After looking through all the essays and blog posts I had written over the course of the semester, I narrowed down some of my digital storytelling ideas to a few of the essays. The story that seemed most intriguing for me to write about was about my safe-place—the shore. In the original essay, I am referring specifically to the shore near my house in Brooklyn, but now that I am here in Stony Brook, I may broaden my perspective to a nearby shore and just make the story about how shores generally gives me sentiment.
Given that I have decided to use writing content from our short essay #4, I plan to film my project as a meta-movie, or making a short multimedia movie snippet about me “watching” a “movie.” The movie that I am watching within my eight-minute film will be a replay of some of the memories I had of the shore. Film is certainly not my forte, but I am willing to take on a challenge to not only impress my peers, but also especially myself. I want to see how much deeper I can dig into my mind for the information I need to make this project as successful as possible, through my eyes.
My short film is intended to have serious moments with some comic relief scattered throughout to alleviate some of the melancholic undertones. I tend to write and speak with wit, so I will most likely incorporate some of the elements of my personality while I narrate. I am looking forward to playing around with screen splitting techniques, video editing effects, multimedia expression (e.g. photographs), and proper soundtracks. My first filming session will take place this upcoming Sunday, so I will see how far I get with what I have up-to-date. My take-away message from this project: have fun.
The Personal Essay 
Hi Yasmeen! Your idea seems incredibly developed, especially at a stage where I feel like I am kind of just muddling – I am really impressed! The photos you’ve included here are really beautiful and I can already feel the tranquil and melancholic vibe that you mention. I’m also very interested in your film idea! Are you going to be filming yourself at the shore, and then have the “memories” portion play, so that it looks like you are reminiscing in the video? Although it does sound complex, I think you could definitely pull it off and it’d definitely be unique and impressive. You could have like a grainy, yellow-ish tint to the “memories” portion so that it conveys a montage. You could play some sappy, soothing music that invokes introspection. You could do so much with this idea – I’m actually really excited to see how you carry this out. Good luck!!! 😀
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