Here is the story of "The Sunflower" with a little something special...
Creating an audio accompaniment to the story of "The Sunflower" using Audacity was fairly easy. One component I found tricky was remembering to take my narrative off of pause and stop it so that I would be able to clip the pauses. I also found that I clipped the pauses too short in some areas and it did not allow for a natural flow. I like the music and the two sound effects that I chose for my narrative. They were very easy to add to my narrative. Finding the right sound effects was more difficult than the right music because most of the sound effects I found were silly ones. One problem I encountered is that with moving the .mp3 file to iMovie and then to YouTube, my audio ends sort of suddenly. That is something I would like to work with a little more to prevent in the future.
As a Mac user I had to download the component that allows me to save the file as a .mp3. After a little bit of trial and error I was able to easily figure out how to export it as a .mp3 and then move the file to iMovie in order to create a title.
I really enjoyed this week's exercise and I think it will be helpful while designing my final project.
In Part 1 of this module, you viewed a video of the late Steve Jobs telling three personal stories at a commencement in 2005. Please use your blog to discuss what makes his stories memorable. What makes them powerful? You may find reading the transcript of his speech to be useful in thinking about these questions. When you have completed your blog posting, please provide the link to us and the topic selected within this thread.
During his Stanford University commencement speech Steve Jobs told three stories spanning the course of his lifetime and the lessons learned from each. There is a common theme of “connecting the dots” that continued throughout all three stories: his early years as an adolescent, his adult years and being faced with death.
There was wisdom imparted among each story. The first being to trust and follow your curiosity. The second, that success in your career comes with doing work that you love. The third is to not be confined within what others think of you because your own intuition is something that can and must be trusted. The theme of “connecting the dots” is clear within the first story, but came together by the end of Job’s speech. Looking back over his entire life presented in these three stories, Jobs and the audience were able to see how each dot connected to bring him to where he was that day while standing on stage at Stanford University’s graduation. Wisdom makes a good storyteller because it is something that the audience can take away with them while always remembering who that wisdom came from and how it relates to their own lives. Wisdom is both comforting and inspirational. We do not have to reinvent the wheel as many have lived before us and survived the trials of life. We can, however, take it in whatever direction we want.
Jobs was a memorable storyteller because he was honest and divulged personal parts of his life. He was not afraid or ashamed. After the commencement speech was made public, people listened in around the world. Even during Apple Keynotes audiences hung onto his every word because he was a storyteller even while discussing business. While the unveiling of new Apple products are exciting on their own, it is noticeable that these presentations are just not the same without Jobs. In the stories during the commencement speech he admitted rejection, fear, difficulty and failure. He was a powerful storyteller because these were topics that most of his audience also had on their minds as they were about to enter the world after graduation. He therefore knew his audience. He encouraged them to never lose sight of what they love and to live each day to the fullest because he knew what it was like to be staring death in the face.
Steve Jobs was an exceptional storyteller because he was unafraid, relatable, inspirational and had such charisma that it was difficult to not imagine yourself as part of his story. And when the stories ended, they lived on in the lives of many who continue to carry his stories with them.
