Digital
Video Assignment 1: What’s in a name?
Step
One: We will read “My Name” from ThexHousezOndMangofStreet by SandrafCisneros. We will also read “The Harvey Pekar Name Story” by Harvey Perkar
(ill. Robert Crumb) from American Splendor and compare it to the film
version (from American Splendor, Dir. Berman & Pulcini, 2003) of the
story.
Step
Two: Write a one-page story about your own
name. As a class, we will read about
the “7 Elements of a Digital
Story” from the Digital Storytelling Cookbook at storycenter.org. To get started with your story, feel free to
respond to any of the following questions (or none of them). How was your name chosen? Are there others in your family with the
same name? What are some interesting
stories about your family that relate to your name? How do you feel about your name? What does it mean to you?
What are some stories related to your name from your life? What name would you choose if you could
choose your own?
Step
Three: Design a “digital story” about your
name. You will record your story as a
digital audio (.wav) file that will be used as “voiceover.” Select photographs, either digital or
traditional, that you will assemble in Adobe Premiere to support your story.
3a: Create a
storyboard in which your pictures have captions, like a comic strip or a
graphic novel. This will help you to
organize your images to match the text.
Try to be creative with your images and avoid the “say dog-see dog”
approach.
3b: Import your
images into Premiere Pro.
(File>>Import>>Files…) You may need to use the scanner to turn traditional photos into
digital images you can use.
3c: Use “Audacity”
and a microphone to record your voiceover narrative. Try to be clear and speak slowly enough that we can hear. Pauses are fine, since they will allow you
to more easily break up the audio if you’d like to. Feel free to do two, three or four “takes” since they are quick
and you may find some parts work better in some takes than others.
3d: Select other
COPYRIGHT FREE music or create your own with “Soundtrack Pro” on the Macintosh
computers to use as your soundtrack.
You can also use or create sound effects.
3e: Add all your
pieces into the TIMELINE in Premiere Pro and edit them for length, add
transitions, balance your soundtrack.
Step
Four: Export your final movie
(File>>Export>>Movie) as an .AVI file. Title it “namePeriodYourlastname.avi”. So if I was in period 7 Digital Video, my movie would be called
“name7Shields.avi”
Due
Date: Friday, September 14th
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“My Name” from ThexHousezOndMangofStreet by SandragCisneros
(c. 1988)
In
English my names means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness,
it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican
records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like
sobbing.
It
was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born
like me in the Chinese year of the horse – which is supposed to be bad luck if
you’re born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like
the Mexican, don’t like their women strong.
My great-grandmother. I would’ve liked to have known her, a wild horse
of a woman, so wild she wouldn’t marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack
over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy
chandelier. That’s the way he did it. And the story goes she never forgave him.
She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their
sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she
sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I
have inherited her name, but don’t want to inherit her place by the window.
At
school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt
the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer
something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister’s name-Magdalena-which is
uglier than mine.
But
I am always Esperanza. I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name
more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or
Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.