Link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/mrbristow/etec-540/task-7-mode-bending/

Nathan took a very interesting and entertaining approach to re-addressing the original task (sharing information about himself by answering the question “What’s in my bag?”) in a new format. His video is nearly devoid of all verbal and written language (minus the writing on his allergy pill bottle), instead opting for a common language of gestures and actions. The end result speaks as much to his personality and competencies as a digital content creator as the actual items that he’s included in his bag. In fact, the items that he chose to place in his bag were quite non-descript and not very telling of who he is, at least in comparison to what I’ve seen from various other classmates. I’m curious if there was some intentional editing of the items so as to fit the style of video that he created. As mentioned, his (quite hilarious) video relied heavily on body language rather than speech or text, and I imagine there might be other items traditionally in his bag which he might have found difficult to demonstrate a need for in the same way as say, his deodorant or a rain jacket.

After watching his video, I went and re-watched part of my own Mode-Bending task. It made me that much more impressed with Nathan’s work. I narrated my video thinking that it would help to express more about myself, but I feel as though aspects of the narration fell flat, adding less to the video than I originally thought. Part of the issue is that I feel like I really underutilized the power of tone in communication. Listening back to myself speak, I could tell that I was having a deep-voice kind of day, and I made no real attempts to change my intonation to aid the viewer. I had likely recorded at least 10 different versions prior to the one that I posted, so my enthusiasm was running low and I too focused on not missing any items instead of selecting a few items and addressing them in a more meaningful way.

If I were to go back and re-complete this task, after having watched Nathan’s video, I think I would opt to include a curated soundtrack to my video rather than a narration. Music is more universal than English, making the video more inclusive, and including different songs for different applications may make for a more exciting experience and end up showing off more of my personality. Then again, maybe the monotone nature of my video is an accurate representation of my personality…