Assignment 4: First Person Flickr!

First Person Flikr! (aka A Flickr is Worth a Thousand Words)

Hi Everyone,

In honor of our transition into the First Person text, we will be composing miniature first-person stories for our minor assignment this week. For assignment four, you will be experimenting further with image and text as you create a layered image that tells a first-person perspective story about some event in your life that has been significant or meaningful to you. Remember that a first-person perspective is told from your personal perspective and is characterized by pronouns such as “I, me, my” etc. Using the note tool available in Flickr, you will need to annotate the image to provide information about the story your particular image is telling (remember that the critical elements of story are character, conflict, and environment). Choose a photograph of suitable size and complexity and add at least four layered notes with textual information that frames or situates the reader within your story. Feel free to be creative –it is not necessary to use a photograph with people in it to complete this assignment (though there is nothing wrong with this if you prefer to use this method). You could tell an equally complete and engaging story using a photograph of old farm equipment, stars in the sky, a musical instrument, or a picture of your first automobile. It is up to you to choose visual content that you feel frames a defining moment or important instance from your past.

Detailed Instructions:
1. Create an account at http://www.flickr.com/.
2. Login, then upload a photograph to your gallery (direct link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/upload/).
3. Write a single paragraph that explains your selection of photograph and discusses the source of conflict in the photograph.
4. Click on the photograph to bring up the editing pane.
5. Using the “Add Note” tool, add four different notes to various parts of your picture, annotating the image. You may choose to add text that explains the story you believe the photograph is telling, to give the subjects within the photograph dialogue, or to extend or define the narrative in any other creative fashion. Feel free to experiment with notes until you find an overall effect you like.
6. Add any tags to your image that you feel are relevant. Include one tag named “fil5810.”
7. When finished with your editing and tagging, copy the hyperlink from the URL address bar of your browser and embed that link (using Insert, Hyperlink, or CTRL+k) into a Word file. Below the link, paste the paragraph you wrote in step three.
8. Post your paragraph and a link to your Flickr image to your personal blog. Feel free to comment on others’ pictures!

Learning objectives: By completing this assignment, you will learn to:
1. Use the online image sharing and manipulation tool Flickr
2. Select and evaluate visual media for narrative appropriateness and complexity
3. Annotate visual narratives with textual information to focus the experience of your reader(s)

Rubric (out of ten points):
__ / 7: Document (text+image) communicates in a narrative fashion, conveying a definite sense of conflict, character, and environment
__ / 2: Document is linked from personal blog and a paragraph description and hyperlink (in a Word file) are uploaded to WebCT
__ / 1: Image is tagged with fil5810 and any other appropriate tags

This assignment is due to be posted to your personal blog and uploaded to WebCT by Sunday, June 24, at 11:55pm.

Here is an example of something that would be appropriate for this assignment: rodeo days. Remember that you also need to provide a brief paragraph explaining your selection and discussing the source of conflict. Have fun with this assignment, and let me know if you have any questions!

Pass 2 Due Tomorrow

Don’t forget that your major project Pass 2 is due tomorrow (image + text).  All grades for your proposals and Pass 1 stories are available in WebCT, and detailed feedback is provided as an attached Word file.  Let me know if you have any trouble accessing my comments.

Updated TSC Quick Reference

There was a minor typo on the last quick reference sheet (thanks to Matt Walsh for pointing it out).  The link to Assignment 3 was linking to Assignment 2.  This has been corrected in this version. TSQ Quick Reference v. 2

AIIIDE ‘07 Conference

There are a few interesting papers on interactive storytelling on the Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIIDE) Conference Web site: http://aigamedev.com/coverage/aiide-2007-papers. These may be more useful for the second portion of the course, but those of you working with the modeling and simulation of narrative may find them interesting for your story development. I wasn’t able to access the first PDF file, but the paper from Heather Barber opened up for me and looks to be interesting.

TSC Quick Reference

Hi Everyone — due to the distributed nature of our course this semester, I think some students remain confused about certain elements of the class (primarily the various weekly assignments).  I’ve noticed in particular that everyone seems to be using different naming conventions for the various assignments.  So, I’ve created the following quick reference guide to help you easily see when assignments will be due, what their official names are, and how you should be submitting them.  I have also added all due dates to the WebCT calendar as reminders.  I’m hoping this will help to make things easier for you all in terms of figuring out when assignments are due and how they should be turned in.  I will also post this document to our course Wiki along with our other files.  Let me know if I can do anything else to help make these mechanisms more transparent.
Download the FIL5810 Quick Reference Sheet

Assignment 3: Brunerian Film Analysis

For assignment three, you will be writing a review of a contemporary or classic film using one of Bruner’s ten narrative features as a framing mechanism and analytical catalyst for your essay.  Your chosen film can be of any genre suitable for this type of analysis (if you have questions about a particular film, please clear it in advance with me).  This could be a favorite film you have seen many times or a brand new film you view specifically for this assignment.  For instance, you might choose to write a review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in terms of its creative applications of narrative diachronicity, or of Spiderman 3 in terms of the importance of particularities.  In your review, you should clearly define Bruner’s feature as you understand it and then discuss how that feature functions within the film you choose.  Support your ideas with specific examples from the film.  Your review should incorporate a formal (academic/scholarly) style.  You may also choose to incorporate ideas or perspectives outlined by Julian Murphet in the Narrative and Media text, but you must choose one and only one of Bruner’s features to address in your essay.

In this piece, I am not looking for whether or not you enjoyed the film, but rather for how the feature enhanced, sustained, or degraded the narrative vision of the production team.  While you may use some subjective and qualitative language to indicate how the film resonated with you on a personal level, I am also looking for a more critical and detailed perspective and would like to see that you can understand and apply the ideas proposed by Bruner to a real-world example.

Your review should contain a brief synopsis of the film (read the back of a DVD case or VHS case for an idea of what to include in this synopsis) and then a more detailed analysis of the feature you selected and how it applies to the film’s narrative.

Your overall review should be a minimum of 500 words and is due to be uploaded to WebCT and posted to your personal blog by Sunday, June 10, at 11:55pm.  Let me know if you have any questions about this assignment!

Grading Rubric (out of ten points):

__ /3 Grammar and mechanics
__ /2 Quality of synopsis (a clear and original overview of the film is presented)
__ /5 Quality of analysis (essay shows a clear understanding and application of selected feature to the film’s narrative)

New Meeting Location

For those who choose to attend the optional Monday evening classes, we will now be meeting in the large conference room rather than the large classroom.  This is the room directly to the left as soon as you enter the Orlando Tech Center building.  This will hold true for the rest of the semester unless we need to show any PowerPoint slides or do any computer demonstrations.  For those dates, I will announce any changes to our meeting location in advance.

Don’t Forget to Post to WebCT

Hi Everyone,

Just a friendly reminder that your stories and story proposals must be submitted both to your blogs AND to WebCT.  I’ve noticed that several of you have not yet posted the documents to WebCT.   You should receive an email confirmation once you have uploaded the documents successfully to the system.

Story Proposal Feedback

Hi Everyone,

I will be posting feedback in regards to your story proposals as comments to your blog postings.  Please pay attention to your dashboard as some of these blogs may require moderation in order to show the comments.  Let me know if you have any trouble accessing your feedback (I’m currently in the middle of posting comments so if you are near the end of our student blogroll it may be a few hours before your feeback is available).

Best,

RM

Metanarrative and Metafiction

Hi Everyone,

If you’re still confused about metanarrative or metafiction, take a look at the Wikipedia definitions for these terms.  They are actually pretty good and provide several definitions for each.  Let me know if you have any questions about any other concepts or terms we discussed last night.

Metanarrative (Wikipedia)

Metafiction (Wikipedia)