Creating Digital Stories

My favorite aspect of creating a digital story, was the amount of control that I had. I remained enthusiastic about the project, mostly because I received hands on experience from start to finish. In traditional films, It's rare to see one person get their hands dirty with audio, visual, and editing tasks. There are usually several people to fill those roles. I also liked that I had to shift my thinking from narrative to audio while constantly thinking about the visual aspect of the project. The challenge was getting all of these aspects to align.

In Convergence Culture, Jenkins states that "When people take media into their own hands, the results can be wonderfully creative; they can also be bad news for all involved." While my experience was good, Jenkins gives an example where high school kids create impromptu pornography with a cell phone. In only minutes, it was distributed to fellow classmates all throughout the campus. This is, of course, a nasty incident. Despite bad things like this, I think more good comes out of it than bad.

Youtube seems to high light some fundamental aspects that come out of convergence. I have a friend who wants to post his short film on Youtube. His film shows ATt&T, and Cingular merging together to become the network "with the most dropped calls." In one segment, he is standing outside of the Cingular store when his phone drops the call. He also goes into his unexplainable charges associated with his Iphone. He can effectively and creatively rant without censorship. Before Youtube, an average customer could not take advantage of low budget production tools like Imovie. Another network could definitely critique AT&T in a commercial, but they would probably be heavily censored in even the mentioning of the rival company's name. My friend can post an example of a company flaw in a matter of minutes. With Youtube, he can show. He doesn't have to rely on telling. Convergence seems to offer less censorship.

Control is also a major aspect. Traditional production on a film is usually expensive. Imovie allows users to edit features such as sound and effects, therefore allowing more creative input from the user. The publishing industry has also experienced a type of convergence. Authors can now choose to self-publish, and many times this is a last resort for authors who believe in the strength of their own work.

Will Clarke is the author of Lord Vishnu's Love Handles. His manuscript was repeatedly rejected by traditional publishing houses. He self-published his book and sold copies from the trunk of his car. As this progressed, a major publishing house couldn't help but notice that his book was definitely selling. They offered him a contract shortly after. Clarke wrote two other novels in which they published. Although Clarke's story is an exception to the rule, convergence made it possible to take publication into his own hands. Through nontraditional means, his novel caught the attention of traditional publishers.