The Capture Wales team has been holding a series of five Digital Storytelling Gatherings around Wales. We’ve held them in Caernarfon, Aberystwyth, Swansea, Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff. The final one – in Cardiff – was held today and it was fantastic! More than 100 individuals who are actively involved in or interested in facilitating digital storytelling activities in Wales have attended these days. Each day has been a chance for people who are involved in this work to meet others in their area, to enjoy watching stories together, learn a little about the history of digital storytelling, hear about recruiting participants (by Carwyn Evans), thinking about issues around ownership of…
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Thanks for the memory
In the summer of 2007, my BBC Wales colleagues Carwyn Evans, Lisa Heledd, Robin Moore and I worked with Microsoft Research Centre via Participate in the testing of a prototype wearable camera called Sensecam. Carwyn and Lisa gave Sensecam cameras and laptops to six people from south Wales from different backgrounds and with varying experience of digital media. They worked with Dave Randall and the teams at Microsoft Research, Participate and BBC Research & Innovation on a series of suggested tasks to test what it feels like to walk around all day with a device around your neck that captures automatic pictures every minute or less – and more often…
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How to upgrade your home video so it can be broadcast on TV
Between Christmas and New Year, we stayed with my brother in law Dylan’s family. Dylan’s wife had given him a camcorder for Christmas and he’d filmed his family opening and playing with their presents on Christmas morning. He played the disk back and it was interesting to watch how people construct home videos. What Dylan had shot was a documentary-style piece showing other people – but not Dylan himself – opening their presents. We did hear Dylan’s disconnected voice from behind the lens, giving a running commentary and asking questions to his subjects. Watching this home video set me wondering about what Dylan might need to do to get what…
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Archive meets storytelling
I’m hoping this is useful to people working in museums or with film archives…. I’ve written about Rhondda Lives! here before. This is a Valleys Kids Project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, BBC Wales and the National Sound and Screen Archive of Wales. I led a workshop held at Valleys Kids’ Soar Chapel at the end of November. This was a novel kind of digital storytelling experience because it fits edited, considered but unscripted personal reminiscence with existing archive footage shot in the Rhondda Valley between 1926-1986 or so. I’ll post a link to the stories from Aberth when they’re live. Step 1 – attend public screening at Valley’s…
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What God looks like
Hamish Fyfe: ‘I remember being in a classroom in Northern Ireland where the children were drawing. I noticed one little girl of about seven and asked her what she was drawing. “I’m doing a drawing of God” she said. I said I thought that was interesting since a lot of people didn’t really know what God looked like. “Oh”, she said, “that’s alright, they will in a minute”.’ That’s a story Prof. Fyfe told at University of Glamorgan last night as he set out his vision for society where there are exciting new spaces set out for the arts. He show digital stories and compared today’s You Tube age with…
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Queuing and digital storytelling
When I lived in Ardfert, County Kerry, in the Republic of Ireland in the mid 90s, I remember a radio programme called ‘Queueing For A Living’ in which the presenter Paddy O’Gorman sought out queues of all kinds and recorded conversations he had with those waiting. From laundrettes to prison waiting rooms, there was something about the stories that came out of those everyday situations and people spoke of things I hadn’t heard many people speak of on radio before. I think Professor Hamish Fyfe of University of Glamorgan would have enjoyed that programme too. I’m looking forward to attending his inaugural professorial lecture this evening at the Glamorgan Business…
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Decisions decisions
If you’re starting out in digital storytelling, you face some fundamental decisions that will determine or be determined by equipment and software you have access to. I’m not going to give many answers today, but I’ll come back to these in future. It’s just useful to be aware of the scope… What kind of computer am I going to use: Apple or PC? Or am I going to use a device like a mobile phone? Am I going to work in Standard Definition or High Definition? Which operating system am I going to choose: Windows, Apple, Linux? Will I launch the operating system from the comupter hard drive or will…
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It’s about the story
I gave a brief presentation about digital storytelling in Wales on behalf of BBC Wales as part of last night’s RTS Wales Media Literacy Network event at the University of Glamorgan’s new Atrium building in Cardiff. DK of Mediasnackers blogged the session here. I wanted to show a digital story called Set Free by Dean Byfield during my presentation. I invited Dean to come along and he and his wife Hailey were kind enough to come. There was heartfelt applause at the end of his story and Dean stood up and made a storming off-the-cuff speech about his experience of making his digital story. Here’s an outline of my presentation…
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Health and safety in public digital storytelling workshops
Here are some public health and safety considerations for digital storytelling workshop organisers. I hope they prove useful. Venue – nearby parking and public transport – accessibility for wheelchairs with no trip hazards – accessible toilets and break-out spaces – enough space, tables, chairs to accommodate all the equipment and people and to allow facilitators to move comfortably between participants – power points along two sides of the room makes safer rigging easier. – break-out spaces – because people will be working intensively together, maybe over a longish period – check if anyone has any special dietary needs and request food hygiene certificates from caterers for your records. (Thanks to…
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Digital story shopping list
We looked at workshop space in the last post, today it’s the kit. You want to bid for funding to set up a digital storytelling project, but you’re not sure what you’re going to need? Here’s a list to build from of examples of equipment needed to run digital storytelling and participatory media workshops. The kit specified below is all portable so, as long as extra trained personnel are available, workshops can be held in external community spaces as well as in the Workshop base. Here’s the shopping list: laptops with software to capture/edit/show video, image and audio with mains leads and spare batteries. I think Apple computers have been…