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…
-
-
Six steps to a sustainable digital storytelling project
If you’re planning a digital storytelling project, and you want it to be a sustainable one, here are six steps to consider: 1. write an outline of the ethos your project will employ, encompassing: * fair dealing with contributors and participants, * contracting, * intellectual property and third-party rights, * licensing-on the products your participants make, * capturing and storing consents by parents/guardians/carers of minors and vulnerable people, * diversity policy * disclosure policy * how to keep participants’ personal data safe, * etc. 2. write a summary of all your storyteller recruitment methods. The difficulty of this isn’t to be underestimated, as this was an element that turned out…
-
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.
-
Four strategic questions to ask yourself when planning digital storytelling projects
Asking yourself these four questions should help you when strategically planning digital storytelling projects: 1. how will you address consents? Privacy laws in the UK are more relaxed than in other countries like France. Setting laws to one side, ask yourself: if that was me/my child in that story, would I be happy? What will be the wording of your formal release form or contract which makes the storyteller’s consent explicit? 2. who will own the copyright of the finished stories and will exhibition licences be explicitly attached and will they be exclusive or non-exclusive licences? You can have the intellectual property resting with the storyteller, with a licence granted to…
-
Seven things to avoid when making a digital story
1. Telling your story in a straight line 2. Fancy video effects 3. A less than perfect voice recording 4. Corny visual cliches 5. Nothing but show and tell 6. Twee rhyming poetry 7. Using other people’s stuff As you can see as you follow the links, I’m doing a little recycling here because the individual articles are reprised. But this is the first time I’ve laid these out as a Top 7 of digital storytelling tips. If you find this Top 7 useful, tell other people by linking to it, re-tweeting or pasting the address into your Facebook update. And happy digital storytelling. Thanks. Written and first published by…
-
How to squeeze digital storytelling advice into a little Tweet.
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.…
-
Moving image archive meets personal story
Here’s more about how we worked with people who had stories to tell about what the heritage of the Rhondda Valleys in Wales means to them in Valleys Kids’ Rhondda Lives project. This post follows a question from Cheryl Colan: “…Did the individual storytellers work with and direct the video editor? If they spent only 2 hours doing so, I imagine the editor did a reasonable amount of preparatory work, getting clips to choose from lined up, prior to this work session?…” There were many days of preparatory work in researching, finding, selecting, rights-clearing, digitising, etc. the clips. Lona Wharton and Gareth Morris did this at the BBC and Dafydd…
-
The ideal voice recording room for your digital storytelling workshop
This room needs to be very quiet indeed. Switch off any noisy lights, air conditioning, fans, clocks, computers, etc. The fewer echoes in the room the better; safe clutter is good. The voice-recording room needs to be available throughout the production workshop. It can be small – just big enough to accommodate three people, recording equipment and microphone. May need to have power points, even if only to re-charge batteries / portable voice recorders. This is the third in a mini-series of four articles on www.aberth.com/blog about the ideal spaces for your digital storytelling workshop. Written and first published by Gareth Morlais on 5 July 2009
-
The ideal production room for your digital storytelling workshop
This is where the digital stories will be made. There needs to be enough space, tables, chairs to accommodate all the equipment and people. Power points along two sides of the room makes safe rigging easier. It’s good if it has natural light and ventilation but’s essential it can be made dark enough for images from the data projector to have impact. E.g. some kind of blinds or curtains for blackout. If you’re running a workshop – as opposed to one-to-one – set the furniture out classroom style, in rows, facing the screen. Allow adequate space for the data projector to show from the back of the room. There also…
-
The ideal venue for your digital storytelling workshop
This is the first in a mini-series of four articles on www.aberth.com/blog about the ideal spaces for your digital storytelling workshop. Easy access for people with disabilities to all rooms is essential, including toilets and eating-places. Also – there needs to be reasonable access and parking for the vehicle you’ll be get-in and get-out equipment. Ideally, parking close by for people driving to the workshop. If this is not possible, then people need to be informed of the nearest public car park. The venue should be accessible by public transport. Here’s a cribsheet, a checklist of things to look out for when choosing your venue: Nearby parking and public transport…