DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Digital Storytelling

"Dolce Vita"

      When I was assigned to create a digital story for my Integrating Technology class, I at first was very excited.  I have always loved creative writing, yet find that with a teaching career and two young children, I rarely have time for anything creative, with the exception of how to get my children to put their clothes on in less than an hour or to stop fighting over the same toy.

     My first thought for a digital story was "Saturday".  It would start with me waking up, brushing my teeth, making my kids breakfast, and then going to play basketball.  I must admit, I did get teased by my friends when I asked one of them to record me for a movie I was making.  While I'm proud to say there were a few personal highlights recorded, I started to realize it was going to take a really long time to edit this digital story.  Unfortunately, time is not something I had a lot of.

Guess who made the game winner!

     I started brainstorming again.  Maybe I would write an ode to my lovely wife Jen.  Certainly I had enough pictures of her, and it never hurts to put your wife on a pedestal.  Since I already wrote her a song for our wedding and many notes of affection, I decided to go a different route. (Side note: It's amusing how few pictures my wife and I have been in the last 5 years, and of those, 95% are with our kids).

She's stealing my pose!

     My next thought was I would make a digital story about my son Trevor.  I was thinking that I would talk about what it's like to have a son who dressed up as Elsa for Halloween last year, loves playing with Barbies, and whose favorite show is "Sofia the First".  My message would be one that preaches loving your child unconditionally and allowing them to be who they are, no matter what others think. In the end, I decided against it, predominantly because I knew my 2 year old daughter Olivia would flip out that I didn't make a movie about her.

The Mann kids

     Moving forward, I considered a digital story about my dad who passed away 5 years ago.  I was thinking about reading the eulogy I wrote, as the basis of the story with a montage of pictures.  When I read the eulogy again, I realized that I didn't have enough pictures that would match with what I wrote about.

     After all this time spent brainstorming, I had nothing to show for it.  With the deadline quickly approaching, I needed to decide on something.  While doing some organizing in our house, I came across a story I had written while living in Hawaii.  It was called "Dolce Vita" which means the sweet life in Italian.

     It was story about a simple fisherman named Willy, who loved his simple life.  He would board his little ship, the Dolce Vita, every morning and see the most beautiful sunrises.  After returning to the market and selling fish tacos, he would play music with his friends, go home and dance with his kids, and then enjoy a romantic evening with his wife.

     One day a rich man comes to Willy's stand and is delighted by the wonderful taste of the tacos.  He proceeds to tell Willy that if he works longer hours, buys more boats, and focuses on making bags full of money, he would be able to retire to somewhere beautiful in 30 years, and spend quality time with his friends and family.  The story ended with Willy laughing to himself, because he was already living this sweet life.

     I find it funny that I wrote this as a wifeless, childless, 22-year-old.  Even back then, I knew that I would never define my personal success by what job I had, or how much money I had in my bank account.  I guess I have always understood that it is the people who you love and who love you back that make you rich.

     Reading this story for the first time in a decade put a huge smile on my face.  While I'm not living on a beautiful island, I do have a job I love, a group of amazing friends who keep me young at heart, and a family that makes that heart of mine grow bigger and bigger.  It reaffirmed that I do in fact have a Dolce Vita.

     After combining pictures of Hawaii I have taken over the years with some images artists have drawn, I had the visual component of my story covered.  Next came the sound track, which I wanted to feel "islandy", which is why I went with Bob Marley and Jack Johnson.  After adding narration, my digital story was complete.  If you have the time, I hope you get the chance to listen and watch it, and may you too have a sweet life.