Digital Remix

Working on the latest portion of my literacy narrative was an interesting experience. It gave me the opportunity to return to some programs I hadn’t used in quite a while. When I was putting it together, I had originally planned to use the Sims to recreate some of the events from my childhood that I described. However, I ran into a number of roadblocks along the way. Most of my files were lost in my last big hard drive crash, and the newer files I downloaded for this project kept crashing the game. Unwilling to sort through hundreds of files with names like “ziyanobj01” to find the problem, I switched tactics. Instead, I began hunting through the Creative Commons section of Flickr. I was pleasantly surprised to find so many pictures that so perfectly captured the ideas I was trying to convey. I was even more surprised that some people thought they actually were pictures of my family. Apparently I must have done something right with my project.

My second major difficulty came from the program I chose to make my presentation. Though we went over iMovie in class, I don’t have a copy of that program on my computer. Instead, I chose to go with WindowsMovieMaker, since I had used it before. This turned out to be a mistake. Though I generally prefer PCs to Macs, I will freely admit that in this area, the Apple product is far superior to the Microsoft one. In terms of applying transitions or adding effects, iMovie seems to offer a lot more flexibility. By the end of the project, I was so frustrated with my work that I just wanted to be done with it. I’m honestly tempted to recreate the entire project from scratch in iMovie for my final version.

Watching everyone else’s presentations made me keenly aware of all the ways my own movie could have been improved. I’m not sure why I thought I had to narrate mine, as if I was telling a story. It was interesting to see all the myriad ways everyone else thought of presenting their narratives (seriously, Mike’s was amazing). Even though we all had the same assignment, we took our stories in very different directions. I think that’s the best part of doing this kind of digital remix. Though I was initially reluctant to step outside my comfort zone, I’m glad I had this opportunity. Now I feel better prepared to help any students who visit the writing center with this kind of assignment.