Flickr

For our Flickr project, my group chose to do an 'above the influence' article at Lawrence university. We wanted to show a student being invited to a party and what the consequences of drinking and smoking are. We showed this by telling two stories: the first is what would happen if the student partied hard and the second showed what would happen if he chose not to. In the first story we tried to make it clear that the student drank a lot and smoked and that because of this he did not have a good night as he threw up and woke up in the bushes missing class. In the second story we show him choosing not to drink or smoke and instead of throwing up he helps a friend who is feeling sick and wakes up in his bed on time. The slideshow can be seen here.
To be honest I did not do a lot of preparation for the project, and neither did my group. None of us came ready with an idea and storyboard, instead we brainstormed when we met up, came up with an idea, and made a quick storyboard. One of the interesting aspects we used was making the slideshow in first person. Also using the blur in some of the photos to help this idea of the first person view really helped to bring the story along. All in all, the entire project was fun from start to finish and wasn't too hard to do.
I, however, have some issues with Flickr as I don't think it's trying to be what it really is. When I think of Flickr I equate it to scrap booking, and that is really what it is. Why use Flickr to tell a story from scratch when you can use video or animations? Flickr can be useful for sharing pictures taken on vacation, but that's scrap booking. I think if Flickr tried to be a scrap booking website it would be more well known but I think as it is now that Flickr is trying to be something it is not.