SM Final Narrative

My Creative Process

It started as a simple thought, as most of my creative projects do. I wanted to add an image to my final narrative. I thought perhaps a photo of the lake that the story is actually about. I searched my archives, knowing I had some and of course I couldn't find any. Faced with the lack of muse for my background I started to consider a number of other photos (I have 12,000) that I've taken over the years. I came across the silhouette of the little girl against the sunset. I've always loved the image. I took it in 1996, the year after both my parents had passed away, while we were at a timeshare here on the gulf coast. She was about the same age as my youngest daughter (around 8) and had downs syndrome. When I took the photo she was standing at the edge of the ocean just enjoying the exuberance of the waves as they crashed on shore. She was filled with joy but silhouetted against the sunset - it seemed like a perfect contrast - at the time and for my narrative.

So, with the photo selected, I started to play around with how I would use it. At first I thought I would just drop the whole story on top of the photo but that just seemed boring. Then I thought I would use the photo as a background in a website and have the story move across a number of different pages. Then, it came to me. Why not look and see how hard it would be to use the movie maker on my new computer - and a film maker was born.

I started with the photo, scanned it in and tinted it six different shades and morphed it into a watercolor. (I love this feature - instant gratification!) Then, for each frame I dropped in a different tint as I added the text on top as a title. The program has a number of really cool effects but when I used a fade in it made the water in the background seem to ripple so I decided to use it on all the frames. It was a lengthly process and although it was tedious I found it addicting. Experimenting with the different effects and transitions was really mind boggling. It almost gave me too many options to choose from which is why I kept it simple. I didn't want the story to become overwhelmed by the technology.

Once I finished the movie itself, I "published" it to my computer, uploaded it to Utube and linked it to my final narrative page. I hope you enjoy the results. I know it is rudimentary - first attempts using new mediums generally are - so, feel free to feed back on my comments page about what you think can be better - I have a feeling I'll be producing another movie. It's too fun not too.