Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the annual End of Ds106 Ceremony! I’m your host Amber E. May and I am happy to kick off this celebration! There’s a very large crowd of cheering fans and members of Ds106 gathered outside of the celebration hall and they’re ready to see some action! Tonight we’re going to look back at the good, the bad, the ugly, and the memorable triumphs of these past 15 weeks.

The Ds106 Hall of Fame

The red carpet has been rolled out and the paparazzi has readied their cameras and microphones! Just rolling up to the End of Ds106 Ceremony in a stretch limousine are the assignments from the Hall of Fame. These 6 assignments have demonstrated brilliant creativity, thought provoking concepts, and exquisitely crafted details that made them stand out from all the rest this semester.

The first work out of the limousine is the fashionable “Passage of Time” photo assignment, from the Design category. This assignment was done for the 9 Lives visual assignment during design week. This image really stuck out in the crowd because it wasnt just a picture of a bunch of Ambers together, but it was also a picture of the many successes and struggles that have made these Ambers into the people they are. Photo design week was all about using photos to convey messages, and this one really takes the cake!

Stepping out of the limo next is the lovely Ds106 Radio Bumper, striking a pose with every step! This assignment really gave Ds106 a voice during audio week with it’s audio filters, rockin’ background music, and Talky Tina impression! This bumper did a great job advertising the innovative Ds106 Radio and really kept the show rollin!

Next up is another rambunctious audio assignment called “The Family Dinner” which was created for the Multipersonality audio assignment. In this there is a fed up mother trying desperately to get her 2 kids, Kayla and Derrek, to behave at the dinner table, while her husband Harold doesn’t do much to help the situation. Oh wow! And Derrek even brought a pizza to the ceremony…but his mother doesn’t look too thrilled.

Oooo…the next assignment out of the limo is a bit of a grumpy one entitled “How Cynics See UMW.” where the front page of UMW’s website was transformed into how a cynical student would see the school. Although this assignment during Web week was a bit negative, it still provided some good insight to those stereotypical cynics of the university. The ones who always need something to complain about to look like an expert in front of their friends. It is currently mocking our red carpet…moving on.

We’re getting down to the wire and we’re down to our 5th individual in the Hall of Fame. This assignment was called “Let’s Analyze Pulp Fiction” and it REALLY outdid itself during Video week. This was where we had to study a scene from our favorite movie by first listening to it, watching it, and then watching while listening. What made this assignment so astounding was that it was able to provide a highly detailed analyzation for a clip that was only a minute and 30 seconds! How intense is that! It definitely earned its place in the Hall of Fame and the crowd is going wild as it struts down the aisle!

Now our final, most recent, Hall of Fame member steps out of the vehicle with its red bionic eye shining brightly and its metal skull shining in the spotlight. Everyone give it up for “Artificial Inteligence”, the remix created for the “For the Remix” assignment! This assignment took alot of work and attention detail to deliver its message about the existence of cyborgs and technological advancement. This work of art was acknowledged by Worth himself, which gave it many kudos getting itself into the Hall of Fame.

There you have it! The distinguished role models of the Hall of Fame!

 Contribution to DS106
Reporter: Excuse me, Miss May. Can we get an interview about how you contributed to the Ds106 community?

Oh well of course! Despite how much work I had to do for the class, I still took the time to acknowledge that there were other students creating brilliant works of art and working together to make Ds106 the best it could be. I made many comments on different blogs throughout the semester providing useful advice, learning a thing or 2 myself, or just simply admiring the hard work they put into their assignments. I think more than doing this I blew up #ds106 on twitter providing updates to my assignment status or providing the occasional goofy comment. I created 2 tutorials, 2 daily create challenges , and 2 actual assignments throughout the semester (but I sadly dont remember which daily creates I made or when I made them. I think both of them were audio assignments.) Oh! And let’s not forget the big radio show project during midterms! I never ceased to assist my group with the mixing and audio effects during our radio show, Digital Dynamite! With our powers combined and 2 weeks of confusion, our show really ended up being dynamite! What can I say? I like helping people out if I possess some knowledge about how to solve their problems.

Advice For New Students

And now let’s turn to our special guest of the evening, Twilight Sparkle! She apparently has some advice for the future Ds106 students. Tune into the video below for her advice.

Thank you Twilight! Hopefully her advice will be of aid to some of the new students.

Created Tutorials/ Assignments/ Daily Creates

Now let’s turn our attention to some of the material created for the fans. The created tutorials and assignments were already summarized twice in 3 different blog posts. Check out the tutorials and the assignments here so I won’t sound like a broken record to you all!
It’s funny how at the beginning of the semester a majority of us thought that we had to do every single Daily Create. It was a HUGE load off our backs when we were told that we only had to do 3 every week! It’s been so long since I’ve done them that I really don’t remember which ones I did. I think some of the best I did were at the beginning of the semester when I actually had the time and energy to put some effort into them. Some of my best ones I think were “The Rude Blue Screen of Death”, “Retitle a Movie”, and “The Daydreaming Window”. And of course we cant forget the week we did the Daily Create Story where we had to string together 3 daily creates and have them tell a story. Mine was about the existence of aliens. (Yes I’m still waiting for them!)

 Final Project

And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for and the ultimate capstone to a great semester in Ds106! Everyone has made their way into the ceremony hall to view this life changing work. There have been 3 sneak peeks to this marvelous within the last 2 weeks about the production and it is now time for it to be unveiled for everyone in tonight’s audience. Without further adieu, Amber E. May Productions proudly presents “Living the Dream” A Rainbow Dash Story!

MARVELOUS! Truly marvelous! The crowd cant get enough of this outstanding film! To see more about how this wonderful story was produced, visit this BLOG POST. All I can say is that this video sums up the real meaning of digital storytelling; using media to create stories rather than linear words.

That’s about it for tonight’s End of DS106 Ceremony. I’m your host Amber E. May and I bid you a fond farewell! We’ll see you again next year!

Final Summary

It’s hard to believe that all of the faces in this class started out struggling in Bootcamp. But look at us now! We’ve been able to put our heads together to make this the best semester of Ds106 ever! Out of all 3 of my years at UMW, this is honestly one of the best classes I’ve had because the assignments made me feel “at home.” I’ve been doing these sorts of projects for fun and leisure since I was in middle school, and just being in a class that has allowed me to continue creating media and even learning more about it has been a dream for me. The one thing I was worried about when I first started the course was that I would fall behind in the blog posts. I’m a very VERY slow writer, and even this post itself has taken me 2 and a half days to write. To combat this weakness, something I’ve learned to do was complete all of the blogs as soon as possible, but create the actual media for the blogs later (as I’m writing the blogs, I’m usually half way done with the actual photo or video, therefore I already know what to write about it.) Just like Twilight in the video above, I am terrified of being late on an assignment and I tend to stress out if something is not done. Likewise, I end up stressing out if I try to do all of the work at once. This class has taught me how to take my time and not try to do a weeks worth of assignments in one day. I mean, if everything is due Sunday and I try to finish everything on the previous Tuesday, of course I’m going to burn out! These are just some of the smaller lessons ive picked up, but there is one thing about this course that has really changed me…

I suck at math, I’m a horrible writer, biology creeps me out, chemistry is too analytical, political science makes me snore, psychology makes me depressed, and history doesn’t keep my attention. At first I thought that there would never be a major for me, and I almost gave up on college. But then I discovered the Digital Media Studies major and it was love at first sight. This class has reminded me why I chose to be this major. I could see myself doing these sorts of projects for the rest of my life, and when I do them, I feel happy that I have ability to accomplish things in a way that I enjoy. Digital Media is my life, and Ds106 has helped me reaffirm this.

Thanks yall, and I hope to see you doing great things in the future! #Ds106 #4life!