Ryan Whalen - Digital Storytelling

Choosing a topic.  I know that’s not a complete sentence but I want to let it breath as a single statement.  It’s one of the most difficult tasks one can be assigned.  You can try to twist and turn research into any shape, like cutting an animal out of shrubs in an arboretum.  Is there going to be enough to say?  Is there too much to say?  Do I even know where to begin?  Is it going to be LAME?  Will anyone care?  As I struggled on the hardest part of creating a vlog entry I decided to do something different.  I had already covered my own life in the selfie and in my M1 story.  I didn’t need to rehash that ground.  M3 seemed to be centered around working towards a cause.  So that was probably doing to be more serious.  M2 let’s go with something that has nothing to do with my personal life and is just fun.  The discussion at the start of this module was one of the most eye opening to me.  We all...

Reflecting upon creating a digital story, capturing reality seemed to be one of the hardest parts to me. When you put the camera on a person how much do they change?  Are you telling their reality or their projection?  In my own project I found it hard to get people to speak morally when on camera.  I had wanted to capture more of the little conversations and small moments that happen on a trip.  What I found was that when you begin recording a conversation and asking questions with a camera in someone's face they become more robotic and can have a hard time answering questions casually, in the manner they would converse. I decided to start simple in this course.  The first module is just clips and photos from my cell phone, linked together in iMovie.  There are no fades, no text and no music overlaid.  I think that my mobile story upped the complexity somewhat from my selfie.  With my selfie I would record myself speaking, stop to throw in a ...

Here is the youtube direct link:  https://youtu.be/7y3Wo764O9o Script: Last Sunday my band was able to head down to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to play a show.  We put out a short demo recording online in late January of this year.  The demo got some retweets and shares and general promotion from some of our friends in different areas.  Our first day went pretty well and we got over 2,200 listens.  An old friend of mine whom I met when two bands we had previously been in played together in 2008 heard the demo and contacted us.  Since he had slowed down with playing music as much himself he has become a promoter for a lot of under ground punk bands playing in Philadelphia.  When he contacted us he told us he had the perfect show for us to come down and play.  We would be playing with an up and coming band from Florida whom we all were fans of already.  They would be on tour with another band from North Carolina and rounding out the sh...

Hi, my name is Ryan.  This is my first semester retiring to college to finish my degree.  I am currently working on Historical Studies and hoping to go on to become a librarian.  Right now, I work for the United States Postal Service.  I’m a supervisor there.  In addition to that, I’m in the National Guard.  Throw in a little photo here, boom.  I live in Syracuse, NY with my fiancé and our beautiful, new, three month old Daughter, Luise AKA Lulu.  In addition to this class, I’m working on a couple of other creative projects.  I’m currently working on producing a magazine that can be seen here.  Those were a couple of little previews that I made.  I handed out about 400 at a convention last summer.  In addition to that, I’m currently playing in a band and playing shows quite frequently.  So, I’m in a band, working on a magazine, military, father, full time job and getting married.  Things are quite busy for me ...

Hi, my name is Ryan.  This is my first semester retiring to college to finish my degree.  I am currently working on Historical Studies and hoping to go on to become a librarian.  Right now, I work for the United States Postal Service.  I’m a supervisor there.  In addition to that, I’m in the National Guard.  Throw in a little photo here, boom.  I live in Syracuse, NY with my fiancé and our beautiful, new, three month old Daughter, Luise AKA Lulu.  In addition to this class, I’m working on a couple of other creative projects.  I’m currently working on producing a magazine that can be seen here.  Those were a couple of little previews that I made.  I handed out about 400 at a convention last summer.  In addition to that, I’m currently playing in a band and playing shows quite frequently.  So, I’m in a band, working on a magazine, military, father, full time job and getting married.  Things are quite busy for m...