Okay, after my rather snarky, whiny email about malaise, I feel absolutely compelled to take a moment to highlight some of the cool stuff that my digital storytelling students are doing. Because, there’s a whole slew of them who are really getting into this class and starting to contribute great work.

Let’s start with Stacy’s minimalist movie poster (which I think she tackled right after last Thursday night’s class!)

Stacy's Minimalist Black Swan Poster

Not only do I think she did an awesome job distilling the film down to a single visual element, PEOPLE: she drew the whole thing in MS Paint!! And then narrated her process. LOVE IT!

Robert also submitted a minimalist movie poster, this one for JAWS. Check it out:

JAWS Moving Poster

I think this is a fantastic contribution — I love that all you see is the outline of the shark’s torso, swimming menacingly by.

Meanwhile, on the 5 Card Flickr front, Ashby hit it out of the park with the creepy “Where are you Whitney?” I’m actually hoping he thinks about continuing this story in future DS assignments — because I really want to know what happened to Whitney!!

Chris did another eerie, creepy 5 Card Flickr about another sibling abduction (What’s up with that?) I love it, and, like Travis, I think he should think about continuing the story somehow — maybe they should team up and Chris’ brother and Ashby’s sister will end being taken by the same person?!

For a completely different take on 5 Card Flickr, Calvin tells us a tale of “petro politics.” I love this story because it is the essence of simplicity, but very powerful (and it reads like poetry).

On the Daily Shoot front, a bunch of students have been taking some great photos. Ashley’s been turning out some fine work, and I particularly like today’s photo:

Ashley's Quaker Parrot

It’s a great “leading line” shot and I love the way the parrot’s brilliant green feathers span the light and dark backgrounds.

A few students have been tackling the playlist poem. Here’s Molly’s excellent contribution:

Molly's Playlist Poem

“The greatest/bruises/linger.” Who would have thought you could do that with song titles? I would love to see her push further and create the album art to go with this one.

A few of my students are also beginning to think about their thematic, larger final project. It was pretty cool that Patrick was considering doing something with Minecraft, considering that this week Jim has been in the process of getting it installed on the ds106 Web server. And Michael’s already got grand plans for his own reality TV video blog. He says to watch out, and I’m looking forward to it!

Whew. That’s a big gulp from the firehose, so I’ll stop there. I couldn’t feature everyone this week, but, no worries, because there’s lots of time left in the semester! And, as I speak, my RSS reader is filling up with assignments that are getting submitted, so I’m sure by this time tomorrow there will be more excellent stuff to peruse.

Thanks to my students for stepping up to the plate — you guys are awesome.