On the 5th and 6th of October I attended a Train the Trainer: Digital Storytelling Workshop in Levin. The workshop was hosted by the Horowhenua Library Trust and was delivered by Vanessa James. Vanessa is responsible for “Lasting Impressions”: the Coromandel Community Digital Storytelling Project.
The aim of the workshop was to show us how to organise, structure and facilitate our own workshops, but as part of the process we also got to make our own digital stories.
So what is Digital storytelling?
A Digital story is a very short documentary style film 2-5 minutes long. The focus of the film is the story, and the storytellers use a number of tools such as photographs, other images, narration, music, sound effects and titles to assist with telling that story.
Please look at the Coromandel Stories for a better idea.
http://www.harakeke.co.nz/DST_CCDSP_index.html.
What makes a good story?
The story should be autobiographical and should draw on the storyteller’s personal experiences and memories. It can be about a person, a place, or a special event. The story can be used to create a record, to inform, as a tribute, to pass on knowledge, or to entertain. It should contain anecdotes and personal responses rather than just information. It should cause an emotional response in the viewer, such as humour, sadness, or poignancy.
Key points of the workshop
Workshop participants don’t need any specific computer experience to make a digital story, but they do need to be able to use a mouse and keyboard and be able to open and save files.
All the work is done by the participant. The facilitator is there to assist the participant when they need help, not to do the work for them. The participant should be able to follow verbal instructions and work sheets to be able to create their story.
The point of the workshop is to create a single digital story. It is not about teaching the participant to use the software, or for them to be able to make digital stories at home.
Those 60+ and people with a minimum number of computer skills can be more successful in creating their stories than someone young who has advanced computer skills. Older people often have more time to work on their stories before the workshop.
The story can easily get lost with the addition of special effects and music.
What does the workshop entail?
The narrative:the story is the most important part of the digital story. At a preliminary meeting a month prior to the workshop, participants are given a strict word limit for their story, about 200-300 words, and an outline of how their story should be structured. The participant then has a month to write their story and find images to illustrate it.
The audio: at the workshop a professional sound technician records the storyteller telling their story. It should sound natural.
The images: The participant’s images are scanned and made into a digital file. There is a strict number of the amount of images a participant can use, as you can only see so many images in two minutes. The images can be old family photos, holiday snaps, excerpts from newspapers, items such as birth certificates or stock images off the internet (non-copyrighted of course).
The editing: The narration and the images are then pasted together using video editing software, such as Adobe Premier Elements.
The soundtrack and photoshop: once the images and narration are matched up they are enhanced using sound effects such as birds tweeting, or waves crashing, and evocative music is added. The images can also be cleaned up with photoshop, so images can be cropped, or lightened etc.
The Special effects and transitions: Special effects are used to pan out or zoom in on parts of the picture, or create movement in the images. Transitions are used to blend one photo with the next.
Lastly: titles are added at the beginning of the story and credits at the end. You can also add words to other parts of you film if need be.
And hey presto it’s done!
Making my own story
Making my own digital story was a very interesting learning experience! The hardest part of the workshop was the preparation. It took me two full days to pull a story together and to source enough images to use in the story.
Writing the draft of my story was equally hard. I wrote what I though was a great story, only to find it was double the word limit. When I re-wrote the story it sounded great, until I read it out loud. The words you use to tell a story in print are very different from the words you use to tell a story orally!
The scariest part of the workshop was recording my narration, I was so nervous I kept speeding up and slowing my speech down and stammering. Luckily the sound technician was very good and very professional and let me re-do my narration a thousand times until I got it right.
The editing process itself was reasonably straight forward, although I had trouble getting my pictures to zoom in to the right spot without making the viewer feel seasick. I am a little unhappy with the finished film, I would have liked more time to tidy a few sections up, and length the transitions, but all in all it was quite a fun experience.
Louise
