Fantastic screening at Penyrenglyn Primary School yesterday afternoon. This was the final screening of the Rhondda Lives! project and it’s amazing what a legacy of digital stories remains after Katrina Kirkwood’s time leading this project for Valleys Kids. More than 75 have been made in 2007-9. One of the films, ‘Libraries in the Miners’ Lives’ by Margaret Thomas shows how these stories can give a fresh perspective and challenge assumptions. Margaret says it’s wrong to heap praise on mineowners by giving them labels as ‘philanthropists’. Mineowner David Davies may have helped fund Aberystwyth University but he sat back and watched his workers having to fund their own education by contributing…
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Portugal: International Conference on Digital Storytelling
Joe Lambert of the Center for Digital Storytelling has written with advance notice of a one-day International Conference on Digital Storytelling in Obidos, Portugal on Saturday, June 27. Details will be announced soon on storycenter.org
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Either shave your legs or get a sex change
‘A lad in me brother’s year said to me: “Either shave your legs or get a sex change.” I went home and told me mum and she stood me on a coffee table and shaved me legs with me dad’s razor.’ – overheard on a train near Chirk, 20:45, 26 February 2009.
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Five ways to make your digital storytelling project more sustainable
1. move away from the ‘once in a lifetime experience’ approach. Make it feel like a process that can become more of a ‘routine’ than a ‘treat’ event. 2. get people making stories using accessible tools. E.g. free web-based editing tools they’ll be able to continue using after you’ve moved on. 3.reduce the resources participants need to take part. If people don’t have an archive of their own photos, help them take bespoke contemporary ones; if people don’t have much time, offer a form they can create in less time; meet people where they already gather; etc. 4. scale up activities. E.g. hold training the trainers workshops so you get…
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Vulcan Pub, Cardiff
Stories are as much about the place where they’re shared as anything else. The walls of the old Vulcan Hotel in Cardiff have heard some gems over the years. My favourite Cardiff writer is John Williams who, I believe, is a regular drinker here, along with other Anglo-Welsh writers like Des Barry (who himself is a fan of digital storytelling). The pub’s been marked for demolition to make room for car parking in January 2009. There’s objection here to the removal of an important Cardiff landmark. There’s been talk of re-building it brick by brick at St Ffagan, the Welsh Folk Musem. The Vulcan was packed to the gunnels just…
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Call for entries for best use of archive footage award
Dec 1 is the deadline for submission for the Focal International Awards 2009 for best use of archive footage in all kinds of productions, including short films like digital stories. According to the rules: 1. they’ll only consider entries containing moving-image archive, not stills 2. there’s a £57.50 submission fee per entry. David Puttnam will present the awards to the winners in London on 5 May 2009.
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Remembrance stories
Here are two stories made especially to mark the fact that 90 years have passed since the end of World War I: Rappel – this is a music collaboration between Newport’s MC Gareth Leaman (Versatile) and DJ Jamie Winchester, Pentalk Lab, at the Riverfront in Newport. I’ve always been drawn to the storytelling aspect of rap and I think the mixing of rap with images of WWI by these two musicians gives a respectful contemporary reflection on the horrors of the Great War. My River – children from Llandogo Primary School in Monmouth remember their relatives who fought in WWl. The device of children holding their old family photos up…
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Inclusion award nomination
Communities@One has been nominated for a European inclusion award. I’m delighted about this because it’s largely thanks to C@1 funding and direct broker support that digital storytelling is thriving in Wales. Congratulations to Alun Burge and the team.
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Evidence of benefits to support funding bid
I was asked earlier today for links to reports outlining benefits of digital storytelling to communities by someone drafting a funding bid. I thought it might be useful to share these links with you. Many of these link to PowerPoint and PDF files: Case studies about DS and older people ssrg.org.uk – scotland victas.unitingcare.org.au Case study about working with second-generation immigrants: http://www.mediabiotope.com/ English at bottom of page Health therapeutic-effects-of-digital-storytelling where I posted a blog entry urging people to feed into Arts in Health Strategy Unfortunately, there’s no mention of DS in the strategy. Young people: you may be able to pull out a quote from ELI7021.pdf Education/public service archimuse.com ……
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End of workshop photo
You can tell how well a workshop went by looking at the end-of-workshop photo. This one was taken at the end of the first Media Conté Workshop where media exprimo and Aichi Shukutoku University worked with teenagers in Kani, Gifu Prefecture, in the centre of Japan’s largest island. Kani is well known for its car manufacturing. One of the leaders of Media Conté is Akiko Ogawa, who’s made two trips to Wales to study digital storytelling. She told me earlier this year there were many Japanese descendants from Brasil and other countries who had come to work in Kani’s factories. She told me she wanted to find a way of…