OLLI Creative Work
Creative Work features the work developed by members in OLLI's Artmaking and Storytelling Courses over the past year:
Video Projects
In the fall 2008 semester OLLI offered for the second time a course called Creating Multimedia Memoirs taught by Dave Casuto. In just eight short weeks, the members of the class did the the unthinkable: they came up with a story and wrote it as a voice-over narration; they selected photos from family archives or found images on the Internet; some even shot video footage, while others learned to use a scanner to digitize their photographs. Then they selected music and found sound effects on the Internet. Using the free sound design tool Audacity, they recorded their narration and compiled their music and sound effects into multiple tracks. Next they organized all their photographs using Picasa, an image-processing tool also available on the Internet for free. Then, for final editing, special effects and titling, they brought all their sound and picture elements into One True Media, another free Internet tool. Now with a finished movie they published it on YouTube for all to see. Yes, all this in just 8 short weeks!
Below are the project links and descriptions of several projects from the fall 2008 semester. Please take a moment to be amazed and moved.
OLLI-SF State is not responsible for the content on the following websites.

Aida Cervantes
When I needed to choose a topic for the Multimedia Memoirs class project, I decided on the Student Revolt in Mexico City in 1968. Based on feedback I had received from European students at the time, I realized this was the time to review my own perspective on a painful personal experience and a distressing chapter in Mexican history.
My intent was to focus on divergences and convergences (Europe and Mexico, men and women) by choosing two songs I considered to reveal these differences - 'Le Temps de Vivre' and 'Que Vivan Los Estudiantes' (Ángel Parra and Mercedes Sosa) sung by two different singers.
Nick Maffei
My video projects are a montage of photos and short videos based on several of Max Kirkebergs OLLI classes Walking the Neighborhoods. In David Casutos class Creating Multimedia Memoirs we learned how to combine these photos, pictures, videos, audio sounds, and narration into stories and experiences and share it with others by uploading it to youtube.com.

Joe Sutton
Project description: "The Magic Elixir." A young man is told by an old Russian immigrant who looks like Buddha what the magic elixir is to a long, healthy life.
Rufus Browning
I knew I wanted to do something about my mother, who was a pianist and composer as well as a mother of six. It was difficult to get started because she suffered from bipolar disease and was on the one hand funny, charming, and energetic, and on the other, depressed and withdrawn. How can those polar opposites be reconciled? I decided to focus just on the positive side of her life. As it turned out, however, working on the project not only gave me renewed appreciation of her accomplishments, it also lifted me to a new level of emotional reconciliation with her contradictions.

Michele Stratton
My piece describes a conversation I had with a kente cloth vendor in Ghana. Because I wanted to focus on the multi-media techniques rather than craft a new story, I used an essay I had written a few years ago for an OLLI writing class. I discovered I needed to edit the essay to let the photos tell more of the story and also I needed to supplement my photos with photos from the internet. For the sound track, I found music and sound effects on the Internet. The audio was the most challenging.
Personal Essays & Poetry
Spring 2007:

Maniko Dru Dadigan
Maniko has been writing songs, performing, and singing in a diverse array of venues for over 25 years. She has produced and recorded three CDs of her original material and worked on a variety of other recording projects. She has extensive professional and experiential training in expressive arts therapies, emotional release and integration facilitation, meditative disciplines as well as dance, movement, breath and resonance awareness as vehicles for bridging the worlds of spiritual development, personal integration and authentic self-expression. Along with private sessions, she performs live in concert and facilitates workshops on the Dimensions of Voice & Self-Expression, Creativity, Transformational & Ecstatic Singing, Songwriting, and Meditation in Europe, Asia, and the U.S.

Art Beck
Art Beck (a pen name) is a San Francisco poet and translator who's recently retired from his corporate job.

Charles Francis
As a wide-ranging professional photographer, Charles was involved with many interesting people and in many extraordinary events. His desire to share these has propelled an interest in writing. After retirement to the Bay Area in 1987, he has continuously honed his writing skills with classes at U.C. Berkeley and OLLI-SF State.
Blogs
Here is a sample of member blogs that were created in Stephen Vincent's course on "Writing & Blogging" from the fall 2005 session.
OLLI-SF State is not responsible for the content on the following websites.
Digital Photography
Members have a keen interest in developing their photographic skills. In the fall 2005, OLLI members learned how to develop slide shows and archives for their work in a course with famed photographer, Marcia Lieberman.
Slide Shows
Beginning Photoshop for Photographers
Other Photographs
Creative Work Archive
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