Week 3 Project: Digital Storytelling with Mobile Apps Challenge

TEAM ROLES: 

Tracy Robertson - team leader / photographer / voiceover talent / video editor

Madi Curnutt - strategist / lead writer / documentarian

Stan Miller - documentarian / researcher / voiceover talent / audio engineer

For this project, we used multiple apps to collaborate. We used Google Drive to share assets, Adobe Spark Video to create a storyboard for our video, Adobe Premiere to edit, and Garage Band to record voiceovers. We started with using Google Hangouts to discuss and brainstorm our project. I love that we are all in three different cities yet are able to speak face to face about our ideas. Within a half hour, we had a solid idea, a production flow, and delegated responsibilities within our team. Within the next few days, we shared assets via Google Drive and were able to do so seamlessly.

My roles on the team were varied. I was team leader, making sure we had a schedule and organized our meetings. I edited the final video using Adobe Premiere and used my voice to contribute to the voiceover of our digital story. It was easy to come up with roles in our team since we had worked together before and knew our strengths. I was surprised and impressed at how quickly we figured out which roles to take. I am not a great writer and Madi quickly took on the role of writing our script. I am very organized and have more editing experience than my team, so I naturally took those roles. Stan, who I is quite the creative thinker, came up with the story and we collaborated on how to tell it. I was most proud of the fact that we organized ourselves early and had a plan early Monday evening. By Tuesday afternoon, we had a script, assets, and I started editing that early. I also am proud of the fact that all three of us are working professionals and had insanely busy weeks but were able to organize ourselves and come up with a great digital story by collaborating and having great time management.

This was definitely a challenge. I think the biggest challenge was working with people who aren’t in your same city. Personally, this was very challenging for me because I am traveling for work and my schedule is busier than usual. I didn't want to just turn in an assignment, I wanted to give it the time and quality it deserved. Fortunately for us, we all are driven and focused and were able to get the task done using tools like Google Drive where we were able to share assets and collaborate. I cannot imagine doing this project a decade ago when these tools were not accessible. Although it was a challenge, I am proud of our teamwork, our final product, and the story we were able to tell.