I was asked a question on Twitter yesterday by @katycom1972: @digitalst Would like to explore digital storytelling with my 2nd graders. Any tips on getting started? We use a MAC/Imovie 9. Thx! It’s incredibly difficult to fit any sensible advice into 140 characters. What I really wanted to say was: it’s the story that’s the most important bit of the process; if you get a good story, a great digital story is within reach working in an expertly-facilitated group or groups is a good way for individuals to bring out the best from their stories the facilitator needs to prescribe a form. This helps people know what they’re making. E.g.…
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“What has been important for you in your life?”
That’s the question Hanne Jones and Eli Lea from Flimmer Film asked as they went from door to door at old people’s homes in Norway. The answers they were given were as different as the people they met. ‘My Days’ is a collection of 37 memories told by people between the ages of 79 and 104. These digital stories are in Norwegian with English subtitles and they’re each around three minutes long. The music’s beautiful and the storytellers’ voices have such warmth and, at the same time, gravitas that they took me by suprise and brought a tear to my eye. Watch, for example, Alf telling the story of his…
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StoryWorks: Looking for the Story workshop
Delivered on April 28, Pontypridd, Wales, by Gilly Adams and Georgie Meadows, who say: “To be effective practitioners and offer compassionate and good care, we need to be able to see each patient as a special and unique individual…Using pictures as our starting point, we will explore how we can be more aware of the stories of those who cannot tell their own.” The cost of this half day workshop is only £30 and there are details here. StoryWorks has a new website at http://www.storyworksglam.co.uk with mainly health-related digital stories about OCD, ADHD, cancer, etc. This organisation has also done work with explanatory storytelling. For example, they worked with the…
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Digital Storytelling in Nordic countries
I had a query recently from Liz Milner, Bristol, via Mandy Rose, asking about digital storytelling in Scandinavia and northern Europe. Here’s a list of the ones I could think of; please feel free to add others using Comments: Hanne Jones, Christer Fasmer and Eli Lea of Digital Fortellinger . See also the end of this blog post for more in English about that project. Lisa Heledd, formerly of the BBC Capture Wales team has trained trainers in Norway. The European Center for Digital Storytelling is part of the CDS and they have a Ning Group. You need to join (free) to read and post. CDS has run other projects…
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Keep doing what we could not finish
Great to see Love Letters to the Future nominated for this year’s SXSW Interactive Awards: One of the notes sealed inside the time capsule is: “Please, you have to keep doing what we could not finish” by Manuela, Argentina http://www.loveletterstothefuture.com/ Another notable nomination is: http://sketch.odopod.com This is an addictive and therapeutic web sketcher with a lovely feel and texture to the brushes and pens. And I guess you can use the images you create to illustrate a digital story.
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Breaking Barriers Digital Storytelling screening in South Wales
‘Same Place; Different Routes’ digital stories are being screened by Breaking Barriers at Llanhilleth Institute on Thursday 28th January 2010 at 7pm. ‘Same Place; Different Routes’ has three strands examining the experiences of: recent migrants to Wales and people who moved here some years ago, different generations living together in the Valleys people with a range of mental health issues. Also being screened on the night are stories made as part of the centenary celebrations at Christchurch Aberbeeg and from Breaking Barriers’ recent Training the Trainers courses. Ruth Garnault of Breaking Barriers says: “We believe that everybody has a story to tell and these stories are touching, funny and moving. …
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Christmas Wren Hunting in Wales – Hela Dryw
Hela Dryw – Hunting the Wren is a Welsh Christmas tradition enacted on Twelfth Night. Villagers hunted and killed the wren and carried its body in a decorated ‘house’. They called from door to door and people paid money to peep at the dead bird: The wren is no longer killed today for Hela Dryw (or Hela’r Dryw as it’s sometimes called). Using a Nokia N93, I filmed this re-enactment at the National Welsh Folk Museum’s Nadolig festival last week.
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A Thousand Words
A Thousand Words from Ted Chung on Vimeo. A year ago, I pondered about Stories That Work with the Sound Turned Off. Today I saw this four-minute movie: A Thousand Words. The movie’s by Ted Chung; thanks for the link to @ShortFilmFest) It’s a personal story – albeit fiction, maybe – but it’s an utterly engaging ‘silent’ movie about a chance encounter. It’s got romance, zing and it leaves you wanting more. This four minute personal romance is a perfect form for civic screens, noisy pubs, tube escalators, etc. I love it.
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DS4 Festival of Digital Storytelling 2009 cribsheet
Telling stories of Llanberis slate and Hollywood features, more than a hundred digital storytellers gathered for the annual digital storytelling festival in Aberystwyth. Here’s my illustrated story of the day… L to R: Annette Mees, Dai Evans (holding the new-technology version of a teaspoon) and Bonnie Shaw. DS4 – 17 June 2009, Aberystwyth Arts Centre Huw Davies showed intergenerational stories based around old silent colour footage of farming in north-east Wales. And announced he’s secured £200k funding for a feature film mixing old and new footage, with the new being shot by 150 especially-trained film-makers/digital storytellers in Rhyl. Annette Mees described how playing Big Ball Bingo and listening to community-members’…
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Three digital storytelling ideas for museums
If you work in a museum, library or archive and you’re looking for digital storytelling inspiration, here are links to three ideas in this blog: Archive Meets Storytelling – A step-by-step set of instructions on how to run a workshop which delivers short videos mixing considered but unscripted personal reminiscence with existing archive footage. What a Museum is – Pondering on museum paradigms: “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…