What I didn't know I knew... My name is Emily Wray and I LOVE using video/film as a medium of expression. There, I said it.
In the fall of 2006 I quit my job, bought a Macbook and took a sabbatical to Montreal for 8 months. It was there - with no job, no friends and nothing to do - that I first picked up a video camera. I wanted to record the experience I having... not just the spiritual journey but also a travel log of the places I'd gone, the things I'd done and the people I'd met. So I created a video diary of sorts, documenting my time in the city.
Being alone with the video camera allowed me to become very comfortable with being on film. I wasn't anxious or worried about how I would "appear." I allowed myself to "just be," arguing to myself that what I was capturing was "true emotion."
I took hours and hours of footage and spent day and night editing it all together on my Macbook using iMovie 6. That was my first experience with the program. I was easy to use, yet had features that were robust enough to allow me to do everything I wanted to in terms of sounds, titles and effects.
After 8 months, what I ended up with was 45 minute movie about this inspiring period in my life. That exercise and the freedom I had will completing it, really helped me prepare for the EMDT program in ways I never fully understood until Kathy Craven's Filmmaking Principles in Education course.
Digital storytelling as a whole and in its component parts (video, images, sound, editing, etc.) truly speaks to me as educator and as an artist. It is the magical intersection of all media, where ideas and emotions are communicated visually and aurally.
I didn't know I knew so much about digital storytelling... but it is just a reincarnation of something that's been happening since the beginning of time. Included in this post is the trailer that I created as my final project in Filmmaking Principles in Education. To me, it represents some of my best work, technically and artistically. It was a challenge and a pleasure to create.
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Very nice. Very well done. You did an excellent job with this. You are very talented in so many different ways. I always love watching, seeing, and experiencing your work.
ReplyDeleteOh Emily,
ReplyDeleteI remember this trailer very well, but what I remember the most is how it made me feel. That is what great movie makers do, they make us feel something. Keep making movies and inspiring us to take risks. Every month I can't wait to see what your newest video.
Wow. I'm glad that you made that pilgrimage and that in the process you picked up a camera. I appreciate the serendipity of shooting footage and then discovering story... very, very beautiful.
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