I would like to tell the story of the 2012 presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. I will focus primarily on the actual election and the campaigning leading up to the final election of Obama. I want to focus on the dynamics and differences between the two candidates.

My sources will include:

• Articles from the Washington Post on the 2012 presidential election
• I will also use information from Politico 
• Huffington Post 

I’m using three different news sources to ensure I’m not falling into the bias of one news organization.

I would also like to use clips from the shows The Colbert Report and The Daily Show because I would like to put a funny spin on my story.

The story I’ve picked is about the characters of Rosencrantz and Guidenstern from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  The stories is already kind of remixed by Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which focuses on the events of Shakespeare’s play through the lens of those two minor characters.  The part of the story I want to focus on is when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern play the question game with Hamlet in trying to figure out why Hamlet is acting in such a peculiar manner.  I was going to frame this as sort of a bulletin-board psych profile, with maybe the social media components that were used in the Little Red Riding Hood example.

Here are the links to the different versions of the story.  I’m using the Shakespeare’s original play Hamlet, Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and the American Shakespeare Center’s production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

The story I have chosen to remix is Spider-Man. Specifically, I will use the beginning part of his story from when he gets bitten by a spider to the discovery of his powers.

The sources I will use are

• http://marvel.com/characters/54/spider-man
  • An overview of the character of Spider-Man as written by Marvel
• http://marvel.com/universe/Spider-Man_%28Peter_Parker%29
  • A more in-depth look at Spider-Man through the Marvel Universe Wiki
  • Includes notable editions/storylines and a more in-depth summary of his original storyline
• Spider-Man (the movie from 2001)

The story I am thinking about remixing for project 3 is “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Thayer. Despite the fact that this is actually a poem, I feel as though I have a good idea as to how to make it more modern.

My plan is to turn the poem into a broadcast using modern day clips of Major League Baseball games from YouTube. Inserting crowd noise and actual calls from the broadcasters of the MLB games could make for an interesting spin on a classic piece of literature.

Obviously, my inspiration to remix “Casey at the Bat” stems from my history with sports and broadcasting.

The tool I found most interesting from today’s presentations was Infogr.am. Stephanie presented this tool and showed us how you can use it to create your own infographics. This could be very useful to use alongside projects for those of us who wouldn’t be able to make an infographic by hand. It really simplifies the amount you must know how to do in order to create an infographic. I could see using this tool to make infographics that enhance papers or articles that I write.

The tool that I found most interesting from today’s presentations was Canva. Rebecca presented on Canva and I found the tool to be very practical. I can see myself using this tool on a day to day basis. I could make flyers with it to advertise events in my hall, make useful Facebook cover photos, and really to design any sort of flyer. I think this tool could make graphic design much easier for those who don’t know too much about the field. I also thought it was really interesting how Rebecca used the tool to present about the tool.

In Monday’s presentations, the tool that I found the most interesting and applicable was PicMonkey. Ricky presented about PicMonkey and described it as a tool that is much like Photoshop. I was under the impression that you could use enough of PicMonkey for free to make it a viable option to edit photos if you aren’t a professional. I think that this could come in handy for someone like me because I enjoy having and using well-edited photos, but I do not know the ins-and-outs of high-end photo-editing software.

For my Remix a Story project, I have chose to focus on a series of Appalachian folk tails. I think this will be appropriate seeing how living in the NRV, we live right in/near the heart of Appalachia. The stories I would like to focus on are those presented in the musical “Sing Down the Moon: Appalachian Wonder Tails” by Mary Hall Surface and David Maddox, however I am not entirely set on this story yet; I will have a definite plan and story by Wednesday.

I have not come to a definite decision on how I would like to present the stories in a modern context, but I pretty well set on it including video in mock news report/interview formats, along side a written online/newspaper report on the “event(s).” My plan is to present the story in a current-day context and to incorporate as much of VT and the surrounding communities as possible.