Assignment: Video Project #1 •The Episode: writing from your life
Due October 9
Starting with an episode or event from your life that was transformative, create a short video that utilizes some of the narrative form(s) we have discussed. Consider how you project your voice in the narrative. For instance, you may want to work with the idea of “personae” or dramatic mask. Pages 42-45 in Finding Your Writer’s Voice introduces the idea of persona or alter-ego. You should also read ahead to Point of View (Finding Your Writer’s Voice, pg. 97 – 116) to understand how narrative distance and point of view can effect how the story is told and by whom. Think about the difference between first person point of view and third person point of view as it is described in Finding Your Writer's Voice, or how restricted and untrestricted narration is described in Bordwell, Film Art (Chapter 3, Narrative as a Formal System) as away to control the range of story information. Although I am asking you to start with a real event from your life, you can transform it into something imagined or unreal.

Here some ideas for your video:
-A strange coincidence (which transformed your life); suspense, humor, curiosity
-Something that happened to you physically (which transformed your life); explore feeling, action
-A frightening experience (which transformed your life); suspense, resolution
-An embarrassing moment (which transformed you life); use humor, irony, the reversal of expectations; utilize the private voice
-Something secret you need to confess; suspense, intimacy, convey your thoughts through close-up
-Take the point of view of someone else who witnessed the event; restricted or unrestricted range of information;
-Lie, fabricate
-A dream; surrealism, associational, experimental

The narrative structure of a transformative event is obvious because change is intrinsic to the story:
-Set up: Create a world and populate it with character(s) and objects.
-Conflict: Complicating the story or deepening the conflict: This world must undergo changes either through accidents or deliberate actions or choices. The changes create time and flux.
-Resolution: This allows for the reconstruction of an interpretive network of meanings, causal relationships, and psychological motivations around events.
However, this does not mean that you must use the linear narrative structures of beginning/middle/end paradigm. You can start at the end and work back to the beginning for instance. Or you can cut back and forth in time.

In addition to using narrative structure, I would like you to consider the below elements and how they might be used to tell your story:

+Filmic time or duration: compression and expansion of time to convey important moments
+Point of View: who is telling the story, where is the viewer in the story, does point of view shift and why
+Connotative and Denotative images: denotative images are those for which identification of the image is obvious; an image of a boat is a boat. Connotation appeals to the imagination and can convey an abstract idea; a sinking ship can convey defeat, a boat crossing stormy seas can convey a difficult journey, an empty boat floating on its own can convey loneliness, etc. These images can be used both denotatively (as plot) and connotatively (as image). These are part of the significance of film form as described in Chapter 1, Film Art.
+Metaphor: figurative or symbolic language/images. We can use metaphor to describe the world of the character, and in borrowing the “gestalt from one domain of experience” and applying to another we can restructure how think of that world or experience. “By playing with (metaphors), we can change the world.”
+Plot and story: how much of the story is available in the plot? How can we use plot economically to convey the story?
+Consider whether the character needs unity or not, and how this is expressed (or not). For instance multiple actors play one character in films such Todd Solondz’, “Palindromes” or Luis Bunuel’s, “Obscure Object of Desire”. One person can play multiple characters as well.