For my second video assignment, I decided to make a video of me telling a story using index cards and set to background music. The instructions said the story could be “funny, sad, or just even express how your day was.” I’ve seen this type of video on social media a lot. Personally, I feel this format works best with serious, sad, or melancholy stories. Using index cards to tell a story gives the impression that you feel more comfortable writing the words rather than speaking them aloud. It took me awhile to decide on a personal story I could tell that would fit this description, while also being something I was comfortable sharing.
For inspiration, I found a paper I had written years ago for an English class when I fist started college at NVCC. It has always been hard for me to write stories, but for the personal narrative that I was assigned in ENG 111, the words kept flowing as I composed a story about one of my deployments to Afghanistan. I later shared another version of the same story to NPR for a Veterans Day feature. In this Afghan Sun video, I share yet another version.
How do you tell a true war story?
Ask author Tim O’Brien, because I don’t know. I can only tell you my story. I’ve tried a couple of times and I’m still working on it.
Tutorial
For this video, I started by writing my story in the Notes app on my iPhone. I tried to keep my sentences short so they would fit on index cards. Sometimes I broke up the sentences to put a single word on an index card for emphasis. I recorded the video in one clip using the Camera app on my phone. I started a new project in the iMovie app (also on my phone), selected the Movie option, and imported my clip. I searched for the perfect song to use as background music, and I settled for Led Zeppelin (live). I added the music to my project, then added a title and closing credits. I decided to also include a few pictures from my deployments. This project was very similar to the one in my David Getting Ready post, where I also linked to an iMovie tutorial.
