Digital Storytelling: Embracing the Creative

I don’t think I like digital story telling. There, I said it.

Yes, I have a story to tell. Yes, I can do this digitally.

No, I don’t wanna.

Maybe I’m just from another generation (I’m 51) and just like having the story in my head, after reading the words on a piece of paper. Having it “talk” to me, or adding visuals just seems to mess it all up for me.

Its like cartoons I “used to love”. I was a big fan of Courage the Cowardly Dog (mainly because my son was) back in the late 90s. Courage lived in the middle of a town called “Nowhere” (so profound, right?) with an elderly farmer couple. The wife loves him to death, the husband hates the air he breathes. They apparently lived in some sort of cosmic/psychic/extraterrestrial target zone and Courage spent all of his time saving the couple from aliens, etc. And, because he was a dog, he didn’t talk.

Til the last season of the show.

Someone decided to give Courage a voice. It was a dumb, nervous idiot sort of voice. I hated it. It took away from my fantasy of what Courage would sound like, talk about and how he’d react to things in his head.

For me, digital storytelling does the same thing.

The story I’ve chosen is, if you read my previous post, one I have written. I know exactly how it “sounds” on paper, in my head, and in my mind’s eye. I practiced recording it. I hated it. It didn’t sound right anymore. I wasn’t able to “speak to life” the ideas I’d written down and could hear in my head. The story was different.

I discussed this with a friend the other day. He suggested I have someone else record the story. So, I sent it all to him, he did it. I hate it even more now. Not because of the way he read it, but because I KNOW how this is supposed to “read”. I’ve never considered how it’s supposed to “sound”. I’m frustrated now.

I know, I know. I’m just supposed to create something so I see how its possible to do this. The teacher in me recognizes this and embraces it wholeheartedly. The writer in me wants all of you to just go away and not worry about my digital rendition of my story. I know this isn’t going to happen. I’m just venting.

I need to embrace the creative. I need to stop worrying about how it sounds and whether or not I’ve “changed” it in anyway. I just need to get it done so everyone can listen to it and see the visuals I plan on adding to it all. Its almost as if I’m putting together a story board, right. A nice little screenplay or something, correct?

Ugh… ok.

Embrace the creative. Embrace the creative. More later.