As you have seen throughout the semester, meaning-making occurs in a variety of media. For instance, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics not only demonstrates that a medium such as comics can discuss subjects as serious as any of those in a scholarly article, although the conventions differ. Further, McCloud makes the argument that all art follows the same creative paths; therefore, the Open Media project is a chance for you to compose in a medium other than/in addition to words in the genre of the academic essay.

As the final major project, you can produce a multimedia "text" on a topic of your choosing. Since we have previously worked with digital text and hypertext (with only limited use of still images, video, and audio), you now have the freedom to choose media for your project.

Possible Media

The project can include many forms of media, for example:

• Digital video: perhaps a fictive narrative, documentary, or animated short
• Photography: a photo narrative/slide show
• Collage: found images or photographs
• Illustration: a comic strip (see Scott McCloud.com)
• Video game (Google “September 12th”)
• Website
• A Mix Tape (CD)
• Machinima

This need not be a digital project, and it would be interesting to compare and contrast the processes of composing digitally with non-digital media.

Requirements

• develop a central idea, argument or a tension
• work to persuade/affect/move the audience

*see McCloud’s six steps in the creation of art (p. 170, Understanding Comics)

Deadlines

Week : Proposal due - March 28
Week : Project update/draft due
Week : Project Presentations

Examples & Tutorials

Rik's YouTube Playlists for the Open MediaProject:

• Fan Production
• Flash
• Photoshop
• Wikis

Check out the New Media Resources page.