtuoso flutist, married, and then a Mom. She comes to spend the 4th of July holiday with her family and she and her Dad join the band for this concert. Then, usually, she's gone. Well, she plays the piccolo solo at the refrain of the S&S and it is the sound of her solo soaring above the reined-in band that goes straight to my musical soul. It is beautiful music.

The lump is not a lump, of course. It is a constriction of the mentalis muscle. I did a little research on muscle and here's one little piece that I found, from 100 years ago:

The classical descriptions of this emotion seem inadequate or even misleading, as no account is taken of the very im-portant part played by the M. mentalis, a powerful and misunderstood (throat) muscle which already has been shown in activity during speech and will presently be shown active during the emotion of distress. C. M. Lightoller

"During the emotion of distress." Doesn't feel like distress to me, unless CM is using a more classic definition of stress...just a strong response from the depths of my limbic system. I love it's unconditional return.

So the actual construction of the ds took maybe ten hours of conscious work spread across the following tasks. I note "conscious work" because there was unconscious work as well. My brain was assembling visual imagery of what this little story might look like as soon as I formed the idea that I might do a story. The work was putting form and shape on those ever shifting ideas and the finding and putting together the objects necessary to render the actual story - done in iMovie by the way. (The other challenge for me during this project was to learn iMovie better, another story for another time.) Here's a rough list of the steps in a sequential order, rough sequential order I might add. Once this process started, the only sequence my brain took was the sequence I imposed. It, as usual, was offering it's own ideas in relatively random fashion. It was my task to make note of the good ideas and at least try out the not-so-good-ones.
0. write a rough script for the voiceover - done first before anything else happened
1. assemble pictures from albums
2. search for pictures on the www
3. think of music, find the music, convert the music to usable files
4. pay iTunes four bucks for tunes downloaded
5. move all of the above into the iMovie structure
6. storyboard the progression of images of the ds
7. find and add more images
8. begin to adjust the images with special effects
9. learn a lot from my mentors NJ and SL about how to do 8
10. tweak script
11. record voiceover in Q-Time and import into iMovie
12. adjust images more to better conform with the voiceover
13. bring in the music portions tweaking and fitting and editing until they more or less fit
14. tweak tweak tweak
15. export QT movie of same
16. critique

• ds holds a tension between the script telling the story and the images telling the story
• should probably be less script
• perhaps ds is too complicated, too many story lines running
• ***the young mother and her expertise
• ***my emotional reaction ie. the lump
• ***the emotional bond with my Mom
• ***her unfulfilled life???
• ***one new Mom connecting me with my Mom
• ***renewal of soul and the role of music in same
• ***life and death, life after death, death anticipated in life, the unity of all
• not enough pictures of the band, repeating some cause confusion for the view - why is that man there for so long???
• some transitions are clunky
  

Sounds like the plot for a good chickflick, no?

Probably not, actually. We all need spiritual sustenance and each of us gets it - if we are lucky - from different places. This ds unpacks one little piece of this world and a moment in time. If that was the overall goal, I think the ds does that but not in as uncluttered a way as it could have been done. And, I did learn how to use iMovie pretty good - THANK YOU NJ and SL!

Maple By My Side

I felt like an old friend was dying, almost dead actually. And I felt vulnerable and isolated, without the partner I'd grown up with. There were large Douglas Firs nearby that I'd planted as a kid in a Christmas Tree money making venture that never came to pass. They didn't grow fast enough. Plus, Joe Browns cows did a number of them in. But those tree, though big now, never evoked the emotion the old tree did when I returned as a college graduate many years later and went there, to say here I am, and it was dying, split, limbs already dropped, huge ones, and the little bugs and insects of the field were now in it as their home. Its funny, but after that visit, I rarely took that trail again. Except once, to see if it was all gone, and it mostly was. From this age now, I look back and realize how incredibly fast its demise was, maybe fifteen years from giant to compost. The interaction of course during that time is that I'd grown from an eight year old to a thirty year old. During that span of time, the large things of childhood often shrink to adult size. But the feeling of loss has never shrunk. I still miss the feeling of sitting by that tree, it's uncomfortable deeply furrowed bark digging in my back, looking down at the valleys, the town, the houses of families of many kind going about their business, the incredible summer clouds moving across the blue screen of that vast central new york sky. Maybe that's what home was to me. That feeling, more than that tree. I don't know. It still all seems like one. I can't conjure up the feeling of home without the maple by my side. I can't believe it's gone.

Written in class, July 16, '08

Day Three

Ellen: What will she will cover.
1. animoto
2. writing ideas
3. our own writing
4. sharing our writing

Sandy: What she will cover
1. images
2. sound

animoto.com
play with pictures and music
no voice over
Ellen's Red Hat Group
free

Writing Ideas
reading photographs to write with meaning and purpose (book)
creating a memoir from a list
go into "you"
pick a place
write a list of what comes to mind about this locale
pick one item off the list to write from
the list
maple on the hill
maple
large tree
furrowed bark
huge
wounded
incredible fall color
sitting place
thinking place
watching place
six of the seven watersheds
years later returned
rotting and falling down
now gone
as a kid growing up a place to be by myself, okay
a reflective spot
safe supportive
I loved that tree
safe
powerful shared
connection
nearby, sedimentary fossils
they went together
private

----------------- line of demarking the first flush of labels, and the second

attracted lightening yet I sat there in rainstorms
place to peer from, binoculars
place to fantasize from, as I got older
being there with someone else, sharing - I never did, really.
I took my Mom there. We could walk by it on our way back from "the woods."
couldn't encircle it with my arms and touch my fingers, it was that big
on top of that world
could view so much
above Hamilton
the Chapel tower across on another hill, pearsall's barn

lasso one
the start of a story?

the lasso
"years later returned, rotting and falling down"

the story

I felt like an old friend was dying, almost dead actually. And I felt vulnerable and isolated, without the partner I'd grown up with. There were large Douglas Firs nearby that I'd planted as a kid in a Christmas Tree money making venture that never came to pass. They didn't grow fast enough. Plus, Joe Browns cows did a number of them in. But those tree, though big now, never evoked the emotion the old tree did when I returned as a college graduate many years later and went there, to say here I am, and it was dying, split, limbs already dropped, huge ones, and the little bugs and insects of the field were now in it as their home. Its funny, but after that visit, I rarely took that trail again. Except once, to see if it was all gone, and it mostly was. From this age now, I look back and realize how incredibly fast its demise was, maybe fifteen years from giant to compost. The interaction of course during that time is that I'd grown from an eight year old to a thirty year old. During that span of time, the large things of childhood often shrink to adult size. But the feeling of loss has never shrunk. I still miss the feeling of sitting by that tree, it's uncomfortable deeply furrowed bark digging in my back, looking down at the valleys, the town, the houses of families of many kind going about their business, the incredible summer clouds moving across the blue screen of that vast central new york sky. Maybe that's what home was to me. That feeling, more than that tree. I don't know. It still all seems like one. I can't conjure up the feeling of home without the maple by my side. I can't believe it's gone.
[that becomes the title: Maple By My Side]

stories of others
the first apartment of college and the dogs not welcome
father in law's camp that burned
christie's honeymoon
"spike" and the trail by the river
hard for nj, our computer science major who won't do freewrites (he writes about not doing the freewrite)
might be better to pick a several places, then go there to the best place

Follow up - story and building community
the idea we share is a way we build community, we know more about each other we'd never have spoken during introductions - build a place where kids can come together about their writing, through their sharings and appreciation.

lots of research that says if you teach one genre really well, there will be added benefit to other pieces of writing...don't just focus on the requirements...deep study will generalize across other writing requirements

books:
1. the writing workshop, working through the hard points (and they are all hard points) - Katie Wood Rae
2. Ralph Fletcher - Craft Lessons
3. James Zull - The Art of Changing The Brain. There are so many connections here. I had to put in my 2 cents.

Now, moving into ds, the pictures become the words, and the writing becomes a statement of economy.

break

TIme spent reviewing assignments.
Do the storyboard.
Pass in the script. First and Last.
Friday's assignment is to show competence in iMovie.
A week from Friday is the second piece, to show competence in a ds memoir. The third piece is also coming in a week from Friday and is a 2-3 page reflection on the process of writing and making the s(d).

Sandy
Images and Audio
1. scanning, using Elements
2. audacity, play with music: shorten, sample, record voice
dave matthews Grave Digger
shows cuts and edits and fades in and fades out
export as mp3

Evil And Memoir

James Zull writes of the Just Transformation in a way that captures my
interest.  He's a biologist, not an educator, although he very much is
that, too.

In writing about the art of changing the brain, he notes the
transformation from knowledge to meaning in each one of us involves
three individual transformations "data"...

1. from outside to inside - anything anyone tells you outside yourself
until you process the information and more importantly act with and on
the information so that it becomes your own

2. from past to present - anything anyone tells you is not yours; it is
past until you process the information and more importantly act with and
on the information so that it becomes your own

3. from doing what you think someone wants you to do with the
information to doing what you want to do with the information - in other
words, becoming personally empowered with what you know, using what you
know for your own purposes

Bomer uses the words "retrospective" (Lejeune) and "a second reading of
experience" (Gusdorf) to help her distinguish Memoir from Journal from
Diary.  These words imply the individual has changed the nature of what their
life has been to them by intentionally dedicating themselves to
understanding their moments on earth more fully.  This is the reflective process
and the very act of composition is an action that leads to enriched, enhanced,
elaborated understandings of who I am and by implication, who we all are
in this great river of life.  What a gift.

I just wish the people whose actions I hate - I know, that's a strong
word and one I don't often use - would be as reflective as the people I
love.  Might I better understand their lenses?   But then again, if they
were, might I not have cause to hate them?

Tuesday Night

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 3:27:13 AM

The evening turns out pretty well. Kuma is tired from his morning at TheDogZone, I do my run, soak in the hot tub for a bit, grab some food. Amy stops by to pick up her fish and regales me with stories of her Alaskan adventures in true Amy fashion. I catch Katie and the news and then head downstairs, feeling much better and resolved to have a good time with iMovie. I've decided to make a shorter movie, practicing the Burns adjustments and practicing voiceover and practicing working with two sound tracks. I move a bunch of pictures into a new "My Great Picture" and in two hours, I have a little ds. It's kinda cute - it's Cianya looking forward to Gloucester, in my words - and I'm left with a bunch of real questions to ask and have answered that will drive me ahead, rather than a bunch of imagined questions, fueled by a desperate feeling of stupidity. Where the hell did that come from? Another story for another time.


Here's the story line. Oh, I didn't storyboard this. My process was... 1. identify actual elements of the mental idea my brain was already working on 2. move the visuals into the iMovie space 3. practice the Burns effect just like NJ showed me - worked like a charm 4. start moving the pictures to the movie track 5. lay down the music track - Joshua's sunny side of the street (Perfect!!) 6. write my script 7. rearrange the pictures in the movie tract to conform better to the script 8. record the sound track - wince, wince 9. tweak certain pictures 10. add title, transitions, ending 11. try to add sound effects of ocean waves at start but fail at that and manage to NOT screw up the movie 12. remembered only now NJ's sage advice about the undo function - it can undo something you did 5 minutes ago so most screw-ups are small stuff Now, here's the story line.

Start
•This summer I’m going back to Gloucester with my Amma and my Gappa and I can’t wait. I just love being there.
•We stay right next to the water and when the water is low, which seems to happen at least once a day, I go down to the rocks and search for beach glass. My Amma usually goes with me.
•I think the birds think we are taking over their homes but we aren’t; we’re just looking for neat pieces of old rough glass.
•The bestest times are when we go to good harbor beach. The ocean makes big splashes and I walk out with Gappa and try to kick the water back, but of course I cannot. It sure is fun trying though. There’s a tidal river that is easy to swim in and lots of kids just float back and forth on the tide there. Amma usually makes sandwiches and packs lots of water and fruit. I just love digging in the sand and getting covered from head to toe.
•Sometimes my cousins come up from Boston and that’s fun too. They are a lot of fun to be with. Jayne runs with me but she goes into the water and jumps and swims. I won’t do that yet but I’m thinking maybe this year. Jack usually brings a friend and he and his Dad play baseball with Gappa. Jack isn’t fond of losing. Beth and Amma sit and watch and laugh at the games that go on. I like it when they come. I think they like it to.
•Mostly, I love the beach because I can be silly and have lots of fun as long as I want all day long. How cool is that.
End

Ann comes home from her book group. We talk a little about the reading of John Adams. She looks at the Movie. She says, "It's cute!" with a big smile. It's late, and that's good enough for me.

I Encounter Vygotsky and it's not pretty

Tuesday
July 15, 2008
12:40:48 PM

Beginning
Sandy here. Ellen serving cookies with her Mom.
Headphones and microphones.
HAVE TO DO MY HOMEWORK! pOst!

PhotoStory3
free
sequential and linear
many built in editing features
takes you with directions step by step
driven by image
you record per image for narration
music plays continuously across images
wiDoWS OnLY pooh

To Do A Project FIle Mgmt.
A folder for the project
Then subfolders
audio
images
script versions
final folder (perhaps)

She then demonstrates PS3.
It would be really easy to navigate PS3. (Compared to iMovie.)

Because I am using iMovie, I kind of half listen during her explanation while I work on finding town band photos in my iPhoto and move them into the media/visual section of A Great Movie in preparation for making Friday's ds. I'm not happy with the photos. I took screen snapshots using SnapZpro of pictures Ann has on Shutterfly

and they come out pretty grainy. I'm realizing what a treasure the work of her long hours on ShutterFly represent. She's got tons of Williston Town Band pictures taken from over the years she's been going with Cianya in tow. It took me way too long a time to find my photos in my iPhoto.

When Sandy finishes her explanation of webCT, I go to work next to NJ. He's a young computer science major talking this course to learn more about ds and to polish his iMovie skills. After watching him for 3 seconds, I conclude I can learn a lot from this guy. He's a whiz at editing and I know I'm going to be in one of those situations where I'm going to working on the right question to ask so we can get more or less on the same level. (Read Vygotsky/ZPD/scaffolding/etc.)

I try to import the mp3 file of the S&S into GBand unsuccessfully. Then I try to import it into iMovie, unsuccessfully again. My mood begins to drop as I experience this inability as a "sting." I shift to I tunes and listen to maybe 15 different versions of S&S, finally purchasing three: one by Vladimir Horowitz, mostly for the fun of it -- he misses on a few of his bass punctuations and if I'm hearing it right, the rendition is muddy, but interesting; a version by the Marine Band; and another version by an Army Field Band. I'm looking for a slower tempo, martial sounding, with absolutely clear attacks and sprightly woodwinds. I choose not to purchase Bernstein's NY Philharmonic's version -- he races through it and it annoys me so much, I don't listen enough to tell whether he slows it down when he gets to the piccolo refrain. If I were to take bets, I'd say, "Yes" he does.

I then start to look at my pictures and seek a little help from NJ around some of the editing techniques he's using. He's very helpful. There are a couple of little sliders that split images - I only vaguely understand their function and am going to have to practice. I kind of give him the head nod, yep yep version of "I understand not really" when he's going through that. He knows I think because he ends telling me, "You know, you just have to mess around and practice with all of it. That's what I did. (How many times have I said that to a student!) He also gives me some good advice about not using music I really like because I'll hate it when I'm done with the editing and hearing it over and over like a 1000 times. He's doing something with his cat. It's zippy and funny and quite professional already and the dude is just playing around!

This is all pretty interesting. As I work independently, my mood starts to drop as I get more frustrated with the distance I have to go to really make iMovie work for me. Photostory appears to be a whole lot easier. I'm going to have to dig into this on my own more than I thought. I don't want to be a pain to this guy (my issue, not his) and I'm already behind in my reading assignments. Perhaps I'm experiencing what it is to be a student again, one who is a slower learner, one who doesn't like being perceived as the slower learner, and one who is seeing a huge learning curve to ascend before me, before Friday. This is probably good for me but I leave class discouraged and vowing to work at "just playing around" tonight. Ann will be our and I'll have the house to myself, well me and Kuma anyway. That can be fun and better paced for me - if I choose to get out of this mud mind and make it okay for myself. Interesting stuff here for a guy who's been in the business for a long time and thinks he knows what it is to be a student. Evidently, I think I'm a student from a position of total control of the conditions of my studenting. I'm not here and it's quite a different positioning. I'm not particularly happy with my reaction.

Sandy goes over webCT.
Storyboarding. Go to the lesson.
Do the process. Map the organization.
Then go to iMovie.

I go to my office after class ends to download a bunch of storyboards but admit to myself that I really need to get away from this for a while. Go for a run, even. I leave without even hooking up my iBook.

DS1.1

Possible Titles
1. Love on the 4th
2. Shrunken Moments
3. On Lumps and Laughter
4. Music Music Music

The lump comes and its arrival is totally predictable. The national anthem is always preceded by the "Stars and Stripes Forever," at least at the Fourth of July concert. Every year. Like clockwork. Like Adam and Eve. Like Mutt and Jeff. Like J-Lo and Anthony. By this time, I would have looked around to see if "she" was here. She usually arrives late, in the rush of a young mother, answering yet another call to arms. This particular call to arms is to rejoin the Williston Town Band for their Fourth of July concert. She plays piccolo. Really well. And it is my anticipation of her piccolo solo during the refrain of probably the most recognizable march ever written that brings the lump, the requisite tearing up. I am the one G. S. Lightoller wrote about in 1908 when he noted:

"The classical descriptions of this emotion seem inadequate or even misleading, as no account is taken of the very important part played by the M. mentalis, a powerful and misunderstood muscle which already has been shown (op. cit. throat) in activity during speech and will presently be shown active during the emotion of distress."

No other recording will do. This is the one that works. And for perhaps 45 seconds, I go through my private little focusing meditation to soak in as much as I can of her flawless interpretation to fill my well for another 365 days. I struggle to keep my um-pahs going as I open every pore to fully experience the be-dee-dee dee-deedle deedle dee dee deedledeedled lee dee deee soaring above reined-in, supportive momentum of the rest of the band, twenty-eight strong, new high schoolers to long retired veterans, doing their Fourth of July day thing.

The lump is really a gift, from my Mom, from the person who invited me to the world of music, made sure I had piano lessons, ended way too soon when Mrs. Peckham up and moved away when her husband retired from the insurance business. She is the one who played the thick, black and gold labeled 78 of Enrico Caruso singing Vesti La Gubia, sharing her tears at the wonder of his soaring tenor, lifting about the scratches and clicks of what was to me a recording from the time of the Pharohs. She was the one who accompanied my Celito-Lindos on the trumpet. She's the one who came to the band concerts, listened to me practice my state music contest solos, and told me how proud and surprised she was when I made All State Orchestra. And she's the one with whom I played - or tried to play - the old standards, she on the piano, me on my instrument of the moment. It was never work, it was great fun, we laughed lots, and in a family where laughter was usually muted, that attachment of music to joy and guffaws was a major ingredient of our Mother/Son bonding.

I now realize how much I learned about the music of her time by just listening to her singing and playing and sharing who she was and who she might have been when she was young like me. The lump makes manifest even now, the emotional connection to mother love forged through the experience of music. The lump is a sign to me that this sustaining love lives when every fourth of july a piccolo solo by an unknown Mom brings me to my Mom and the music we share.

Digital Story Telling Day One

Monday, July 14, 2008 1:54:34 PM

Sandy's Intro.
single images
voice over
first person
"I"
3/4 page of script
2-3 minutes
music

example
Silvia and potato
kqed 2004 winner
"really mean to me much"

started with street theater
Joe Lambert created it
center for digital storytelling, CA of course

used to bring communities of people together, people who don't know each other
this is where the movement is, and why it's growing
it tells the common story for common purposes
creating communities of detached people, attaching them in common cause

Seven Elements
point of view
dramatic question
emotional content
economy
pacing
voice
soundtrack

Sandy shows her ds for cynthia's class.
For her, writing stories was a substitute for close long lasting friendships.
She moved often as a child.
In her intro., speaks of impact.
The emotional impact.
The importance of books and writing in her life.
"To be literate, is to be aware."

Shows several of Cynthia's students' products.
cori chander The walk of shame. I wasn't smart enough to catch up. I wanted to prove I wasn't stupid; I just had a weak side. Easier to be unwilling, instead of unable.

*Which comes first; the story or the image?
Probably both. Depends on how you see it first.

Then shows some from last year.
Joyce
Doughnuts. The collection of recipes. Here's the food that I loved that my mother made.
375 degree crisco. grain in a papered dishdrainer.
searched for sound effects
humor - voice - old song, one song, instrumentals, cooking etc.

Abby
Morning Ritual.
Expresso Machine. Mel the dog. Mort.
Sax playing slowly, a jazzy soundtract. Dog licks coffee cup.
Opening the day with love. Mel Dog, Mort Wasserman. Sepia.
An everyday event. That was it. You know so much about her.

Ann
Welcoming Kuma. Final project. An examplar to be used with her students.
Why are we getting a puppy?
(We have fewer responsibilities, why get a dog now? --- We don't have fewer responsibilities.) Followed the Bohmer book. Wrote the stories first. The question asking comes out of the story she first wrote. The economy of word.

Other uses.
Used the concept of dst to talk about the underground railroad. One mural. One character. Author's voice is the voice of someone in the mural. Music that goes with it was recorded by a student chorus in the school. The Liberty Farm, Mr. Bracket's Farm, NYS historical roadsign. RFA, Rome, NY.

Ellen's DS.
About her Mom. Eva Louise's Life. The early days. Bear River Nova Scotia.
Interviews with older memories of the family form a large portion of the sound track, Ellen doing the interviewing. Benjamin and Alice couldn't talk in NS because they were of different churches. Eva arrived in 1917, the first and only girl of her parent's union. Her Mom died in 1917 in childbirth, a stillborn son, the sixth and last. She lived in Saugus, MA with other members of her family. 90 in the final picture.

Bernajean Porter's Website.

Phases and Steps
Preproduction
1 write a narrative script
2 plan the project
3 organizing project folders
Production
4 making the voice over
5 gathering and preparing media resources
Post Production
6 putting it all together
Distribution
7 applause, applause
8 putting it up for people to see

Ellen
Her part is the writing.
Keep a writer's notebook.
Try it digitally. Think like a writer. Put them down, a place to draw your ideas back from. Places to pull the stories from. Personal, short, not for public consumption. When Bohmer describes memoir, this kind of journaling makes sense. Not really a life work. Just pieces. Memoir is a mere slice of ordinary life. Even, a moment.

On Wednesday. Develop a blog. Do the daily writing pieces. Maybe a story. Maybe a grocery list. Looking at the words through writerly eyes. A toolset for your eyes. We'll write every day to give us a little piece to go back to. Linda Rief.

write in classroom
quickwrite: focus write or free write
everyone has to
need to keep writing 4-10 minutes
this is a focus write: My Grandmother's Hair.

My Grandmother's hair.
I see her sitting in the apartment in Utica. My mom had taken me there. I envision myself maybe 8. In reality I was older. College age I think. FIrst Aunt Rita and Uncle Henry had moved to Utica - Bendix Manufacturing had moved him from NJ, there. Later on, after John Steffens died, Grandma Fennekohl followed. She was in her seventies I'm sure. After she moved there, Mom drove her two tone Packard Clipper for years. But I'm getting off track here as memories push their way into Grandma Steffens memories. Her hair was on the whiter side of gray, close to her head, and wavy like the insistent waves of the ocean as they approach a beach before they break. She wore a dark blue dress with a fine print of white dots, and her gray laced up shoes had a substantial heal to them, perhaps two inches high. Really, she was my only grandmother. My parents were older when I came into this world. We moved to the country when I was four. It felt like we lived pretty isolated lives from the rest of the family, and nobody came to visit very much. Dad wasn't what you would call the welcoming kind, and his involvement with alcohol didn't help the situation very much. I remember this moment with Grandma because she told a story about the rats coming up out of the high river water in some early 1900s Spring, up into her apartment building. I can still hear my Mom's nylons swishing together from the discomfort of Grandma telling that story. I'm not sure why. When I asked, she wasn't very clear about her answer. I think her discomfort had more to do with what I might think about where she and Aunt Rita lived as kids than it did about the rats themselves. But the more those nylons swished, the more the details poured forth from Grandma. I remember laughing at her telling, and loving that I was in the room with them both.

Sharing Stories. What did you notice.
Sharing helps others identify stories. Hearing them gets others minds going. Hair is a universal theme. Everyone has a different story. Even me. The kids begin to realize how each one of them is unique and has a unique contribution to make and will be recognized as a competent unique person.