Digital StorytellingM.A Reilly

What is Digital Storytelling?

Digital storytelling is the enrichment of a traditional narrative with photographs, audio, video, graphics, animation and other media by means of computer or internet-based applications.

Hardware and Software Requirements

Digital camera/video player

Scanner to scan non-digital images

Computer

External or built in microphone

Movie Creation Software such as:

Windows Movie Maker and/or Photo Story for PCs

iMovie for Macs

Online applications such as VoiceThread and Animoto

VoiceThread

A collaborative multimedia slide show with images, videos, and documents and oral and written comments

Easy to use

http://voicethread.com

Animoto

http://animoto.com/

“Animoto automatically produces beautifully orchestrated, completely unique video pieces from your photos, video clips and music. Fast, free and shockingly easy.” (from website)

Media Formats Used to Tell Stories

graphic,

motion graphic (ex. A flip book),

video,

animation,

text,

photo,

audio

Stories: A STORY NARRATED WITH YOUR VOICE

Stories created in a narrative style are the most personal in topic and tone. Written in first person, narrative stories are narrated with your own voice. Narrative digital stories are often the source of personal discovery and introspection, where we generally find out something personal about the author. The story “drives”—or takes precedence over—the images; the meaning is expressed through the narrative and supported visually by the images.

Digital Essay

Stories: A STORY WITH MUSIC

Most commonly recognized as music videos, this type of production is a story without words, although captions, titles and the blending of lyrics and visual imagery can personalize the piece.

Stories: A STORY WITH INTERVIEWS

Different people (including yourself) tell a story with interviews and the author provides supplemental images to support what is being spoken about. A common technique is to weave an entire story through the voice and reflections of others; this method is enhanced through multimedia technology, which allows voices to be heard while different images are seen. A story using interviews can also be mixed with a story including narrative.

Digital Story Based on Interview“Tocayo” (Student production SFETT)

Personal Story Themes

REMEMBRANCE OR MEMORIAL STORIES

Stories that acknowledge, honor or reflect on the life of one who has died.

RELATIONSHIP STORIES

Stories of significant relationships in your life. Common subjects are immediate relations, including parents, grandparents, siblings, spouse or partner. Other meaningful relationships may include a business or creative partner, a teacher or mentor, childhood or lifelong friends, even pets. Who are these subjects and what impact have they made on your life? Consider including stories of love, admiration, longing or loss, disappointment or a poignant reflection of a person.

Personal Story Themes

THE GENESIS STORY

Almost all people can point to a significant moment or event in the past that was a determining factor in how things are today, e.g., “If my mother had not taken a ceramics class, she would not have met my father....” The genesis story is an essential part of almost all family histories, examining the question, “Where do we come from?”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/audiovideo/sites/yourvideo/pages/raphael_schutzerweissmann_01.shtml

STORIES OF CHALLENGE

Stories in which you have experienced challenge and how (or whether) you overcame it. They can be physical as well as mental challenges, i.e., the challenge of climbing a 15,000-foot mountain, conquering the fear of changing careers or returning to school after an extended absence.

Example: http://www.storycenter.org/stories/ SOFAS by Wayne Richard

Personal Story Themes

OBJECTS AND ARTIFACTS

All of us have owned or known of a possession that held tremendous value in our lives and the compelling stories that accompany them. Objects or artifacts can be as varied as a lucky charm, a rock found on a memorable hike or a precious family heirloom handed down through many generations. What are these objects, how do they exist in your life and what value do you place on them?

HURT AND HEALING

Sadly, it is guaranteed that human beings will experience at least some element of emotional suffering. Stories about pain and the healing process are ultimately about resurrection and finding a way to continue. These types of stories can be about hurt and how that changed you.

SFETT: “the system”

Informational Stories

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006/02/18/national/20060219_SMUGGLE_AUDIOSS.html

Sample Digital Stories from Wales

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/audiovideo/sites/galleries/pages/capturewales.shtml

Jason Ohler’s site: http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/index.cfm

6 Steps to a Digital Story

Step One: What To Say?

Step Two: Artifact Search: images, music, voice

Step Three: Story Board

Step Four: Revision

Step Five: Construction

Step Six: Screening

Digital Story that Began with Images

Story Sources

Our identities are filled with stories, which provide insight into who we are. Stories mined from our lives are a direct connection to what our experience on the human journey is. Stories can explain and illuminate:

Who we are

Where we came from

Where we are going

What we care about

What is important to us

That’s Who I Am

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/audiovideo/sites/yourvideo/pages/raphael_schutzerweissmann_01.shtml

That's Who I Am

By Raphael Schutzer Weissmann

September 2004,

A digital story from Who Do You Think You Are?

Getting Started: What To Say?

1. Draw a detailed map of your neighborhood. Include the layout of the streets, homes of friends and strange neighbors, schools, local hangouts, and so forth

2. In a journal exercise, respond to the following: “Think of your favorite childhood coat. What is in your pockets?”

3. Respond to the following: “Write about a decisive moment (one where you ended up heading in an unanticipated direction) in your life.”

Step Two: Artifact Search

Use a digital camera to capture images related to your story.

Photograph artifacts that relate to the words you use in your story.

Step 3: Storyboarding

Map on paper each image, technique, and element of their story by constructing a storyboard.

This visual story had two dimensions: chronology—what happens and when—and interaction—how audio information interacts with the images.

Step 4: Revision Techniques

Option 1: Highlighting

Students marked up their scripts, highlighting all of the action in green and all of the reflection in pink. Too much pink indicated too much preaching. Too much green indicated that the writer was telling an anecdote with no implications.

Option 2: Timeline

Students rearranged the order of events, making them either more or less chronological (Heard 99).

Option 3: Exploding Sentences

There were two possible plans of attack here. First, writers worked to explode the sentence into a slow- motion retelling (helpful to the text that will be read aloud). Or, writers thought of the explosion as more of a magnifying glass, focusing on pinpointed, targeted specifics (Heard 32–38).

Step 5: Construction

To build your digital stories, you will need to: to import or digitize their photos, add transitions and special effects to how they played, record narration, add sound tracking, and burn their finished work on a CD.

Step 6: Screen

Celebrate the finished stories.

Show digital stories. Have popcorn, etc.

Digital Stories in Spanish

http://www.umbc.edu/oit/newmedia/studio/digitalstories/projects.php?movie=SPAN305_Relato_digtal_Elver.flv

Please go to the following site and view two stories told by Heritage Spanish speakers. Could your students collect heritage Spanish speakers’ stories? How might that help them to deepen their language?

From UMBC Digital Stories