My second story from Michael Schwind on Vimeo.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Digital Story 2 Version 1
Here is my second digital story. It's about a letter I wrote to my wife (she was my girlfriend at the time) while I was at the Army Infantry Officer Basic Training Course at Fort Benning, Georgia in the fall of 1981. I used Soundbooth to record my narration and blend in some sound effects I recorded. I built the animation in Flash and then imported both the MP3 file and SWF files into After Effects to produce the .mov video file. Let me know what you think.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What a great story. You do a wonderful job using flash to help make your stories stand out.
ReplyDeleteOne suggestion is that the beginning of your story, when you are in the foxhole...seems a little disconnected from the beginning of the story. I honestly thought that you were "acting" like a letter...like you had been put in a mailbox and were being sorted through. Maybe clarify that you were running late night practices.
The one visual part of the story that really stands out is the piece of paper that says "Love Mike." I don't know why I feel a need to write that but maybe it's because on some level I'm thinking more needed to stand out. Yet again, if the intended effect is to do the single photo with narration, then it's not really relevant. Your voice is what I always wow at; however, this time is seemed a bit muffled, lower, ?? anyhow it didn't come across as strongly as it has in the past. Okay, enough with not showing the love: I love the opening cricket or bugs at beginning. Most excellent!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great story, and I really like how you started it from your perspective of being upside down. I didn't really get it right away, but when you got to that point in the letter, it made more sense. I only have a couple of suggestions, and one is to maybe pick out a few key phrases of the letter to highlight, like "Training, training, and training..," and "Too late," "Love, Mike," rather than doing such large pieces. Also, since you talk about your wife at the end and have her laughing (great sound effect, by the way), maybe you could either switch to a picture of the two of you or bring it in along with your picture and the one of the letter.
ReplyDeleteWonderful story!
Great story. It is nice to hear a first hand account of this type of training. I recently watched a tv program on special forces training and they had a similar type of training exercise. You may consider fading out the music at the beginning instead of such an abrupt ending to it. Love your wife's laugh at the end.
ReplyDeleteWonderful story. I loved the effects you added. I envy your Flash and After Effects skills! I really liked how portions of the letter popped to the forefront, but I agree with the earlier comment that it may be more powerful if you choose a few choice phrases to do that to. I also agree with the comment of having a picture of your wife at the end. Maybe a picture of her holding the letter and laughing.
ReplyDeleteSomeone mentioned that the beginning was confusing, but I personally thought it worked great. I thought the cricket sound effects were terrific and the way you did the black-out and the “thud” were great and illustrated the story you would be telling in the story. My only suggestions here to “pow” it up a bit is to add more inflection in your voice and a little longer pause before the letter starts. So, maybe a little more pain in your voice when you say “that hurts” and a little more angst or anxiety in your voice when you say “I can’t see anything.” Then a few second pause for dramatic effect. Then start the letter, but with a little sarcasm in your voice when you say “things are going great.” This may give the beginning a little more power and tie the beginning scene to the letter. Just an idea though.
Neat story. Here are a couple ideas.
ReplyDelete-use a THUD sound effect at the point of impact.
-Hold the vowels on the climax of the story... UUUUUUPside DOOOOOWN.
-Share a little more vocal inflection on the LOVE, MIKE.
-Consider starting the story with your wife laughing, or have her laughing in the background at some point in the story where she might laugh as she tells others. This could work as bookends to your story.
Awesome technology work as always.