Digital Story through the mind of a of 'gamer.'

I would never think of a digital story and a video game in the same light. The prior is always more personal. However, as with any interaction with narrative, they have their similarities. When looking at the “Merging Stories and Games” section of Glassner’s text, the similarities naturally came to light. Naturally a ‘gamer’ would know the positives and negatives of games and each game they play. I was just a little dishearted when, Glassner puts such a negative spin on some of the parts of video games. For example, ‘Deception. (264)’ I haven’t yet played a Role-Playing Game yet that doesn’t throw you into and unexpected battle. What’s the fun if you aren’t always on your toes? As an author writing their next (hopeful) page-turning novel to keep their audience glued, wouldn’t a video game creator create their story to keep their players playing, anticipating the next step of the game?

Once you are ‘done’ with a video game, you have not just played the story. You have earned the story, (and yes in a very small way, ‘lived it’). A digital story is a hunt in the real world. Something you probably have lived, something you might have ‘played’ and, I believe frequently, can fall under the guidelines of something 'earned.’ You might not have to find the ‘blue key’ and the ‘sword of power’ but you do have to find the ‘key pictures’ and or video to go into your slideshow, correct? After all, in a video game I’ve had my fair share of using the ‘camera’ to look around and explore my surroundings. Such a task is not to go to waste here in reality. (Although you can take snapshots on Second Life and I’ve seen those posted on flickr).

I was considering taking some nice nature pictures and a music video. However, not getting into too much detail, but the first color picture in my film is the one that help me finally settle on my idea. That little bit of red popped out at me while I was finishing my walk around campus.

I had the unusual and pleasant experience of having my digital story come together all on the same day. Although my pictures were taken and my movie was complied on the single, same day, it was not a one-day process. I agonized over my ideas from the assigned date to when finally, I heard an announcement on TV that started the wheels turning. I actually didn’t get shooting until the day after that, so I actually got the more intriguing title “The Second Day.”

I've had the benefit of taking prior film classes before this one (most CIT students take the film classes during and/or after this, as I’ve discovered) and so I’m already familiar with iMovie and iLife. However this was the first time I have exclusively timed to just music, which I had a fun time with. I do think this was more of an interpretive digital story rather than just a music video, I was hoping to at least bridge the gap if not go further than that. It was nice not having a narrative, just for a change, since I removed a lot of the barriers that language creates, that Glassner discusses toward the end of chapter 11. Although I feel I left a lot open to interpretation, I don’t think it is hard to get something from the video. My only concerns were: that it was on the tame side and the music was a touch opera-like at the end. Still, I felt better going with this song than original or open-source because I felt that a song wouldn’t let me down.

Perhaps I didn’t learn a great deal from this digital story project. I would like to think that I re-learned a lot. The most important is that you have to just go out and do something, and leave the fear behind that you’ll do something bad. Good things come to those that DON’T wait.