There was no prompt for an entry this week so I will write the first thing that came to mind.
Recently we learned about different ways video can be used to express a message without actually saying anything. What I wonder is: “Is there any way we can use a video in our project of digitizing letters?” At a first glance, the answer is no; mainly because we are only looking at letters and I am a computer science major who would not consider the historical aspect of the project (which is really what the project is about). At a first glance to anyone who is not me, the answer is yes; there are many historical reenactments around Fredericksburg and if any of them have recorded a video about an event in the Civil War that coincides with one of the letters we are looking at, then we can use their video in our site (with their permission as necessary). My group also talked about museums downtown that we could go to with a video camera to record different exhibits. We could record them in such a way that it would appear to the viewer as if they themselves were feeling the exhibit or were looking up at a superior or across from a field of weapons. Maybe we could even record the letters themselves as if the viewer was reading them while they were being read aloud by voice-over.
So after giving it good thought there are plenty of ways we could incorporate a video in our project that I had not considered until recently. We could give a new angle to see these written letters and do more than have people read them off of their computer. Granted, I do not know if we will actually do any of this but having this option open could lead to an interesting final project.
