In class, we read Out On The Wire to help us gain insight on the storytelling and editing process. The book told the steps through the actions of a radio show, but it was still relevant and contained the steps necessary for our interviews and videos as well.
The chapters were titled as follows:
1. Amuse Yourself: Ideas
2. The Heart of Their Breath: Character and Voice
3. Keep or Kill: Story Structure
4. The Deep Sea: Sound
5. Your Baby's Ugly: The Edit
Each of these chapters taught an important lesson about storytelling from start to finish. The most important takeaways I recall from the book focused on preparation and editing.
The story described how it is best to go into an interview with an idea of what you want the story to be about (but not exactly). That way you know what questions to ask and can guide your interviewee to provide answers in a way that is fully developed enough to piece together. The author explained "The moment you know you have a story is the moment you realize it's not the story you thought it was." Just because you go into the interview with an idea of the story outcome does not mean that it will turn out exactly as planned, and that is okay; at least you were prepared either way.
The author also described the stress of group edits by peers. The last chapter focused on the idea that just because a story requires editing does not mean it is bad; it could just be better. That is some of the best advice I have heard as a writer and I try to remember that in everything that I do from now on.
I achieved the course outcome of Subject-Matter Knowledge through learning about storytelling from Out On The Wire. Subject-Matter knowledge includes "engaging the rich, complex subject matter you have chosen and conducting appropriate research to compose an informed and thoughtful essay for your chosen audience." Through Out On The Wire and class discussions, I was able to learn important storytelling techniques and multimodal elements that were vital for the piece I needed to create. For example, Chapter 4 and the teaching on sound elements was important when choosing music for the video, as well as when I was deciding on sound effects and music for my audio bio.