Course: Writing 2-3
Instructor: Prof. Stephanie Boone
Assignment: iStory, A Digital Composition

You will produce a digital composition, or film, based on your Homestory and/or the Place Essay (whole or in part)-pieces you composed in fall term, but which now you may revise for the sake of this assignment, and which makes a claim about yourself, or some issue of place and memory in your life.

While this film will be inspired by the personal and use material you produced in fall term, it should be constructed with the conventions of an academic argument in mind. Your composition should assert and support a claim about you, and should observe kindred matters of style and structure, such as transitions, unity, grammar, and mechanics. Yes, you will make the same sorts of rhetorical decisions for this film, as you would for a traditional paper. In pursuit of your claim, you will work with images and sound. You may indeed use written text in this film, as well. The paper is not forgotten, or subverted in this assignment; rather it achieves new dimensions. The geography of the traditional paper has changed. Argument can be visual.
A caveat: Though this assignment may ultimately “feel” useful to you personally inasmuch as it uses the personal as its primary source material, still you should construct a film that is appropriate for public consumption in this college classroom-your peers, tutor, and professor-and about which you can be comfortable “showing” it to your public audience, whether here or elsewhere, now or later. The assignment calls for an argument, not a confession. So, choose your material wisely. Make this an E3-rated film. Exercise discretion.

The following restrictions apply to your film-no exceptions:
• Length: 2 minutes minimum to 3 minutes maximum (running time includes any element of the film- audio or visual).
• Visual: 1-10 images and 25 discrete words (excluding credits), maximum, You may not use any animation.
• Audio: any kind of audio (voiceover, song, sound effects). Consider the 3-minute limit when you include audio.
• Medium: use iMovie. You may use video in your iMovie, but you are limited to one minute of video, however you choose to use it (as a block or in discrete segments).

Caveats:
• Use video advisedly. It does not insure a better film or grade.
• Cite secondary sources and images or audio recordings of others that you use in making the film.
• Be ethical.
• Keep it simple.

To assist you in making your film, we will hold several workshops with a technology specialist that will address how to use images and audio in iMovie. You should consult Jones Media Center tech specialist when necessary, and to schedule equipment.

You should set about conceptualizing your film and collecting images and audio elements as soon as possible. Planning is critical to producing a successful film. To that end, you will complete the following steps in your filmmaking process:
Treatment Plan, * as long as the form allows, Level 4 Complete the “video treatment plan” that I will provide in class. You may get this template early in the term, if you would like to. In your plan, you will have to consider your audience, purpose, production schedule, visual content, audio, and structure. Use a working title for your film.

Storyboard, as long as it takes, Level 4 Complete the Storyboard template that I’ll provide in class. The sooner you develop your Storyboard, the better. As you make your film-

• Consult the personnel in and schedule equipment in the Jones Media Center, or go to jones.media.center@dartmouth.edu
• Schedule time with RWIT tutors at students.dartmouth.edu/rwit/ for extra tutoring.
• Learn more about iMovie at www.apple.com/imovie
• i/I/Movie: A Digital Composition, film and commentary, 3 minutes, Level 5

You will submit your film in DVD or CD form to the class and to your professor, for in-class screening. To your professor, you will submit your final treatment plan and storyboard, plus a one- to three page commentary on your filmmaking experience. In this commentary, address the problems you encountered, the solutions you found, the resources you used, and the after-thoughts you have about your process and product.

Response to iMovie Screenings, 2 pages, Level 5 Write a one-page essay in which you nominate a film as best film and post this nomination essay to our discussion board. Based on these essays the class will determine the Best Film and the Best Essay.

Example of a Final Project

[youtube XnhlPXR6aRc]