Dec 1 is the deadline for submission for the Focal International Awards 2009 for best use of archive footage in all kinds of productions, including short films like digital stories. According to the rules:
1. they’ll only consider entries containing moving-image archive, not stills
2. there’s a £57.50 submission fee per entry.
David Puttnam will present the awards to the winners in London on 5 May 2009.
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→ No CommentsTags: digital storytelling
Here are two stories made especially to mark the fact that 90 years have passed since the end of World War I:
Rappel - this is a music collaboration between Newport’s MC Gareth Leaman (Versatile) and DJ Jamie Winchester, Pentalk Lab, at the Riverfront in Newport. I’ve always been drawn to the storytelling aspect of rap and I think the mixing of rap with images of WWI by these two musicians gives a respectful contemporary reflection on the horrors of the Great War.
My River - children from Llandogo Primary School in Monmouth remember their relatives who fought in WWl. The device of children holding their old family photos up for the video camera is especially effective.
These were both produced by those people in the films together with BBC Wales’s Melanie Lindsell as part of Ninety Years of Remembrance. The River will be transmitted at five to midnight on BBC 1 TV on Tuesday 11 November.
Popularity: 5% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: Wales · digital storytelling
Communities@One has been nominated for a European inclusion award. I’m delighted about this because it’s largely thanks to C@1 funding and direct broker support that digital storytelling is thriving in Wales. Congratulations to Alun Burge and the team.
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→ No CommentsTags: inclusion · links · Wales · digital storytelling
I was asked earlier today for links to reports outlining benefits of digital storytelling to communities by someone drafting a funding bid. I thought it might be useful to share these links with you. Many of these link to PowerPoint and PDF files:
Case studies about DS and older people
Case study about working with second-generation immigrants:
http://www.mediabiotope.com/
Health
Arts in Health Strategy Unfortunately, there’s no mention of DS in the strategy.
Young people:
you may be able to pull out a quote from ELI7021.pdf
Education/public service
Anthropology/developing countries
Please feel free to add your own in the comments.
Popularity: 8% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: media literacy · links · digital storytelling
You can tell how well a workshop went by looking at the end-of-workshop photo. This one was taken at the end of the first Media Conté Workshop where media exprimo and Aichi Shukutoku University worked with teenagers in Kani, Gifu Prefecture, in the centre of Japan’s largest island.
Kani is well known for its car manufacturing. One of the leaders of Media Conté is Akiko Ogawa, who’s made two trips to Wales to study digital storytelling. She told me earlier this year there were many Japanese descendants from Brasil and other countries who had come to work in Kani’s factories. She told me she wanted to find a way of bringing these people together to share their experiences and to try and find a way of making sure these stories were more widely heard throughout Japan.
The beauty of digital stories is that the process of making one brings community members together and the end-product has a surprisingly moving quality which can catch you by surprise. The story that’s built is perfect for exhibition on TV. Greater individual expression on TV is one of media exprimo’s aims and one of the things that impressed me at Mell Expo 2008 in Tokyo was that the Japanese mass media was so open to change. They listened positively to pleas for increased reflection of different areas of Japan on national TV. Of course, centralisation isn’t an issue that affects Japan alone…
Congratulations to Akiko Ogawa and her colleagues and fellow members at Aichi Shukutoku University and media exprimo because the good news is that these stories are going to be broadcast on CATV in Kani this very weekend. Every picture tells a story.
Popularity: 14% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: japan · empowerment · digital storytelling
Museums used to be buildings that housed artefacts. The experts contextualised these objects by writing historically-accurate interpretations of their meaning. Visitors used to enter museums to absorb this.
How often have you looked at objects in museums and thought that the meaning an object has to you is different to the one conveyed by the museum’s card, plaque, kiosk, etc.? New technology and ways of working mean that can change.
Some museum managers are excited about the possibilities opened up by enabling visitors to share their own interpretations and are asking their staff to work in new ways. I did once hear one museum worker say “But that isn’t what we do” though.
Living-memory sections of museums are more to do with memories than artefacts. So museum managers can feel free to move away from traditional perceptions of what it is they’re doing. That’s when they’ll feel it’s OK to instruct their staff to spend less time on objects and more on helping people to share their own memories with other visitors.
Popularity: 17% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: media literacy · empowerment · digital storytelling
Digital Stories available to watch again on BBC iPlayer until the middle of next week:
“To celebrate National Older People’s Day and to change some outdated stereotypes on ageing, a collection of short stories written, recorded, edited and produced by people living in Wales.”
This is a link for people reading this in the UK only, sorry, because iPlayer only works in the UK.
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→ No CommentsTags: Wales · empowerment · digital storytelling
The European Digital Storytelling Network is now active and it looks as if the Copenhagen workshops have been going really well. Good luck to this new organisation.
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→ No CommentsTags: digital storytelling
Anyone who filmed home video from the 1980s -90s will is likely to have that footage in the VHS tape medium. I’ve just seen an item on a TV programme called Sunday Life which warned that fungus is attacking these old tapes. So now may be a good time to digitise these old recordings.
The way I’ll probably do this is to make real-time recordings from VHS to miniDV and then use Firewire to ingest that footage onto my hard disk where I can import it into an editing package and then render it out as a DV PAL file. I should probably use an open standard like DIV-X in an AVI container, because .mov is tied to the Apple Quicktime backward-compatability blind spot.
What should I do next: burn that file as data on a DVD? Well that’ll give me up to another 25 years of not worrying. Until a story comes out warning about the flaking of DVD coatings after 25 years.
And then I’ll start all over again…
I asked an experienced editor once: “What’s the most future-proof medium for archiving digital stories”.
He replied: “Film”.
Popularity: 30% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: tips · capturing assets · digital storytelling
Publishing on YouTube is cheap, quick, easy and not without its dangers. So here’s how to avoid the pain.
If it’s your own content you’re publishing and this is what you want to do, go for it. If you’re part of a digital storytelling project that helps others to make stories and you’re looking for a way of getting their stories out there, just be aware the embed code that’s on offer enables anyone to embed that video into a completely different website. Usually that will be someone’s on-topic blog; sometime though, the final destination is something much less desirable. It’s all about context, isn’t it?
Benefits of YouTube publication
Drawbacks of YouTube publication
So my advice is: if it’s your story and you’re happy, go for it; if it’s someone else’s story you’re publishing, have a chat with them, discuss your concerns together, and take a decision after that.
Popularity: 31% [?]
→ 1 CommentTags: digital storytelling
Wales Literacy Network launched a new blog at the annual Eisteddfod meet last night:
http://walesmedialiteracy.org.uk/blog/
Other highlights of the night included an update about NIACE Cymru’s work by Essex Harvard; an insight into user testing and user participation in the Welsh youth TV programme Mosgito by its web executive producer Nia M. Davies and examples of clay animation and Welsh web terms standardisation.
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→ No CommentsTags: media literacy · Wales
This is your story, so try to use your own images, story, words, original sentiments, music, style, philosophy, etc. as far as you can.
The promotion of royalty-free content advocated by some digital storytelling trainers means that opportunities may be missed. Of course, sometimes you’ll find yourself working with people who have no access to their own materials. And teachers in class with young children may also find it easier to use images from the internet. If you do use your own personal materials though, you’ll not only avoid issues around intellectual property, but your story will also truly be your own.
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→ No CommentsTags: tips · capturing assets · digital storytelling
“How can people participate without necessarily having to be centre stage?” That’s a question I’ve been asking myself ever since discussing digital storytelling with a colleague, Grahame Davies, last year.
My experience of Digital Stories is that they’re usually personal. This aspect of ‘talking about myself’ raises a barrier in some people and cultures. This was an issue raised by some people I met in Japan earlier this year.
Last night, on TV, I saw a piece of video that stands as a good example of a ‘tribute form’. Look at the first 55 seconds of the video clip on this page. It’s in Welsh. It features people who live in Bala, north Wales. They’re all praising Mair Penri Jones - a woman who’s been active and helped many people in that community.
As well as being a form of storytelling about others, rather than the self, this form lends itself well to a project where equipment is in short supply and people need to work together to make a film.
I’d be interested to hear of other similar forms.
Popularity: 41% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: japan · media literacy · story · empowerment · digital storytelling
This is a new term I just had to invent. We launched a new Welsh-language mobile website yesterday (info). It was fast as anything when I browsed it alone, yet when I needed to show it to Siwan from the press office, it loaded ever so slowly. Why did this happen? Because of pink fingertip syndrome - I pressed the buttons differently when I was demonstrating and the server ‘knew’.
Popularity: 33% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: tips · mobile
It’s the week of the National Eisteddfod which is back here in Cardiff for the first time in 30 years. Lots of buzz on the Maes. I met Gwion Llwyd of Sbarc! yesterday while watching Mr Huw play live. Sbarc! is a successful Digital Storytelling project based in Caernarfon, run by Rhian Cadwaladr. Gwion said they’re experimenting with some interesting new story forms and he’s also part of Rhyfeddod.com - a performing art group which is planning an autumn show where projected couplets written by different poets are triggered depending on where on a stage a person stands. They’re also working on a newly-funded slate-mining heritage project. Gwion’s fascinated by this enigma: so many people died in the Dorothea north Wales slate quarry in Llanberis when it was active in the C19-early20; after it closed, it was flooded to make a deep lake in which people today go diving; many of these divers die today in that flooded quarry…
Tomorrow, I’m attending the Wales Media Literacy Network event at the S4C stall. Nia M Davies of BBC Cymru’s Mosgito is speaking about the work that TV programme has done in giving access to the airwaves with live webcam linkups. Mosgito has been working alongside BBC Ffeil with Eisteddfod-goers to make films with young people this week.
On a personal note, I’ve been working with the BBC website team this year. Nice to see so much publicity for our Eisteddfod promo, all because it starred Ioan Gruffudd, Matthew Rhys and Gethin Jones…
Popularity: 30% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: digital storytelling
Of the stories I’ve seen which use poems I can remember only one or two as being the best possible way of telling that person’s story. This is just my personal opinion.
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→ No CommentsTags: tips · story · digital storytelling
If the story goes something like this:
“When he came back from the mine he had a bath”
weaker: cut from a photo of the mine to a photo of a tin bath
stronger: leave up the photo of dad throughout, maybe with a slow zoom in.
Popularity: 30% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: tips · digital storytelling
E.g. the question mark. If you’ve got a line in your story like: “why did he do this?”, don’t put a great big image of a question mark on the timeline/screen.
Popularity: 31% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: tips · digital storytelling
Get your voice-recording done with a high-quality unit in a quiet room with natural acousics (neither boxy nor echoey), unless there’s an overriding reason to the contrary (e.g. you’re working with an archive recording or in an inescapably noisy environment). As I’ve said here before, the best digital stories can work as radio pieces, so aim for top radio quality when you record.
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→ No CommentsTags: tips · capturing assets · audio · digital storytelling
Simon Collinge has been a pioneer and a champion of Digital Storytelling in Wales for the past seven years and he’s leaving Yale College Wrexham this week to go freelance.
Sometimes, when you’re setting something new up, you need someone high up who ‘gets’ it, who says ‘yes’ and covers your back when change threatens your very existence. That’s what Simon’s been so good at doing in Wrexham. He’s recruited some top Digital Storytelling facilitators and supported their growth and the growth of their project to the impressive point where the Yale Centre for Digital Storytelling is today.
I can’t make it to the farewell party tomorrow but I know it’ll be a good one. He tells me he intends to play an even more active part in Digital Storytelling in Wales now he’s leaving this post. So I’ll lift a glass here in Cardiff to toast Simon Collinge’s freelance future.
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→ No CommentsTags: Wales · digital storytelling
Cuts or cross-fades are the video transitions I recommend, unless there’s a good story-related reason to use something else.
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→ No CommentsTags: tips · instruction · digital storytelling
E.g. it’s tempting to tell the story of a trip chronologically thus
weaker: “We started in Rome, took the train to Florence where we saw Ponte Vecchio, then we headed to the coast towards Pisa….”
stronger: look at how well Simon Griffiths uses the device of how he funded his south American trip to make a great story even better.
Popularity: 34% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: tips · story · digital storytelling
Joe Lambert of the Center for Digital Storytelling has written with news of workshops he’s holding in Copenhagen this summer and of exciting plans to establish a European Center for Digital in conjunction with Copehagen Business School.
Joe’s team will be joined for the workshops by guest trainers Lisa Heledd Jones (BBC Wales and George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling) and Barrie Stephenson of digistories.co.uk. There are details of the workshops here.
Next: knife crime is a problem in some British cities. I think community leaders may take inspiration from Mervin Jarman’s story. He’s just been awarded the Stockholm Challenge Trophy. He’s set up a digilab where people can come to make digital stories inside a 40-foot converted shipping container in Palmers Cross, Jamaica.
“The primary target group is what I refer to now as the hardest to reach. This is what we call the bad boys. Di ones who nuh have no value; the ones dem that fit for dumping. And that’s probably because that’s what I was characterised as,” Jarman says. Story from the Jamaica Gleaner.
Finally, I was delighted to hear that the Yale Centre for Digital Storytelling in Wrexham, north-east Wales is one of the 28 beneficiaries of a grant totalling £5.2million for rural development. The Yale team will work with people to reflect rural stories. Congratulations to the team at Yale; it’s great to hear such good news. Story from the Daily Post.
Popularity: 39% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: media literacy · Wales · instruction · digital storytelling
Which personal storytelling forms work well with the volume turned down?
This question’s inspired by opportunities presented by ‘A Wall is a Screen‘, kiosks in public places and public shopping-street screens like the one in Cardiff city centre, pictured by Mooganic.
If you know of ’silent’ short-form’ visual personal storytelling forms that passers-by find engaging enough to stop and watch, please let me know in the comments or by emailing melynmelyn at gmail dot com. I’ll share them in a future post. Thanks.
By the way, using the RSS button, you can subscribe to the posts in this blog and read them in your newsreader/feedreader.
Popularity: 34% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: story · digital storytelling
Hyperaction launches Storywalks tomorrow morning with a walk and picnic in Torfaen, south Wales. On their website you can download a printable PDF routemap (here’s an example) and free mp3 podcasts of the stories to listen to along your way.
Loading up your portable device with stories and heading off to the countryside clutching a map is a great idea and Hyperaction’s experience in such community-led projects shines through and is sure to contribute to the success and hopefully the future expansion of the network of Storywalks around Wales.
Popularity: 43% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: Wales · story · mobile · digital storytelling
I’ve always been puzzled this paradox: people get so many new skills by making their first digital story …. yet most people only ever produce one digital story. It was Jenny Kidd, whose PhD subject was Digital Storytelling at the BBC, who drew my attention to this.
The team at University of Glamorgan has been exploring lowering some of the barriers to continuation by devising forms that use widely-available online
production tools and social media tools.
Carwyn Evans, Lisa Heledd Jones and Susie Pratt of BBC Wales and University of Glamorgan held a workshop in Aberystwyth just before DS3 where they led a group of people through how to upload photos to Flickr.com e.g:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/making_space/2507528951
and how to add comments to photos. They also incorporated some ‘old
media’ like the PostIt and pen, thus:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/making_space/2510751989/in/photostream/
At DS3, I saw a dozen people all huddled around a massive poster print of Aberystwyth prom, scribbling on PostIts. The mix of the photo and different people’s reactions to it is really nice.
Some audio comments were also recorded:
http://www.makingspace.org.uk/ventures/picturepost/listening_circle.html
Tools like voicethread, photobucket remix, flickr, etc. are great levellers because all you
need is access to a broadband-connected web browser and a simple capture device. Of course, there are factors other than technology influencing continued media expression, but I believe using re-accessible technology will reduce one of the barriers to continued authorship. Also, the social networking capacity surrounding these Web 2.0 tools can engender a continued sense of community beyond the kick-off face-to-face workshop(s).
I think Making Space is a fascinating project and, already, the participants’ testimony at DS3 convinced me it’s a worthwhile direction in which to head.
By the way, the team is also exploring other areas via ventures such as:
http://www.makingspace.org.uk/ventures/digitaldresser.html
and
http://www.makingspace.org.uk/ventures/desertislandpics.html
Popularity: 44% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: media literacy · Wales · empowerment · digital storytelling
Dear friend of [murmur],
Shawn Micallef sent me an email this morning saying that [murmur] is looking to hire an executive director to help move the project forward. He asked recipients of the mail to pass it on, so here it is:
“[murmur] is looking for an inspirational leader. We’re seeking someone passionate about community, cities, and storytelling to guide and grow [murmur]’s collaborations and projects.
The director will be responsible for managing and producing [murmur], and leading its expansion through writing grant applications, securing commissions, and cultivating relationships with potential funders.
On the “producing” side, this means taking care of stuff like:
- Recording & editing stories
- Installing signs
- Giving workshops
- Managing volunteers and interns
- Responding to lots of email inquiries
- Coordinating with suppliers
- Writing & sending out occasional newsletters
- Attending conferences and festivals; sometimes presenting
- Organizing events
- Writing grant applications and project proposals
- Managing budgets and books
On the “cultivating relationships” side, this means (among other things):
- Establish new contacts and projects in Toronto, nationally and internationally;
- Develop strategies to raise funds to expand the project;
- Seek out potential sponsors and donors, and tapping into networks;
- Conduct ongoing research for new fiscal strategies and opportunities.
QUALIFICATIONS:
Please get in touch if you:
- Know the project, like it, and (personally) are excited to help in its expansion;
- Have experience being in charge of stuff;
- Are personable and a great writer;
- Are motivated and self-directed, a decision-maker and problem-solver;
- Want a flexible schedule (meaning generally you can decide your own hours, but sometimes there’s stuff that needs doing on weekends);
- Are organized and good with deadlines;
- Are very comfortable with the web, and technology in general;
- Are in Toronto but available for occasional travel;
- Are okay with the idea that your salary is dependent on your fundraising abilities.
The ideal candidate probably also reads a bunch of blogs, lives downtown, rides a bike and/or TTC, and has a cellphone.
ENVIRONMENT:
Our director will be working from the Centre for Social Innovation, on Spadina Avenue near Queen Street.
COMPENSATION:
This is a part-time contract position for now, probably 3-4 days/week and $18-20/hour to start depending on your experience, increasing with your fundraising success.
HOW TO APPLY:
Please email a CV and references to gabe at murmurtoronto.ca
We are looking for someone who can start as soon as possible, June 30th at the latest. Please contact us by June 16th.”
Popularity: 50% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: links · digital storytelling
I’ve just returned from the DS3 Festival of Digital Storytelling at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. It was another successful festival, following on from and expanding on last year’s DS2. People had travelled from all over Wales and Britain. I met delegates from Belfast, USA and there was someone who’d come from New Zealand too.
Day1 - Thursday 5 June 2008
A Public Voice - Digital storytelling, narrative and pedagogy. By Prof. Hamish Fyfe & Susie Pratt, University of Glamorgan; Karen Lewis, Lisa Heledd, BBC Cymru Wales
Karen Lewis set the context of the research that’s being done with AHRC support. Hamish Fyfe gave a description of storytelling across the ages and said Digital Storytelling lets people explore their “possible self”. Doing this and learning new skills means “the process of DS making often leaves people feeling more positive” and he argued in favour of a link between DS + community regeneration. Suzy Pratt shared research she’s conducting and showed the importance of “connecting” in ensuring sustainability of Digital Storytelling. She’s working with Lisa Heledd and Carwyn Evans on storytelling linked with social media via an exciting new website called Making Space. The Aberystwyth pilot is worth looking at.
Because of a meeting I needed to go to with the National Screen and Sound Archvie, I unfortunately missed some of ‘The Play Ethic - Pat Kane’ and ‘Narrative Forms - Case studies with Steve Bellis & Tony Pugh, Yale College Wrexham’.
There was a great Open Mic and Mac cabaret session at the bar that night. The mix of personal storytelling and watching Digital Stories worked really well. It was a kind of ‘Frey Cafe with films’ evening.
Day 2 - Friday 6 June 2008
Gilly Adams (freelance Story Circle specialist) - Telling Stories.
I enjoyed Gilly’s presentation more than any other in DS3. She spoke of the Gift Culture of Digital Storytelling where no money changes hands but the currency is the generosity of grace in sharing stories. The person who hears the story gains two benefits:
1. they get a unique glimpse into the heart of the teller
2. they can often say: “hey, that’s about me!” and they get to reflect on that revelation.
An example of generosity Gilly gave was that of someone who comes to a DS workshop with a story in mind but, having heard the stores other people tell, they sometimes change their mind and say: “Actually, I want to tell you this….”
Jason Ohler (University of Alaska) - Digital Storytelling in the classroom.
I’d been particularly eager for DS Cymru to invite Jason Ohler to speak at this year’s Festival and, having heard him speak, I was glad he’d come. He shared his experiences of working in classrooms throughout Alaska and his insistence that _story_ be at the heart of everything that’s done. A digital storytelling friend of mine, Barrie Stephenson, says he’s been using Story Maps - one of Jason’s story-generating systems - after hearing him speak at Sedona some years ago. That’s something about Jason’s style: he shares all kinds of practical tips that can be re-used in workshops.
Hanne Jones & Christer Fasmer (Digitale Fortellinger project, Norway) - Digital Storytelling In Norway. These were some of the most powerful digital stories I’ve ever seen. Hanne, Chris and Eli have worked with over 200 people in Norway. Their work is screened on TV, in museums and in cinemas. Two stories they showed made a deep impression: one by a young woman with Downs Syndrome talking about her life and plans with her boyfriend and another by a 101 year old woman remembering hiding because she was afraid of reading in front of a group of people when she was six years old (in 1913).
Popularity: 46% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: DS Cymru · Wales · digital storytelling
I met Culturenet Cymru’s Sioned Rhys Jones and Hawys Tomos at Eisteddfod yr Urdd, Conwy, last week. As part of the National Library of Wales and funded by Heritage Lottery and Welsh Assembly Government, Culturenet Cymru is working on a project based in Aberystwyth called ‘From Warfare to Welfare’. There’re doing three things:
1. helping people to make digital stories. Young people work with older people to make a digital story of 1939-1959 recollections
2. staging multimedia conferences
3. digitising photos by Geoff Charles
I nearly fell off my chair when they told me about the Geoff Charles element. Geoff was a prolific Welsh documentary photographer. He took a photo of my brother and I around 38 years ago. There are more than 20,000 of Geoff’s photos held for safe-keeping at the National Library of Wales. You can see some of these at http://geoffcharles.llgc.org.uk/
Here’s the digital storytelling connection…
When the Nokia N93 first came out around two years ago, BBC Wales was interested in its potential as a tool for people to tell broadcastable personal stories. All the members of the Capture Wales team experimented with many forms. Some of these forms went on to be adapted for public workshops. One of the experimental digital stories I made wasn’t made for publication; it was intended to explore the phone’s still image and voice recording capacity in a digital storytelling context. The voice recording quality was OK but, as you can see, there’s some distortion of the images because I needed to take photos up-close. I haven’t made the story public until now. But because of this bit of Geoff Charles Culturenet Cymru synchronicity, I wanted to share this mobile phone story with you now:
Popularity: 47% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: Wales · mobile · digital storytelling
I’ve been corresponding recently with Wim Kievits who’s had an interest in Digital Storytelling for some time. He recently contacted me regarding a presentation he’s making in the Netherlands later this week. He asked what triggered BBC Wales’s interest in starting Capture Wales and asked: “Can you tell me or point out to me how the whole initiative started? What were the initial challenges (or signals from society) you encountered that made you decide to start this initiative?”
Well I can’t speak on behalf of BBC Wales but I can remember a time when it used to cost £30,000 to buy a machine to edit video. So it was expensive/exclusive to access the tool to tell stories via video. 2001 was about the time when it became affordable to edit your own video on home computers. This opened up the door to enabling anyone to be able to tell their own story using video. For publicly-funded organisations like ours, this was an important moment. Digital Storytelling is a form that lends itself to personal storytelling because:
1. everyone has a photo archive
2. everyone has a story/stories to tell
But this isn’t a case of pure technical determinism. Because, in addition to new technology, some other elements were needed. E.g.
1. an attainable ‘form’. I.e. Digital Storytelling
2. careful facilitation so that the skills of constructing such a story can be shared with groups of people.
3. mass media willing to give completed stories a platform so the stories can be enjoyed by everyone who sees them
And those are some of the magic ingredients that led to the BBC Capture Wales project.
There’s one other catalyst I mustn’t forget: someone persuasive, a convincer and an evangelist. In our case, that was Daniel Meadows, from Cardiff University.
Popularity: 45% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: media literacy · Wales · digital storytelling
Registration is now open for Wales’s third annual Festival of Digital Storytelling at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Thursday 5th and Friday 6 June 2008. And - wearing my DS Cymru member hat - I’d like to invite you to come 
Yes, DS3 has expanded to two days this year and, as it says on the website: “Whether you work in education, the community or as an artist, it is your opportunity to share experiences, explore new creative ideas, see the latest technological developments, look at examples of best practise in the U.K. and worldwide and celebrate the growing significance of Digital Storytelling”
I’m really looking forward to this year’s Festival, not least because the speakers who’ve agreed to take part are so good.
Jason Ohler, from Alaska, will be a familiar name to anyone who’s interested in Digital Storytelling in schools. He’ the author of ‘Digital Storytelling in the Classroom’. It should be interesting to see what the educationalists in the audience make of his evangelism for Digital Storytelling in the classroom, especially as Wales has the power to determine its own curriculum for schools. Might we see schools in Wales allocating sufficient resources and embedding the activity of Digital Storytelling in our classrooms in a revolutionary way? I personally hope so. Just imagine how that would impact on young Welsh people’s digital expression and storytelling skills and how much fun that would make school!
Gilly Adams is one of the most magnetic characters I’ve ever met. I sat in awe listening to her talk about how to help someone with their story as she addressed a group of 40 in Merthyr Tydfil in March. She was sharing decades of experience garnered from not only dozens of Digital Storytelling workshops but also her background in theatre, community radio plays and celebratory ritual performance. I guarantee that, if you want to learn something new about storytelling, you will if you come to listen to Gilly.
Two Digital Storytellers who have an historic connection with BBC Capture Wales are making the trip from Norway to Aberystwyth to share their experiences of setting up Digitale Fortellinger. Eli Lea and Hanne Jones set up their project with the aim of helping individuals to share their personal story on TV in Nordic countries. They’ve also done some interesting, pioneering work with museums. By the way, Hanne’s own Digital Story is one of my all-time favourites.
Pat Kane - half of Hue and Cry - wrote ‘The Play Ethic: A Manifesto for a Different Way of Living’ which “proposes the ‘player’ as a new identity for a productive, creative and meaningful life”. He’s coming from Scotland to Aberystwyth.
Also speaking or holding workshops or breakout sessions are Breaking Barriers; Canllaw Online; Cardiff University; Coleg Sir Gar, Llanelli; Culturenet Cymru; DS Cymru; Huw Davies; Monmouthshire County Council; University of Glamorgan George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling; Yale College, Wrexham; etc. as well as BBC Cymru Wales.
Between the keynotes there are sessions about where to go to get money to fund your grassroots project from people who’ve been very succesful in doing just that, creating ‘a digital story in ten clicks’, being young and telling stories, pedagogy, sustainability, new forms and social software, best ways of facilitating stories, an open mic story session, building digital communities, etc
So it’s a fantastic line-up and I hope you can come. You’ll be most welcome.
Popularity: 55% [?]
→ No CommentsTags: DS Cymru · Wales · digital storytelling
I watched a recording of On Top of the World this lunchtime. This is the half-hour programme by Tori James, the first Welsh woman and youngest British woman ever to climb Everest. It was shot almost entirely using the kinds of devices anyone can buy in the High St. It’s a gripping, endearing piece of TV. Goes to show what can be done in the longer form, using attainable technology, when the storytelling’s done well. Full credit to producer Melanie Lindsell who worked closely with Tori on the storytelling, editing and post production.
If you live in the UK, for the next six days you can watch this programme on BBC iPlayer here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00b6×2v.shtml
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→ No CommentsTags: story · mobile · digital storytelling
I’ve observed that working on stories in a group usually helps individuals to improve their story and I love watching how stories are improved, thanks to the group dynamics. That’s one of the reasons digital storytelling works so well as a group workshop activity.
One University of Tokyo project, called Unknown Shonan, is the first I’ve heard of that compares narratives arrived at individually with those arrived at by working in a group.
Shonan is Japan’s Brighton. It’s a bohemian seaside city about an hour by train from Tokyo. Universtiy of Tokyo researchers worked with participants, mixing historic photos with participant-taken ones where individuals are asked to make five-photo captioned narratives first individually and then in groups. They’ve already reached Phase II of the project and they’re comparing outputs at the moment. It’ll be interesting to hear the outcome and perhaps to start understanding what really improves stories when we share and discuss our stories collaboratively.
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Tokyo and Mell Expo 2008 were absolutely mindblowing. A more considered summary of Mell Expo 2008 will follow. For now, with music by B’z, is a montage of (Ricoh) images and (Nokia N93) video clips that capture the flavour of the event and the trip. Hope you enjoy it:
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→ No CommentsTags: japan · media literacy
There’s an enigma around technology, isn’t there? Take the mobile phone for example. We used to use just it to make phonecalls; now phones have near-broadcast-quality video cameras on board too. If only there was a way of releasing some more of the potential of technology for the benefit of society…
Let me start with some questions about this:
1. What motivation and opportunities could be given to people in Japan to make more use of the creative capacity of their mobile devices and computers? 2. Which ‘forms’ of Digital Storytelling would be most attractive in this country to both author & audience of the content?3. And how could this content be shared with mass audiences?
My name is Gareth Morlais and I work for BBC Wales in the UK as a producer.
Everyone has a story to tell - that’s been central to our ethos at the BBC Capture Wales Digital Storytelling project and that’s what’s led to hundreds of people in Wales learning the skills they need to make their own Digital Story which is shown on BBC platforms - web, radio, TV and interactive.
A digital story is a two-minute broadcast-quality personal story made by the storyteller themself, using their own photos, words and voice.
E.g. Richard Pugh - A Quest for Understanding
Making a Digital Story for the first time often means learning at least two kinds of skills that may be new to the individual:
1. Technical - this is the new skill which is most often cited in connection with media literacy, digital exclusion and skilling for the knowledge economy in Wales.
2. Narrative - this is usually sadly underrated.
I feel that the skills of organising and relating experience in the form of a story can be as important in the knowledge economy as the technical skills. These skills of storytelling are harder to learn than technical. Learning in a group - workshop of ten people - is what we’ve found works best.
Here’s why I feel this is important, from the point of view of the individual citizen, the audience and the mass media, especially a public service broadcaster like the BBC. This is based on our experience in Wales, but I hope some of this may resonate with the experience you have in Japan.
BENEFITS
1. To the mass audience.
- A feeling of being reflected on the mass media.
- Fresh, surprising, diverse content.
2. To the broadcaster / publisher.
- Promotes media literacy in Wales.
- It’s a self-authored voice for all kinds of people on BBC Wales’s web, radio and TV platforms.
- Helps to spread the skills of storytelling.
- A good way of getting to know the audience and to work alongside them and with grass-roots organisations in the community. These partnerships can lead to other things too…
3. To the individual author.
- New skills.
- People report a feeling of having exceeded expectations and surprising themselves.
- A truer voice on the mass media, compared with other content made by publisher.
Here’s an example of what I mean by ‘truer voice’. Compare two approaches to a news story to show how much more empowering Digital Storytelling is, because of where the ownership of the story rests:
Case 1 - A traditional TV news story about cancer. Scientists in white coats, mother of a boy who died of cancer being filmed on the family sofa, reacting tointerview questions, leafing through family photograph album …
Case 2 - Gaynor Clifford - Castle on a Cloud - a 2002 Digital Story by the mother of a boy who died of cancer. She based her story on questions her son asked her when he was thinking about his future.
STEP-BY-STEP
Here’s the process we’ve used to help a group of ten people to make their stories over three or four days. Finished stories are 250 words, around 12 images, two minutes long. This model has come to be know as the ‘classic Digital Story’.
1. Recruitment. Always the most difficult part. Showing existing Digital Stories in a community setting is most effective. We apply principles of diversity in selecting Digital Storytelling workshop participants.
2. Briefing. Letting storytellers know what to expect in a reassuring way.
3. Storycircle. A whole day in a group working on and offering help with everyone’s story. No computers today.
4. Everyone records their story.
5. Introduction to the computers and equipment.
6. Taking digital photos and scanning images from own personal collection.
7. Editing. Learning to use video editing software to synchronise images with the audio recording of their story.
8. Sharing the stories at an end-of-workshop group screening, via a personal DVD copy and by publishing on web and TV.
OTHER FORMS
‘Classic Digital Storytelling’ is evolving and new forms have emerged from it. We still consider them to be Digital Stories if they meet these criteria by Lisa Heledd and Mandy Rose:
1. A strong story; a clear narrative the audience will engage with.
2. Transferral of skills.
3. Ownership rests with author.
(source)
Here are some examples:
FORM 1 - Shoebox story
Can be made in one or two days. Shorter, based on objects brought to the workshop in a shoebox.
E.g. Alan Jeffreys - A Dog’s Life
FORM 2 - In the Frame
Images from disposable film cameras. Storytellers react (unscripted) to photos they took. A powerful tool for citizenship.
E.g. Mel’s campaigning piece about her school
Selma Chalabi facilitated this story as part of ‘If I Were and AM’ - an AM is a Welsh politician.
FORM 3 - Archive
In the Rhondda Lives! project, BBC Wales partnered with Valleys Kids charity and National Screen and Sound Archive to mix personal storytelling with archive film of the Rhondda Valley. This is an attractive way of releasing new value and exposing archive footage, artifacts, etc. Attractive to museums as well as TV companies.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rhonddalives/
E.g. Gillian Thomas - Hiraeth
FORM 4 - Mobile Story
Outline history of and show examples of experiments with mobile phone forms. These Welsh-language ones are from a February 2008 workshop for a youth programme called Mosgito:
Abi - Bywyd ar y fferm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/cipolwgargymru/stori/abi.shtml - about living on a farm
and
RhysW - Grefi yn y Coffi
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/cipolwgargymru/stori/rhys-w.shtml - about someone who plays jokes on people
FORM 5 - Sensecam
BBC Wales worked with Microsoft Research Centre to test how a wearable camera might be used. Here’s a film called Day2 I made about my own experience of wearing the Sensecam. It’s intended as a reflective film rather than a narrative story.
We can speculate about some features of future forms. I think we’re likely to see device shrinkage, with better on-board editing functionality and more explicit linkage to location and the continuing shift to online editing and storage. The real challenges though are around motivating people to unleash the potential of what they hold in their hand and ensuring that access to the skills needed to do this are as universally available as possible.
I’d like to share some observations distilled from the last seven years…
LOOKING IN MY REAR-VIEW MIRROR
1. Build in sustainability.
- Court and involve prospects in workshops.
- Run training the trainers sessions.
- Urge new trainers to make another story alone before beginning to train others.
- Form partnerships and offer to publish their work non-exclusively.
- Capitalise on the snowflake-effect of building partnerships.
2. Agree on your ethos, as a team.
- Ways of working with people.
- Ownership of content.
- Etc.
3. Choose performance indicators wisely.
- Acknowledge value issues around working face-to-face.
- Compare ‘cost per story’ with ‘cost per hour of TV’.
- Case studies can be powerful justifiers of spending.
- Emphasise what you do which YouTube doesn’t.
4. Recruiting participants is the hardest part.
- Showing stories in the community is the best way to recruit.
5. Story is key.
- It’s the specific, sensory-driven stuff that we connect with.
- Even if you teach the technology one-to-one, the storytelling bits work best in a group.
- You know it’s a good story if you can enjoy it with your eyes closed.
6. There needs to be a skills exchange (media literacy), so try to teach people to use something they’ll be able to go home and use again later.
- Their own mobile phone as a capture device.
- Web-based tools to edit, store and publish.
7. Have a clear plan and stick to it.
- Let participants know which media form you’re asking them to make.
- Know and state your editorial proposition E.g personal, 1st person (I, my, we…), fact not fiction, etc.
- Work as a group where possible, ensuring everyone’s devices are set up to look and perform exactly the same, as far as possible.
8. Lower barriers to entry by adapting your plan to offer a choice of forms.
- Have a toolkit of forms. E.g. story in one weekend, story in an hour a week over six weeks, etc.
9. Ask people to use their own stuff in their story.
- This makes it personal and avoids rights problems.
10. Diversity really works.
- In the make-up of the people in the group (age, background, etc.)
- In the range of story subjects
- Avoid themed workshops, e.g. for ‘people with depression’.
11. Document, refine and share your ways of working.
- E.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/audiovideo/sites/yourvideo/pdf/aguidetodigitalstorytelling-bbc.pdf
12. Finally, once again, story is key.
WHAT ALL THIS COULD MEAN IN JAPAN
When technology meets storytelling via skillful facilitation in a group setting with mass media hungry to show the results - heaven!
I’ll end by addressing the three challenges I set out at the beginning of my presentation:1. What motivation and opportunities could be given to people in Japan to make more use of the creative capacity of their mobile devices and computers? This is an appeal to the representatives of grass-roots community organisations of Japan who are in the audience today. I’ve shown examples of Digital Stories and how making one can have a powerful effect on the individual author. Can you see ways in which Digital Storytelling might be able to help you achieve your organisation’s aims? Can you find ways of linking up with other organisations, trainers and broadcasters to set up a project of your own?2. Which ‘forms’ of Digital Storytelling would be most attractive in this country to both author & audience? Well I’m not the best person to answer to this question, because Japanese culture and values are new to me. But what I’ve just done is to show you examples that have worked in Wales and on BBC Wales. And I hope that’s triggered some new ideas of what might work here in Japan and other Asian countries.3. How could this content be shared with mass audiences? This is a challenge to the broadcasters and mass media companies in the audience. One thing I can say about Digital Stories is that showing them to your audiences is a great way of demonstrating greater relevance in this fast-changing landscape.Whether or not you decide to get involved in this, these are exciting times. The fact that organisations like Media Exprimo, Mell Expo, MoDe, Japanese Universities and grass-roots organisations and broadcasters have come here to Mell Expo 2008 to investigate how the technology of Japan can be harnessed for the good of the people is a great thing. And I wish you every good wish on this exciting journey.
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BACKGROUND
My background is in radio social action broadcasting, in public service broadcasting at the BBC and with commercial broadcasters in Wales (Coast FM) and in Sri Lanka (TNL Radio)
Before Digital Stories, there was BBC Video Nation (1993) which pioneered self-authored, personal storytelling in the form of video diaries. I didn’t work on this but I remember the good impression this made on me at the time.
In 2001, I heard Daniel Meadows of Cardiff University speak at the BBC. He showed his digital story Polyphoto. This is the point at which I decided I wanted to be part of this project because it was the first time I’d seen a format for personal storytelling where the author chose the story, visuals and actually edited it themself.
Daniel Meadows had made Polyphoto at the Center for Digital Storytelling in California, in a workshop run by Joe Lambert. This was at a time one of the pioneers and founders of digital stories passed away: Dana Atchley. Dana’s digital story Home Movies is one of my favourites.
Daniel came on secondment to the BBC as part of a partnership between BBC Wales and Cardiff University. BBC Capture Wales was born, edited by Mandy Rose - one of BBC Video Nation’s founders. Joe Lambert and Nina Mullen were invited to come to Wales to run training the trainers sessions. That’s when I made my first story and joined the new Capture Wales team as a trainer and as producer of the website bbc.co.uk/capturewales. In 2005, I became the project producer and started a personal blog called Aberth Digital Storytelling - www.aberth.com/blog.
Our strategy has always been to try make Digital Storytelling a sustainable proposition in Wales. We always planned to run fewer and fewer workshops ourselves as more and more community organisations began offering Digital Storytelling opportunities. Examples of Digital Storytelling projects in Wales include Breaking Barriers, Yale Centre for Digital Storytelling, Coleg Sir Gar and Canllaw Online.
BBC Wales planned to stop running monthly workshops one day and that day came at the beginnin of April 2008. Two of our team have moved on assignment to the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling at the University of Glamorgan, where the production activity and innovation continues with the aim of setting up a Centre for Excellence in Digital Storytelling there. Back at the BBC, the focus will be on offering to publish the stories that are being produced around Wales.
In 2001, only Capture Wales was helping people to make Digital Stories in Wales; now, there are over 70 organisations in Wales that are doing it or have been funded for a project that involves an element of Digital Storytelling. Almost 700 people have made their Digital Story with BBC Wales and, if you look at all projects around Wales, the figure’s well over 2,000. I think this kind of planned sustainability with inbuilt self-redundancy is a remarkable model for a broadcaster, and I’d personally like to see more of it.
Gareth Morlais, Cardiff, Wales, April 2008
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