This week, in my ds106 class, we’ve been diving into the world of storytelling in all sorts of ways, in an attempt to better understand what it is, what it means, and what it can do.  One of the most fun, and yet time-consuming assignments to this effect was to check out the highlighted works of those who have gone before us in this class, on the Inspire page.

I absolutely love looking through the works students have submitted there.  It was near-impossible to choose one to discuss.  Ultimately, I chose Rossanna Marie‘s gif, submitted by Rachel Tippett, called the 488th Day of Summer.

What a beautiful moment to capture.  I came across this gif in when I was browsing through the Inspire page during bootcamp, and the image stuck with me, even though I’d never seen the movie.  It was the stick I measured my own first gif assignment by, and ultimately decided I could not measure up to.

In all of the Inspire work I reviewed, I noticed that they all had that little ‘something more’ to them.  Godzilla left you smiling because of the picture it left with you of a grown kid playing with their dad and toy dinosaurs and army cars one more time.  Black Swan left me thinking ‘man, maybe I should have seen that movie…’ And the Rosetta left me thinking ‘man, I want some coffee…’  But seriously.  That was cool as heck, I could watch them pour that creamer tree over and over again.

As for the 488th Day of Summer – I really want to see the movie this came from now.  If just the gif left me thinking that much, then how much moreso would the movie itself? And if it doesn’t, well, then I suppose that would just be a testament to the artist’s ability to recognize such a cool moment as that and really pull the spirit out of it.

I’ve had a lot of fun looking at these – really I’ve spent far too much time looking at all the awesome stuff on the Inspire page.  I’m looking forward to submitting some of my current classmates’ assignments there as well, now that I know I can.   What a neat thing to be able to do, and a wonderful treasure to be able to keep such a collection long after the class is over.   The stories live on.