breakdown-sheets Okay, you’ve bitten off on The Pitch, and you may or may not have checked out the Crew Call (how to participate).

What happens when and what you can expect to do will be spelled out below in the “Breakdown Sheets”. These are the things we suggest you do for each segment in your own production of The You Show. Let’s be clear though; your production is completely self funded by your time; we have no concept of failure, or dropout, or incompletion. That’s not our style.

Current Units

Unit 0: Building Your Set

Unit 0: Building Your Set

The Brief: Yes we are a tad late, so we will include this as part of Unit 1. For this unit we want you to at least have the foundation set up for where you will do your You Show Work-- your own blog. You will then enter some info into our registration system so we know where to find your work. And you ought to get some practice with blogging; because you should make it a frequent practice.
Unit 1: The Shapes of Story

Unit 1: The Shapes of Story

The Brief: Stories have a specific shape and we follow the paths of characters who deal with obstacles. Why does entertainment grab our interest, and what can we learn from that for our own communication? Here we start examining the story form and continue expanding our online reflection and creation muscles.
Unit 2: Saying It With Visuals

Unit 2: Saying It With Visuals

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” -Ansel Adams The photo and quote is from a previous ds106 student's perspective on photography . Jennifer had great insight. The Brief: How can we use visuals as more than illustrations (and adjunct to text) and more as a means of communication itself? In this unit we explore how to find and attribute images from the open web, develop/advance our own skills at taking photos we can use for our own communication, and practice some visuals storytelling.
Unit 3: It's All By Design

Unit 3: It's All By Design

The Brief: Continuing our work in Unit 2 of using images to visually represent ideas, concepts, ourselves, in this unit we explore concepts of how visuals are designed. In the activities we move into manipulating, editing, modifying photos and visuals with graphics software. And hopefully you can create some artifacts you can use in your show.
Unit 4: The Beautiful World of Audio (part 1)

Unit 4: The Beautiful World of Audio (part 1)

The Brief: For the first part of this two week unit, we dive the genre of audio. Working with sound seems daunting, so we ease you into it by focusing first on listening and appreciating audio in both radio style drama and the world of sound around us that we often do not notice. We start with some basic recording, audio creation, an audio searching activities (which in part 2 you will learning how to edit).
Unit 4: The Beautiful World of Audio (part 2)

Unit 4: The Beautiful World of Audio (part 2)

The Brief: In the first part of this two week unit , we started by listening to audio and finding / recording sound files. In this week, we break out the audio editing tools and start putting audio together to create something new.
Unit 5: Beyond The Blog

Unit 5: Beyond The Blog

The Brief: Now that you have been blogging and practicing using visual and audio media, let's return to our original intent to create an online portfolio or a project web site. In this unit we will break out of the chronological front page display of posts to turn the front door of your site into a landing spot and start thinking about the best structures that support your purpose.

Future Topics

  • Weeks 6 and 7: Making Movies (Weeks of Feb 16 and Feb 23, 2015) What works in cinematography, the nuts and bolts of production. Produce a Personal Interest Trailer.
  • Week 8: Putting It Together (Week of Mar 2, 2015) Work towards a first premiere of your work in this course, by remixing your own creations.

Original Plan for Scheduling

What you may expect is a weekly schedule as follows:

  • Tuesday: We start our week a day later than everyone else. Let’s you get over the Monday hump. Introduce a Breakdown Sheet for the current topic with a Dispatch message and short video message.
  • Midweek: Prime Time events; a series of invited guest experts.
  • Thursday, Friday: TRU Production crew meeting. If you are onsite, you are encouraged to drop in for face to face meetings where we can troubleshoot, offer suggestions, etc. Lectures will not occur.
  • Sunday: Post your Weeklies, a reflective summary of what you got done that week.