Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Reflection on Digital Story


Zamid Al Amin has created a compelling story about the rise and fall of his dream.  The six-minute story weaves a gantlet of emotions, starting off as a triumph of drive and determination to follow his on path, breaking with family tradition and securing a position as a journalist in his home country.  This life long passion enabled Zamid to achieve his goal, only to see his dream of becoming a journalist destroyed in the blink of an eye.  The rise, climax and subsequent fall of Zamid resonates a tone of familiarity.  Similar to popular stories from our youth, the evolution of an event and it is subsequent demise; provide a formula that engages the audience.

The true beauty of Zamid’s story is not the harsh reality of the events, but the tonality of its delivery.  Zamid is viewed as beaten and suppressed not pathetic and weak.  The imagery of flowing water helps the story convey a sense of natural progression, a commentary on the world that Zamid resides in.  Glued together by a musical score that invokes the internal pain and struggle that Zamid must feel, the narration and corresponding imagery presents a strong persona, echoing the initial theme of the story of never give up.

A masterpiece.  Zamid has taken the medium of digital story telling, coupled it with compelling journalism and comprised a commentary on the drive of personal achievement and its relationship with the world around him.

2 comments:

  1. Zamid's "rise, climax and subsequent fall" mirrors the rollercoaster that a story takes from the beginning, the rise to the climax or big conflict and then the descension toward the resolution. I like the idea of nature being used to represent the progression of the story. One of the stories I watched involved a school of fish to mirror her crowded home.
    How would you use a story like this in education?

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  2. To give an idea of a stream or body of water is a great illustration to go with a story. Water flowing can be unpredictable, but it always goes on, just perhaps in a way different than we imagined.

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