When you’re working on storytelling with a group of people in a situation like the Digital Storytelling Storycircle, there’s one game that often really helps people to come up with ‘their story’. It’s the Match Game and it’s Gilly Adams who pioneered its use in Digital Storytelling. Gilly wrote instructions for this game to be inserted into give-away boxes of the long-handled cooks matches you need to play this game when we went on the Digital Storytelling Gathering tour around Wales last month. In the interests of sharing these instructions with people I’ll meet in Japan, I’m reproducing Gilly’s instructions here: ————————————— Alan Thomas plays the match game at BBC…
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On Top of the World
That’s the title for a 30-minute documentary TV programme my colleague Melanie Lindsell has made with young Welsh climber Tori James about her attempt to climb Everest. The programme goes out on BBC Wales on 6 May (see below) Melanie’s an experienced Video Nation producer and she’s also had success with longer-form documentaries using the self-authored ethos of Video Nation. Because I knew the kit would need to be lightweight, durable and able to work under harsh conditions, I asked Mel about the cameras and batteries she gave Tori. Here’s Mel’s reply: BBC Mini DV Camera: Panasonic NV-GS150 · Weighs 400grams – they were able to hang it on a…
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Media Exprimo, Japan
Back in 2003, BBC Wales organised an International Digital Storytelling Conference. Two of the many attendees travelled to Cardiff all the way from Japan to be with us: 1. Akiko Ogawa, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Studies on Contemporary Society at Aichi Shukutoko University and 2. Aske Dam a Norwegian participatory media specialist who has worked extensively in the Far East on developments in mobile technology. This wasn’t the last time I met Akiko and Aske. They’ve both maintained a lively interest in Digital Storytelling developments in Wales. In fact, Akiko has returned to Wales twice: she came to a Digital Storytelling workshop we ran in Cardiff and she…
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Download this new guide to digital storytelling
It’s by the BBC Capture Wales team and we wrote it to coincide with the Digital Storytelling Gathering tour around Wales last month. It’s on the BBC Wales Digital Storytelling website. Hope you find it useful. Here’s a link to the html menu page on the BBC website. And here’s a link to the pdf download which has a bonus section by Lisa Heledd outlining various new forms of digital storytelling, together with instructions – DS Recipe Cards, kind of. The pdf currently lacks Simon Turner’s fantastic article about recording people’s voices. Table of Contents: Introduction The ideal venue Briefing participants Find the story Getting the story down on paper…
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Curtains open, lights on
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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Happy St David’s Day
Happy St David’s Day Here’s a short clip of a song sung by children at a school in south Wales to celebrate the national day of the patron saint of Wales, sung at Cardiff Castle on 1 March 2008. I’ve obscured the images of the children on purpose. Diolch i chi blant am godi calonnau pawb a gwneud i ni deimlo’n falch i fod yn Gymry. Click to play Recorded using the excellent hand-held Zoom H2 audio recorder, with thanks to Zoom for the loan of this.
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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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How to win a BAFTA
Step 1: make your own a 60-second movie, based on the theme ‘unite’. Step2: register and enter. Step 3: there’s no Step 3. P.S. here’s the film that won last year‘s BAFTA. There’s a Wales category and winner too.