For these projects, the goal was to create a narrative based on the topic given (or chosen) and whilst using Adobe Voice and other iPad provided options and Adobe related programs. In doing so there was the intent of learning how to convey narratives that were engaging to viewers, that were accompanied by appropriate visual and audio scores and were interesting and unique.
The most necessary material components in both of these projects were the use of an iPad and Adobe Voice. Voice being a program available on the provided iPads, its premade themes and formats acted as the foundation for the videos that would be created. The iPads also contained other programs to use, one of which I utlized was Adobe Sketch to create additional necessary visuals. Other additional images were either created using Macromedia Flash and Adobe Photoshop, or were acquired from online sources.
The projects were created in Adobe Voice using assets provided by the program (theme, layout and music). After assembling the audio and related visuals into a cohesive narrative, the finished videos were then shared to the Adobe clipboard. They could then be accessed from Adobe Voice website (clipboard) and then the embed codes for each video could then be copied and pasted in other programs (Behance).
Each of the story projects had to be approached differently depending on the topic of the narrative, but were later assembled in a similar manner.
The first video (Voices: Story About What I do) required a personal look at my own artistic beginnings, development, hang-ups and goals and so a lot of separate elements had to be listed, ranked based on their importance to the narrative and then either discarded or included in the final product. Many more personal and heavy-hearted elements were left out for the sake of focusing more on artistic growth, reservations and the reason for those developments, rather than the emotional impact of them. I arranged all of the necessary pieces in order of occurance and then recorded a vocal narrative using Adobe Voice. Images were either taken from my online repetoire (DeviantArt account) or were found through Google image searches to fill in spaces where no pre-made images of my own would fit appropriately. After some critique, I added more of my original works and far more sketches into the beginning of the video as a means of accenting growth and development, as well as a visible shift from traditional sketches into final digital pieces.
The second video (Voices: Out of My League) was a self-chosen narrative that focused more on a romantic relationship rather than myself as an individual. For this reason it was important to showcase the feelings and reservations of the affected parties to create either a contrast or a sense of relatibility. Instead of showcasing a system of personal growth or goals, as with the last video, this project focused more on creating a more traditional story with an established beginning, middle and end, along with the emotional highs and lows that go along with that. With that in mind I focused more on emotional elements for viewers to relate to pertaining to not feeling good enough for the standards of another person. Most of the images for this project were created especially for the project in Adobe Sketch or else on paper. A couple additional pieces were taken from my DeviantArt account and were made with Macromedia Flash or a pencil and pen on paper.
Creating the progression of the narratives was interesting to an extent, though I would have personally preferred more creative freedom with creating the stories, rather than having to choose from variations of stories all involving talking about myself or my own life experiences. The concept behind creating these video projects was interesting but the Adobe Voice program was far more limiting that I would have thought it to be. There was enough free room to choose the layout, imagery and length of the audio segments that I was able to play around with the video's length and visuals. Adobe Sketch had an interesting variation of brushes to use whilst drawing the images and whilst it too a little while before I properly got a hold of how to use the program, once I got a handle on this everything seemed to go much more smoothly.
While there were elements of the projects that I enjoyed, I found not only the Adobe Voice program to be very limiting in its display but also the requirements for the narratives to be creatively underwhelming. I feel as though the same impact could have been gained by being able to tell unique, fiction stories that convey the same highs and lows but which have far more creative freedom in their execution, topics or characters. Ultimately, I enjoyed learning how to use new programs but disliked how limiting the requirements of the project task were.
