I’ve been working at the National Eisteddfod in Wrexham all this week and there have been some nice digital inclusion stories here that I’ve come across… Age Cymru have been doing some great work in encouraging older people who aren’t currently using computers or the internet to get an idea of how digital tools might be able to enhance their lives. Merched y Wawr – a Welsh women’s organisation – had the fantastic idea of raising money by auctioning famous women’s shoes. They called the campaign Sodlau’n Siarad / Stories from the Sole. The lovely touch was the story the auctioneers told about each pair. At the auction last night…
-
-
Digital Stories may be ideal for Welsh TV channel S4C
This sounds like an interesting opportunity for someone who wants to pitch an idea for a series of Welsh-language digital stories to S4C. It’s from the Content section of S4C’s Vision for 2012 and Beyond (PDF). “We will establish a new brand, Calon Cenedl (heart of the nation), a series of short programmes approximately three-minutes long to be broadcast at 20.25. The content will offer us the opportunity to exhibit the full range of Welsh life in a series of portrayals about areas, communities and people. This new brand can be extended to include half-hour programmes at other times during peak hours when the editorial strength of the idea merits…
-
Rami Malkawi needs people to make a digital story with his new prototype
Rami Malkawi is a Jordanian University of Glamorgan PhD researcher and he needs our help to try out his new wizard-based digital storytelling prototype for learning. The tool works on most computers that can have Adobe Air and Flash installed and is a step-by-step digital storytelling ‘machine’. The 30MB executable file is available from this SpeedyShare link or by clicking the link at the bottom of the first post of Rami’s blog. The tool’s wizard guides users through the Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling in a user-friendly way. Camtasia screen-capture software has been used to publish additional video tutorials on the blog. These guide users through the steps needed to…
-
Culture Shock! museums and galleries digital storytelling conference 29 Sept 2011
It’s always a treat to hear about a brand new digital storytelling conference. And here’s some news of a new one one this autumn in the north-east of England. Culture Shock! is one of the biggest digital storytelling projects in the world. At the time of writing they’ve published 560 stories on their website and they’re holding a major conference at Live Theatre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on Thursday 29 September 2011 – Culture Shock! 2011. The conference programme looks really interesting: Alex Henry, project co-ordinator at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, talks about the Culture Shock! project itself; Barrie Stephenson of Digistories answers the question ‘What is digital storytelling?’; and there…
-
Digital Storytellers from Italy and Jordan in Wales
I shared my journey to the DS6 festival of digital storytelling, with Simona Bonini Baldini and Rami Malkawi. I’ll never forget the excitement in the car as we rounded the corner of Aberystwyth’s side streets and caught our first full-on view of the sea crashing onto the West Wales shore. A magic moment. As I promised in my last post in which I reviewed DS6, here’s some more information about their respective work in the digital storytelling field. Simona’s work in Umbria, Italy, links personal reminiscence of various locations with that Region’s extensive home movie archive. Simona was delighted to meet two other women from Italy who had made the…
-
How your own hand can help you find your story
Here’s an idea you can try at the story-origination phase of your next digital storytelling workshop. Ask everyone to place their hand on a blank piece of paper and draw round it, kindergarten style. Ask people to write a line on each digit, in response to this: Little finger: what’s the best thing that’s happened to you so far this year? Ring finger: Looking further back in time, name one highlight of your life. Middle finger: thinking of your family, what makes you most proud of being you? Did your grandfather have a fascinating job? Has your family made its mark in your town? Index finger: pointing to the future,…
-
From Truprint to Facebook
Up until the 1990s, passing round a Truprint envelope full of 6″ x 4″ photographic prints was the norm; nowadays we publish our own online and ‘Like’ our friends’ photos on Facebook. Increasingly, that’s how we pass round our snapshots. This is a great moment to capture that change in the way we share our personal photos. “From Snapshots to Social Media – The Changing Picture of Domestic Photography” is a new book by Risto Sarvas and David Frohlich from University of Surrey. David has a fascinating history in Digital Storytelling as the pioneer of Audio Photography and one of the people behind the StoryBank digital storytelling sharing project in…
-
Video Nation – final screening
Last night was a poignant one. Even before I was involved with digital storytelling, I’ve been a fan of BBC Video Nation. I first became aware of it when I saw an job ad in the early 1990s announcing that the BBC Community Programmes Unit was recruiting people to develop uses for the Hi8 analogue camcorders that had heralded the introduction of near-broadcast-quality consumer video cameras. The fruits of that project, founded by Mandy Rose and Chris Mohr, were five to ten-minute video shorts scheduled before Newsnight on BBC 2 TV. Last night I went to London’s ICA Cinema for the final screening of Video Nation Network’s Turn Back Time…
-
How to get your short film seen by 500 million
When Newport University film studies lecturer and social action broadcast specialist Peter Watkins-Hughes went to Tredegar Comprehensive School students with an idea for a short film about teenage drink driving they said: “It’s not drunk driving that’s the biggest problem; it’s texting while driving”. Peter didn’t have much of a budget, so he asked Gwent Police for help. They gave advice, use of their helicopter, their vehicles and their officers as ‘extras’. When the film was shot and edited, Peter put it on You Tube so he could send a link to BBC commissioners. Within a week, the film had had 50 views. It then rose to 200. Then Peter…
-
Victim and Victor
You can now embed CultureShock‘s digital stories on your websites or blogs, thanks to a new feature on their website. So here’s the story Victim and Victor by Michael Crannage which CultureShock’s Alex Henry showed at DS5: