A digital story

There are things in life that we learn, not knowing when or how they will come to light and change our lives. I'm fortunate in that I have encountered a time in my life when something I had learned as a child saved the lives of myself and my Dad.

Here is a digital memoir of the events. Some of the things have changed since I couldn't get images to perfectly match the events, but that is the perogative of memoir. Memories can be blended together to create a non-fiction story as all the events did happen, just some of the details have changed.

Enjoy.

Driving like a Chess Master

Taking a look back at the process, I have to say that I've become much more familiar with the Windows Live Movie Maker program. However, I am still upset about the minimal set of options. Honestly, I'd prefer to not have to work with it, as the program makes what should be able to appear to be a professional movie into somthing that looks very amatureish. I did not ice a huge jump in time efficiency from the first time I worked with WLMM and this time around. The transitions were smoother, the timing was easier to get down correctly, and the effects were easier to work out. The most difficult part was making the audio recording, and after fourteen attempts without getting past thirty seconds without a mishap, I finally gave up and decided to just go with the full recording in one go. Given a better audio editing program I would edit out many of the audio mistakes, such as the clicking noise, and redo places that were a bit sketchy or where my words wouldn't come out, such as the part when I talk about my Dad'd Dodge Shadow.

On a good note, I did learn a lot about taking digital photos with a Logitech camera attached to the computer. Its akward, and I think it would take a long time to be able to be comfortable with the feel of the camera, but it will be an invaluable asset for long distance interviews.

Overall, it wasn't as painful an experience as the first movie I made, but it remains firmly in the realm of "Could use some improvement."

Here's the rubric for how I would grade this.

Presentation Rubric

And the planning behind it all:

Script