I’ve always been puzzled by this paradox: people get so many new skills by making their first digital story …. yet most people only ever produce one digital story. It was Jenny Kidd, whose PhD subject was Digital Storytelling at the BBC, who drew my attention to this. The team at University of Glamorgan (called South Wales University since 2013) has been exploring lowering some of the barriers to continuation by devising forms that use widely-available online production tools and social media tools. Carwyn Evans, Lisa Heledd Jones and Susie Pratt of BBC Wales and University of Glamorgan held a workshop in Aberystwyth just before DS3 where they led a…
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Job in Toronto – murmur hiring
Dear friend of [murmur], Shawn Micallef sent me an email this morning saying that [murmur] is looking to hire an executive director to help move the project forward. He asked recipients of the mail to pass it on, so here it is: “[murmur] is looking for an inspirational leader. We’re seeking someone passionate about community, cities, and storytelling to guide and grow [murmur]’s collaborations and projects. The director will be responsible for managing and producing [murmur], and leading its expansion through writing grant applications, securing commissions, and cultivating relationships with potential funders. On the “producing” side, this means taking care of stuff like: – Recording & editing stories – Installing…
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DS3 Festival of Digital Storytelling – cribsheet
I’ve just returned from the DS3 Festival of Digital Storytelling at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. It was another successful festival, following on from and expanding on last year’s DS2. People had travelled from all over Wales and Britain. I met delegates from Belfast, USA and there was someone who’d come from New Zealand too. Day1 – Thursday 5 June 2008 A Public Voice – Digital storytelling, narrative and pedagogy. By Prof. Hamish Fyfe & Susie Pratt, University of Glamorgan; Karen Lewis, Lisa Heledd, BBC Cymru Wales Karen Lewis set the context of the research that’s being done with AHRC support. Hamish Fyfe gave a description of storytelling across the ages and…
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Geoff Charles, Welsh documentary photographer
I met Culturenet Cymru’s Sioned Rhys Jones and Hawys Tomos at Eisteddfod yr Urdd, Conwy, last week. As part of the National Library of Wales and funded by Heritage Lottery and Welsh Assembly Government, Culturenet Cymru is working on a project based in Aberystwyth called ‘From Warfare to Welfare’. There’re doing three things: 1. helping people to make digital stories. Young people work with older people to make a digital story of 1939-1959 recollections 2. staging multimedia conferences 3. digitising photos by Geoff Charles I nearly fell off my chair when they told me about the Geoff Charles element. Geoff was a prolific Welsh documentary photographer. He took a photo…
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Signals from society
I’ve been corresponding recently with Wim Kievits who’s had an interest in Digital Storytelling for some time. He recently contacted me regarding a presentation he’s making in the Netherlands later this week. He asked what triggered BBC Wales’s interest in starting Capture Wales and asked: “Can you tell me or point out to me how the whole initiative started? What were the initial challenges (or signals from society) you encountered that made you decide to start this initiative?” Well I can’t speak on behalf of BBC Wales but I can remember a time when it used to cost £30,000 to buy a machine to edit video. So it was expensive/exclusive…
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Festival of Digital Storytelling 2008
Registration is now open for Wales’s third annual Festival of Digital Storytelling at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Thursday 5th and Friday 6 June 2008. And – wearing my DS Cymru member hat – I’d like to invite you to come 🙂 Yes, DS3 has expanded to two days this year and, as it says on the website: “Whether you work in education, the community or as an artist, it is your opportunity to share experiences, explore new creative ideas, see the latest technological developments, look at examples of best practise in the U.K. and worldwide and celebrate the growing significance of Digital Storytelling” I’m really looking forward to this year’s…
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Longer form personal storytelling on Everest
I watched a recording of On Top of the World this lunchtime. This is the half-hour programme by Tori James, the first Welsh woman and youngest British woman ever to climb Everest. It was shot almost entirely using the kinds of devices anyone can buy in the High St. It’s a gripping, endearing piece of TV. Goes to show what can be done in the longer form, using attainable technology, when the storytelling’s done well. Full credit to producer Melanie Lindsell who worked closely with Tori on the storytelling, editing and post production. If you live in the UK, for the next six days you can watch this programme on…
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Unknown Shonan
I’ve observed that working on stories in a group usually helps individuals to improve their story and I love watching how stories are improved, thanks to the group dynamics. That’s one of the reasons digital storytelling works so well as a group workshop activity. One University of Tokyo project, called Unknown Shonan, is the first I’ve heard of that compares narratives arrived at individually with those arrived at by working in a group. Shonan is Japan’s Brighton. It’s a bohemian seaside city about an hour by train from Tokyo. Universtiy of Tokyo researchers worked with participants, mixing historic photos with participant-taken ones where individuals are asked to make five-photo captioned…
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Tokyo Video Scrapbook
Tokyo and Mell Expo 2008 were absolutely mindblowing. A more considered summary of Mell Expo 2008 will follow. For now, with music by B’z, is a montage of (Ricoh) images and (Nokia N93) video clips that capture the flavour of the event and the trip. Hope you enjoy it:
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Tokyo Mell Expo 2008 presentation
There’s an enigma around technology, isn’t there? Take the mobile phone for example. We used to use just it to make phonecalls; now phones have near-broadcast-quality video cameras on board too. If only there was a way of releasing some more of the potential of technology for the benefit of society… Let me start with some questions about this: 1. What motivation and opportunities could be given to people in Japan to make more use of the creative capacity of their mobile devices and computers? 2. Which ‘forms’ of Digital Storytelling would be most attractive in this country to both author & audience of the content?3. And how could this…