Ryan Whalen - Digital Storytelling

Oh, Hey!  You know, this semester in digital storytelling, I learned quite a bit.  A lot of it was just simple technical stuff about making a video.  Things such as: turn on the lights or use the lights to create dramatic effects.  Having a background is definitely going to increase the quality of your video.  You look so much more professional.  If that doesn’t work, you can always pander to the lowest common denominator with cute little animals. Sometimes, it’s easier to have someone else hold the camera.  You also might realize that the camera on your Mac just isn’t that great.  One thing that I really struggled with was speaking up.  I tried to make my videos louder, because personally, that was one of my biggest issues.  All of these tools can be used to tell your story.  My story is primarily about records and about comic books.  But, it can be about anything, whatever is personal to you.  One of the most important things that we learned about digital storytelling this se

Working as a team in module was a totally different experience from the rest of the class.  The Lambert text especially focuses on individuals telling their own stories.  So far every project had been a representation of me as an individual.  The collaborative process was totally different but very enjoyable.  I once remember a quote about comic book artist Frank Miller saying something along the lines of some guys can write, some guys can draw, some guys can color, etc but he is one of the few guys that can make a complete comic book himself.  I thought about that in terms of digital storytelling.  There is something to be said for purity of vision and creating something with flavor but a creator is also risking going off the rails by working in a vacuum.  I think of the great work a guy like Frank Miller has done and bizarre, arguably terrible work that has Amos come out of such uncompromising vision.  I think that working as a group was good for me.  I love to be the idea person

Hey Everybody, welcome to Nerd Concepts.  Every episode I wear a wacky costume and explain a nerdy concept.  Today we are talking  about retcons.  I’m dressed as lazy Spider-man because he has one of the most well known and unpopular retcons, which we will get to in a minute.  Retcon is short for retroactive continuity.  Retcons are when new information is released in a story that changes your  understanding of previous events.  Sometimes, this is because an incoming writer on a series in some form of media doesn’t like where a previous writer was taking a series, to fix a an unintentional continuity error or simply to shake things up.  The concept is very common  to comic books but can appear in any media.  Swamp Thing, shown here in the early volume written by Len Wein, was a guy who turned into a mutant plant monster.  When writer Alan Moore took over Swamp Thing he didn’t ignore the previous series but changed readers  understanding of it by making Swamp Thing a li

M3 Digital Story Project: It’s Time to Get Moving Written by: Ryan Whalen Narration: April Crenshaw, using Garageband Editing : Max Chaiet, using Adobe Premier Pro 2015 version for Apple  Images and video: Stock photographs (see references), as well as personal videos/photographs of Ryan and Max’s families Music during credits: Original song by Richie Correa, used with permission.                       It’s Time to Get Moving Script Max standing on playground Max: It’s time to get moving!  Title of“It’s Time to Get Moving” flashes on screen Montage of stock and personal videos/photographs while April narrates  April: Kids today are seeing a change in lifestyle that has been going on since the 80’s. Rainy day activities are becoming everyday activities. Only 42%  of 6-11 year olds are getting an hour of physical activity every day and only 8% of teenagers. The results aren’t good for our little ones. 17% of U.S. children are obese with numbers twice that for lower income and disadva

I thought for a brief moment that I may never get footage of any decent quality to use for this assignment.    The most basic issue I ran into was background noise.  Have you ever tried to get real silence.  It seemed like there was real silence.  Then when playing back for 10th taken that is finally correct you notice the background noise.  I really seemed to have learned to live with the crackle of the baby monitor to such a degree I didn’t consider it until I heard static in my perfect take.  Then there’s the central air…and the puppy.  The puppy is yipping, the pupping is drinking, will it show up in the video?  So many variables.  Ok, I believe I’ve eliminated them all.  Wait, it was my phone that creating the static!  Ok, Christine let’s try again with your phone.   After all of these trials and tribulations I finally had good sound for me recording.  The initial part of my reading hard some static and little motion in the camera but I thought that that could work as an ac

Here is my M2 video.  I decided to go with something light and fun for my second video before M3.  I had a couple of people watch it so far, I look forward to feed back.  Welcome to Nerd Concepts, where every video I’ll be discussing a nerdy concept while wearing a wacky outfit.  Today’s concept is cosmic horror.  I just read to your from The Call of Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft’s classic tale of cosmic horror.  Lovecraft is considered the master of cosmic horror and with his works in the public domain, they’ve been adapted countless times.  A film, a board game, even a spoken word album.  Beyond direct adaptions, Lovecraft’s work has influenced countless movies, television series and other authors.  Cosmic horror preceded Lovecraft but has also continued on after his death.  Let’s begin our journey into cosmic horror. Like that classic meme, cosmic horror is basically aliens.  These aliens, are a little less on our level though.  Cosmic horror usually concerns itself with