Here are three links I wanted to share with you in the area of storytelling, participation and citizenship: 1. http://www.friction.tv/ If you’ve got a webcam and a microphone plugged into your computer, you can contribute to this site. It partners with Channel 5 news and is a managable way to get your point across on video. The drawback is that it’s difficult to make a polished piece: good sound and light, memorising something fluid and engaging, looking comfortable in front of the camera, etc. Oftentimes though, the speaker’s passion shines through. From Mandy Rose 2. http://voicethread.com/ A Flash-based online storytelling tool. You can add photos from Flickr or your computer,…
-
-
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…
-
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…
-
Scottish stories
The first of BBC Scotland’s Highland Lives videos and audio slideshows are now live at http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/highlandlives/. I watched two videos – To Catch a Lobster and Love to Grow. They were mainly video with some still images. They had some really rare moments and certainly revealed something special about the authors and their lives. Having the camera still – on a tripod – when the author was in shot yet often moving when they were out of shot reciforced the image of the author holding the camera and ‘calling the shots’. Having some still images in the video worked well too. The storyteller edits their own video in the workshop.…
-
18 things a digital storyteller needs
I’ve just updated my shopping list here: brand new Aberth Digital Storytelling Resources It’s actually the first page of a brand new sister website to this blog. Aberth Digital Storytelling Resources is a response to what a number of people have asked for: a site that brings together in one place all kinds of equipment and software that digital storytellers will find useful. I’ve chosen to focus on items on sale on eBay because it’s a great way of presenting current resources (like flashcard portable audio recorders)Â alongside discontinued software (like the digital storyteller’s old favourite Adbe Premiere 6.5 which can be installed on both Macs and PCs). I hope you…
-
Freelancing opportunities
I bumped into Sue Williams of Hyperaction at an Adobe event in Cardiff last week. It was nice to catch up with her and hear about some very exciting plans Hyperaction are making. They’ve just put out a call for freelancers in the south Wales area which I’m pasting here in the hope it’ll be of interest to Aberth DS blog readers. ——————– HyperAction has been running award-winning multimedia projects with schools and the community since 1997. (http://www.hyperaction.org.uk) Due to a number of exciting new projects in development, we are seeking to expand our pool of freelance workers who can work with us on multimedia projects in a number of…