DS4, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wednesday 17 June 2009. Updates to follow.
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Penyrenglyn screening
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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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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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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National Older People’s Day stories
Digital Stories available to watch again on BBC iPlayer until the middle of next week: “To celebrate National Older People’s Day and to change some outdated stereotypes on ageing, a collection of short stories written, recorded, edited and produced by people living in Wales.” This is a link for people reading this in the UK only, sorry, because iPlayer only works in the UK.
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New Wales Media Literacy blog
Wales Literacy Network launched a new blog at the annual Eisteddfod meet last night: http://walesmedialiteracy.org.uk/blog/ Other highlights of the night included an update about NIACE Cymru’s work by Essex Harvard; an insight into user testing and user participation in the Welsh youth TV programme Mosgito by its web executive producer Nia M. Davies and examples of clay animation and Welsh web terms standardisation.
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Simon Collinge
Simon Collinge has been a pioneer and a champion of Digital Storytelling in Wales for the past seven years and he’s leaving Yale College Wrexham this week to go freelance. Sometimes, when you’re setting something new up, you need someone high up who ‘gets’ it, who says ‘yes’ and covers your back when change threatens your very existence. That’s what Simon’s been so good at doing in Wrexham. He’s recruited some top Digital Storytelling facilitators and supported their growth and the growth of their project to the impressive point where the Yale Centre for Digital Storytelling is today. I can’t make it to the farewell party tomorrow but I know…