Ashley's Dream

I really liked how you used text messages and computer screens to help tell the story — it made everything feel more real and relatable. One thing I noticed was that some of the images and text moved a little quickly, so it was hard to read everything the first time through. I think slowing the pace down a bit and adding some narration could really take this to the next level. I also checked out some of your other videos for more context, and the narration in those helped a lot with understanding the story and connecting with it even more. This is a compelling idea, and it’s something a lot of people will be able to relate to. Great work!

Since I was super-confused about what was going on, I went to your Outline submission, which was way better! Honestly, you should've just submitted your outline as your final project and just timed the images on it better. It would've immediately felt way more polished. I get the strange feeling that maybe this video was supposed to have sound, just like your Outline did? Without sound, a lot of the video just seems like a lot of abstract imagery without explanation! (Like... there's the image of a ROBBER at the end of the story? I don't think Ashley got robbed, or is a robber, so I think some narration would solve this mystery.) It's POSSIBLE to tell this story without any sound at all, but you gotta give us enough explanation in the images themselves. These pictures are all lacking LOTS of context. And the art style & design really changes from picture to picture. Consistency from one picture to the next really is the glue that binds every picture together into a full story. Then there's the problem of timing each of the pictures. A lot of the pictures are barely on screen for a second, and some stay on for longer than they need to. The hardest part is that some of the pictures that were already on-screen get shown again for just ONE frame. Editing mistakes happen to the best of us, but it's really important to fix things like that! You can have really wonderful drawings and ideas, but if you don't time them right, and put them in the right place, you're really gonna strain the eyes and brains of your audience! You're the only one here to use so much storytelling through phones! If you stayed on it for long enough and moved from one speech bubble to the next, it honestly would've been a fun and effective technique. If you've ever watched the movie Searching or its sequel Missing, you'll know that watching a movie made up of chat bubbles and Googling things can be... REALLY REALLY captivating. You just have to be aware that the audience needs time to read, and needs to have their eye led from one bubble to the next. If you just give them a full conversation at a medium distance away from the screen, we can't really get that much. It's too much info without any direction. But out of all of the storytelling devices you used, I was most drawn in by the chat messages, e-mail checking, and notifications. Honestly, since the whole story is about chasing fame, it would've been really interesting to tell the whole story through electronic devices. I think it shows how surface-level everything about fame is. It's glitzy and shiny and doesn't mean very much. And that's the biggest problem the story has to overcome! Maybe chasing fame seems like a good starting point for a story, because-- let's face it-- lots of people want to be famous. But if you're watching a story about someone who wants to be famous, you have to dive deeper than "I want to be famous because it's awesome to be famous!" Anyone who goes even a little deeper knows that lots of incredibly talented people never make it. It's oftentimes more about luck than hard work. Looks also tend to matter more than anything else. And fame is a double-edged sword. To always be in the public eye-- to be judged by everyone, to have to try to be impossibly perfect all the time, and to never have a moment to one's self. Everyone will be nice to your face because they want something from you, so it'll be really hard to know who's REALLY your friend. And you'll wonder if people really know YOU, or just know the perfect image you present to the world. All that to say, if the audience is going to cheer a person like this on, we have to know Ashley's heart is in the right place, and that she has good motives. It would also help if we SAW her talent on display. Like, the way the story presents it, she's just given an invite while she's working at the diner. She asks a casting director what he wants to order, and he just invites her to audition in New York City. Why'd he do that? Wouldn't it feel better if Ashley earned that invitation by showing how talented she was? Maybe at the diner, a song plays over the radio, and she sings and dances along, and the casting director notices that. Or maybe there's always movies and TV shows playing in the diner, and she begins to recite the lines from the show playing, and the casting director notices THAT. Again, something similar happens at the end of the story. Someone just randomly snaps a picture of Ashley and asks if she wants to be famous. It doesn't feel very earned! In a story, we want our character to be rewarded because they've earned something. Like... what if she was just KIND to someone, not because she knew she'd get noticed for it, or get famous for it, and it just so happened that person wanted to repay her kindness and make her dreams come true? It's why we cheer on Cinderella-- it's all built around her kindness and humility in the face of hate and failure. The funniest part you added into this version of the story is the peanut allergy! I would LOVE-LOVE-LOVE to know more about how that fits into the rest of the story. Like, is THAT why she failed the audition? Because of her peanut allergy? Anyway, that's the best-paced part in this version, and it's a really fun new scene you came up with! It would've been even better if it was more integrated into the rest of the story. This is obviously not the direction you intended for the story to go, but it would be SO FUNNY if Ashley, like, thinks this allergy has completely ruined her chances of ever becoming famous. She reluctantly decides that she's come too far to turn back, and comes to the audition with this peanut allergy visibly still in FULL EFFECT. ... ... AND THEN THEY CHOOSE HER, BECAUSE OF HOW SHE LOOKS/SOUNDS WITH THE PEANUT ALLERGY. (If you've ever watched the episodes of Phineas and Ferb where Candace is under the effects of her parsnip allergy, you might be able to imagine how this would go.) That'd be so fun and unexpected! And then the message of the story could be that things that might seem like they're setting you up for failure are actually setting you up for success. In the original Outline video, your message was "Don't doubt yourself just because you see a couple of people 'better than you'." Speaking from personal experience: I think pretty much everyone is better than ME at everything. And I imagine a vast majority of people feel the same as that. Chances are that most people in an audience do not have the self-confidence to believe they are even in the Top 5 most-talented in the room at any given moment, because realistically, they're probably not. They're probably lucky if there's someone who's WORSE than them at something. This is why one of the greatest types of stories is UNDERDOG STORIES. Because THAT'S what we feel like, and underdog stories give us hope that we have something to show the world, too. Maybe pepper your story with a little bit more underdog. Maybe bend the message more to the side of, "Don't doubt your worth, even when you fail at something." With a story like this, we often know how the story's gonna end. A person has a dream of being famous -- you'd be right to guess the story probably ends with them being famous. So why do we watch the story? Because we hope the way it happens is going to surprise us, and touch our hearts. So make the journey one we become fully invested in, full of twists and turns-- a journey that make us really get to know and love Ashley.

I appreciated the unusual approach to storytelling that you took with a lot of different kinds of quick imagery. I know there is a storyline about a young girl who wants to become famous but some of the information went by so quickly I could not understand it. I'd like to understand more about why she wants to be famous? What does being famous mean to her? Does she have a specific talent? I am excited to see this story get developed further.