The end-of-workshops screening – along with the storycircle – is everyone’s favourite part of the workshop. This afternoon at two at Valleys Kids, Soar Chapel, Penygraig, Rhondda, we’re holding the Rhondda Lives! screening and I’m really looking forward to it. This week has been a fantastic one with ten people making a personal film with Valleys Kids using archive footage from BBC Wales and the National Screen and Sound Archive in a project funded by Heritage Lottery money. This project has been a lot of hard work for a lot of people and – seeing the stories that people have made – makes me realise it’s worth all the hard…
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Participative media in the mass media
My friend and colleague Rhys Williams just showed me a website he’s project managed for a new Welsh-language TV show for young people called Mosgito. I haven’t watched it yet but judging by the website this looks like a fantastic show, where the producers have woven elements of participative media into the on-air programme. They’ve recruited a team of participants – Gwegang – who use their own webcams to record pieces for the show. Other kinds of participation are also encouraged. In the Citcreu (create-kit) area, there are video tutorials on storytelling, camerawork, animation as well as uploaders so authors can share their work. It’s great to see a programme…
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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…
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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…
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photos of DS2 by Carwyn Evans and Huw Davies
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DS2 pictures by Tyron Francis
Here’s a link to a Flickr gallery of pictures taken at the DS2 Digital Storytelling festival by Swansea-based digital storyteller, Tyron Francis: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tfrancis/sets/72157600422926983/
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What a successful festival
I’ve been at the DS2 Digital Storytelling festival in Aberystwyth for the past three days and it’s been great! On Tuesday and Wednesday, my colleagues Huw Davies, Lisa Heledd and Carwyn Evans ran a Mobile Phone Storytelling workshop. I went to the final screening and the stories were very good. These three people, along with Gilly Adams and Daniel Meadows, are probably the most skilled practitioners of digital storytelling in the whole world. Director of the Aberystwyth Arts Centre hosted a delicious and healthy pre-festival meal on Wednesday … then we enjoyed a cabaret show by www.19-27.co.uk where a clever alignment of actors against a fantastic animated projection take you…
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Second annual digital storytelling festival DS2
As well as being one of the BBC Wales digital storytelling team, I’m a member of a national umbrella organisation for digital storytellers in Wales: DS Cymru.DS Cymru and Aberystwyth Arts Centre are organising our second annual festival, DS2, in Aberystwyth, mid Wales, on 21 June 2007 Speakers include: Daniel Meadows – http://www.photobus.co.uk Shawn Micallef – http://murmurtoronto.ca/ John Freyer – http://www.allmylifeforsale.com There are all kinds of breakout sessions, masterclasses, screenings, a cabaret and BBC Wales is holding an innovative mobile phone storytelling project in the two days running up to the festival.Visit the DS2 webpage for details of how to attend.
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DS1 Digital Storytelling Conference 20-23 June 2006 Aberystwyth Arts Centre
Daniel Meadows presented the morning keynote at DS1 in Aberystwyth. No matter how many times I hear Daniel speak, I always learn something new. His insistence on everyone having access to the mass media is fantastic. Big media could learn lots by listening to him. One of my first introductions to digital storytelling was the Great Canadian Story Engine website. Ana Serrano was behind this project. She was also involved in one of my favourite location-based story projects – murmur – run by Shawn Micalef and friends. Ana began her DS1 keynote in Aberystwyth by re-telling Twm Morus’s story about a farmhouse extension blocking a fairies’ highway and drew analogies…