Here’s an idea you can try at the story-origination phase of your next digital storytelling workshop. Ask everyone to place their hand on a blank piece of paper and draw round it, kindergarten style. Ask people to write a line on each digit, in response to this: Little finger: what’s the best thing that’s happened to you so far this year? Ring finger: Looking further back in time, name one highlight of your life. Middle finger: thinking of your family, what makes you most proud of being you? Did your grandfather have a fascinating job? Has your family made its mark in your town? Index finger: pointing to the future,…
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Intergenerational School Report
Students at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Bryn Tawe, Swansea, were active in the recent BBC School Report project. Nia Davies and Beccy Leach from BBC Cymru Wales went to help the students. Here’s one of the films which is a great example of the way in which older people in the school’s community can work with school students to produce a piece of media. This is an embed of their video in Silverlight format: Cynllun Rhyng-genhedlaeth
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Video Nation – final screening
Last night was a poignant one. Even before I was involved with digital storytelling, I’ve been a fan of BBC Video Nation. I first became aware of it when I saw an job ad in the early 1990s announcing that the BBC Community Programmes Unit was recruiting people to develop uses for the Hi8 analogue camcorders that had heralded the introduction of near-broadcast-quality consumer video cameras. The fruits of that project, founded by Mandy Rose and Chris Mohr, were five to ten-minute video shorts scheduled before Newsnight on BBC 2 TV. Last night I went to London’s ICA Cinema for the final screening of Video Nation Network’s Turn Back Time…
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The secret of COW’s success – six lessons.
No punches were pulled in portraying the crash, so people who saw the film talked about it afterward. Lesson 3: be memorable
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How to get your short film seen by 500 million
When Newport University film studies lecturer and social action broadcast specialist Peter Watkins-Hughes went to Tredegar Comprehensive School students with an idea for a short film about teenage drink driving they said: “It’s not drunk driving that’s the biggest problem; it’s texting while driving”. Peter didn’t have much of a budget, so he asked Gwent Police for help. They gave advice, use of their helicopter, their vehicles and their officers as ‘extras’. When the film was shot and edited, Peter put it on You Tube so he could send a link to BBC commissioners. Within a week, the film had had 50 views. It then rose to 200. Then Peter…
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Seven articles about helping participants capture their story in digital storytelling
The person who’s taught me more than anyone about helping people find their story is Gilly Adams. She was the main story facilitator of BBC Capture Wales and she shaped the Story Circle day so it was a close a fit as possible for the digital storyteller in Wales. At DS3 in 2008, Gilly spoke in her keynote 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…
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Victim and Victor
You can now embed CultureShock‘s digital stories on your websites or blogs, thanks to a new feature on their website. So here’s the story Victim and Victor by Michael Crannage which CultureShock’s Alex Henry showed at DS5:
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Life as a transgender person – digital story
Jenny-Anne Bishop explains what life was like as a transgender person growing up and living in Wales. She talks about the difficult experiences she has had with her family as a result of her transition. It’s one of four digital stories made by StoryWorks for the Equality and Human Rights Commission Wales and I first saw it at their workshop for journalists and programme-makers called ‘Not just another statistic‘ on 17 January 2011 in Cardiff. Guardian columnist Juliet Jacques spoke about trans-related portrayal challenges and Romani journalist Jake Bowers called for the media to stop being so shockingly racist when covering Gypsy and Traveller Community stories. Jake works with the…
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Digital Storytelling Wizard of 2010
One of the things I enjoy about Twitter is that it enables people with shared interests to meet up. During 2010, I’ve met several people who are passionate about digital storytelling just because I talk about the subject on Twitter. One of the most inspiring people I met this year was Jordanian researcher Rami Malkawi @RamiDST. He’s studying for his PhD at University of Glamorgan, Wales, under the auspices of Phil Davies – @PhilWales – who’s probably already a familiar name if you’re interested in digital storytelling in education. When I met Rami in October at the BBC canteen in Cardiff, he talked me through his plans. He’s testing a…
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Fun end-of-term digital storytelling activity
If you’re a teacher looking for something fun for the end of school term, this may be of interest. It’s a hand-drawn, very basic animation, storytelling form I’ve been experimenting with since 2003. The first one I made was called Tickling in response to a call for stories by BBC One Minute Movies. If you’d like to make your own, here are my instructions. Let me know how you get along. Written and first published by Gareth Morlais on 8 December 2010.