I used Gliffy to create this concept map, as I found trying to explain the idea to my wife was a bit difficult (not sure why). Some people are visual learners, so maybe this will help others to understand our project. Hopefully, it won’t make it more confusing.

View the bigger version here.

– Kevin

I found a new tool this morning called Spresent and converted our directions for the ABC project into a slideshow. Unfortunately, I could not embed it directly into Edublogs, so I created it as a website somewhere else and have linked it here (not ideal but workable).

Click on the image or use this link.

– Kevin

Last night, I finalized the list of participants in the ABC Movie Project and sent everyone their letters and some instructions. This morning, I found an email from Peter suggesting we use Gabchat to record our reflections on our video projects, and so now we may learn yet another new thing. I am truly hoping this project is more than just a movie, but also a way to connect with others through a shared storytelling community, with technology holding things together and inspiring us in some new directions.

Here, then, is our list of Movie Producers, their letters, and where they hail from:

Where are we from?
CommunityWalk

We are about to launch our Collaborative ABC Movie Project but I wanted to share some guidelines that I came up with to help us all focus:

• Each person will be given some letters and your task is to create a short digital story around that letter that shines a light on who you are as a person, writer, teacher, etc. (For example, I might have the letters A, F, R, W, and Z to work with)
• You are free to be creative with your letters — use still photos, video, a combination, whatever works for you
• Use the software platform that works for you. I will be using PhotoStory3 (free from Microsoft for PCs) but others are using iMovie, MovieMaker or any other editing program that you have.
• Let’s not use background music for the segments (we will do that later)
• Make each letter a different little movie, so that A is its own movie, B is its own movie, etc.
• Try to put a quick title at the front of your movie so that later, we will know visually what letter is being represented
• Keep each letter-movie at around one minute or less (we will have 26 when we are done and we want the final film to be manageable)
• Start off your narration announcing your letter — such as, A is for Airplane, and then end it the same way, A is for Airplane. This will give us a thread of structure throughout the movie.
• You will need to create an account at JumpCut, if you don’t have one. This is where we will be uploading and doing the editing part of the project. http://www.jumpcut.com/
• If possible, could you also upload your video into GoogleVideo? I am thinking it might be nice to have the movie segments available at another site for embedding as parts at a later date. If you want a Gmail account, just let me know and I will send you off an invite, as it makes using GoogleVid so much easier. http://video.google.com/
• Please think about writing out your narration and saving it. I would like to have some written version of the movie, too, if possible.
• Hey, have fun and explore — that’s what we are really doing here.

I created the Letter A story as a sample:

Here is my script:

A is for Airplane. Not the type that soars across the sky and shortens the distance of the world, but the type of airplane that clings to the walls of my youngest son’s bedroom and flies into his dreams at night. When our oldest son, now 9, was a few months from being born, my wife and I frantically worked to prepare a room in our house for him. We gutted out an extra bedroom, painted the walls and on the ceiling, with the help of my sister-in-law, we painted a blue sky with white, puffy clouds. The older sons graduated from that room but now the two-year-old is there. One day, we hung up airplanes on the walls and ceiling, and it was an immediate hit. When we walk into the bedroom to snuggle and sing songs at night, his eyes drift to the airplanes. I imagine his dreams now full of adventure as he pilots his craft into far-off worlds, waving to us from high above the clouds in his airplane. A is for Airplane.

In the interest of sharing knowledge, here is how I did it:

I began by spending a few days thinking about what I could use as the Letter A and then got inspired one night while I was getting my son to sleep. The airplanes! Of course. I wrote out what I wanted to say on Google Docs (where I will keep a running record of my project) and used Audacity and my Blue Snowball microphone to record the narration, and then exported the file as an MP3. Then I went with my digital camera into my son’s bedroom and took a bunch of photos of the airplanes. I also have a 3-d clip art program, so I used that to make a Letter A title page. I opened up PhotoStory3 and moved the photos in there, and then added my MP3 file as background music, and worked to sync the photos to the audio. I created the movie file in PhotoStory (and it came out as a .wmv file automatically), uploaded the movie to GoogleVid and shared it here on the blog.

More info to come …

Kevin

Bonnie and I would like to move into a new direction. Instead of merely sharing and discussion ideas on how to use technology in creating a story, we want to actually try and create a collaborative DS project called The Collective ABC Movie.

We know this will be experimental and we know we don’t quite know what we are doing (just to be upfront) but we are looking for a few volunteers who might be willing to join us on a new adventure. We intend to use Jumpcut to edit various segments of a video project that we produce individually and submit to the group, which then takes the footage and makes their own DS out of the video footage.

Here is my proposed plan for the Collective ABC Movie, as I explained it to Bonnie:

• A few of us agree to do this
• I divide up the alphabet among the people — For example, you get the letters A, F, R, X and I get the letters B, S, T and Z and others get other letters.
• I take my digital camera around my house (or school, or neighborhood, or community) and take images of things that represent the letters B (such as my dog Bella), S (such as my saxophone), etc.
• Then I create a movie with narration about those items (or maybe one small movie per letter? not sure) I would use PhotoStory but you would use iMovie, no doubt.
• I upload them into Jumpcut (with a tag that we agree upon so we can find each other’s movies)
• Once we have all uploaded into Jumpcut and have access to each other’s movies, then we can create our own version of the Collective ABC Movie.
• I might create a final movie that moves from letters Z down to A (using all of our videos), while you might go A to Z, or maybe you create a movie based on just the letters of your name.
• We find a way to share the movies.
• We reflect on just what the hell we did.

What do you think?

If you are interested, use the comment feature here and leave us a note.

– Kevin