Archive for the ‘Resources’ Category
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
The launch of Community Voices projects is drawing nearer. Organisations will be invited to submit their projects for funding by The Media Trust early in the new year. I was interviewed by one the researchers from Corporate Citizenship who compiled the report that informs the approach to be taken by Media Trust towards the Community Voices project. It’s good to see that Digital Storytelling features in the report.
It is my intention be as fully involved in Community Voices as is practical, hoping to bring to the project my conviction that storytelling can be an important factor in digital inclusion. I am therefore pleased to able to offer support in any way I can, including displaying the project’s logo and links on my sites. If you want to know more just click on the logo or the links.
Posted in Event, News, Resources | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Digital Story Telling
Digital storytelling, the technique of combing narrative with digital media, into short movies emerged as a practice in the 1990s. The technique exploited the increasing accessibility of technologies for capturing audio and images and was exploited particularly for community and social projects. It can be seen as an adaptation of the storytelling tradition which has existed for more than 6,000 years (Abrahamson, 1998). Digital stories have been described by The Digital Storytelling Association (http://www.dsaweb.org/) as “the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling”;. Meadows (2003) identifies it as a social practice, telling stories with easily accessible low-cost technology.
via Digital Story Telling.
There are some useful references at the end of this short article from the Centre for Active Learning at Gloucester University
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Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
I have started to re evaluate iMovie 8 (part of iLife 09) as a tool for digital storytelling. I was beginning to warm to it until I began some tests to nail down it’s behaviour with still images.
Now it’s driving me to distraction – it’s so inconsistent. So my write up will take a bit longer than I’d hoped. On the whole, at this stage, I’m disappointed with iMovie 8. Transitions make a mess of timings, fine editing is tedious and too many numbers have to be typed into boxes when dragging a clip edge should do the job. More later – hopefully with fewer grumbles …… or perhaps I just need to lock myself away in a darkened room to calm down and wish for a bug fix in Snow Leopard for iMovie HD.
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Thursday, November 26th, 2009
I’ve been evaluating Photo to Movie from LQ Graphics as a tool for digital storytelling. My favourite application is iMovie HD. It’s not perfect but better the devil you know – and I know iMovie pretty well now and still discover tricks that make me think “how clever”.
When Apple rewrote iMovie for iLife 08 it presented a host of problems for digital storytellers. The most obvious one is the total lack of a timeline in the conventional video editing style. It can be pressed into use for digital storytelling but for a new user there is a serious lack mouse functions for stills. Almost all of the digital stories told in my workshops are told by beginners using still images. Things improved in iLife 09 but not enough for me to start using it over the HD version.
Building Affected for Life? in Photo to Movie
Last month someone alerted me to Photo to Movie. A package written specifically for still images. It has a timeline and is capable of creating something more sophisticated than a simple slideshow by the use of highly configurable zoom and pan functions. It integrates quite well with iTunes and iPhoto, and so things looked hopeful as I read the help files and absorbed the basic functions. There are also Mac and Windows versions. But would it live up to my hopes? (more…)
Tags: "photo to movie", application, digitalstorytelling, editing, evaluate, iLife, images, iMovie, keyframes, movie, photo, review, Software, timeline, transitions, workshop, zoom
Posted in Opinion, Resources, Software, Tips, Tutorial | 1 Comment »
Friday, November 6th, 2009
LQ Graphics Photo to Movie.
I’m testing this software for use in my workshops. It’s available in Mac and Windows versions. There’s a timeline and it works under Snow Leopard. With no sign of a fix for iMovie 6 under Snow Leopard and the download no longer available on the Apple website, I have to do something. So what are the choices?
iMovie ‘09 – limited still image functions
Final Cut Express 4 – complicated for first time users
Photo to Movie – under test
If you have any experience of using this software or suggestions of other software I would value hearing about it.
Posted in Opinion, Resources, Software, Tips | No Comments »
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
Digital Storytelling Cymru Network – Promoting Digital Storytelling in Wales and beyond….
DS5 – Preparations begin!
Hi gang!
We’re already starting the process of preparing for DS5 next year, and as I suggested at DS4, we would like to use the power of the digital storytelling community to develop the best festival yet! This will be an experiment in crowdsourcing content ideas from the community while the fabulous team at Aberystwyth Arts Centre will manage the nuts and bolts of turning our ideas into a reality.
It’s on June 16th 2010 – book the date in your diary.
Tags: Aberystwyth, crowdsourcing, digitalstorytelling, festival, Wales
Posted in Event, News, Resources | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Last year I trained several teams of digital storytellers who have since been running workshops for a project called Culture Shock. The first stories (over 200 of them) are now online. The site is smart and functional and well worth a visit.
The stories are, of course, a fascinating insight into life in the North East as inspired by the museums collections in the region. All ages are represented from school children to some who are even older than me!
My congratulations to everyone involved in this project. They all worked hard in the Training Trainers workshop and they have clearly continued with dedication to pass their skills on to other storytellers.
Posted in Event, Journal, News, Opinion, Resources | No Comments »
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Compiling a digital story
I have just compiled a section of my tutorial story “Affected for Life” using iMovie ‘09. I’m warming to it.
I began this exercise because the free download of iMovie HD is no longer available from the Apple site and attempts to install it on a new MacBook brings up an error message because iMovie ‘08 has to be installed before the older HD version can be loaded. It doesn’t work if the computer is supplied with iLife ‘09. I can only assume this is because Apple think that the much improved ‘09 version should be enough for new Mac users.
[After some experimentation I found that by opening the iMovie HD installer package the app can extracted and dragged into the Applications folder as long as it's in a folder called iMovie (Older Version). But as the app is no longer officially available it will soon be time to move on to another editing application. Sadly I have to concede that version 6 HD of iMovie is in sharp decline.]
Hence my experiment with ‘09. It was easier because I had all the images to hand and it was simple to build the story in order from start to finish, but my head’s buzzing with possible solutions for those storytellers who hunt out their images as they go along. I think iMovie ‘09 will be made to work and ultimately may even be simpler – despite the lack of a timeline in the form that most digital storytellers have been used to using.
Time to rewrite those tutorials ……..
Posted in Resources, Software, Tutorial | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
Obidos Digital Storytelling Conference.
Details are now available for an International Digital Storytelling Conference – also in June 2009.
This one is in Portugal and is being promoted as the follow up to the last international conference in Cardiff in 2003.
I am unable to be in Lisbon for this conference as I am fully booked up in June to run workshops here in England.
So if you are up for the DS4 Festival in Aberystwyth followed by a conference in Lisbon the details are here.
Tags: conference, digitalstorytelling, festival, Portugal
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Friday, April 24th, 2009
10 Things Every Final Cut Pro User Should Know | Mac|Life.
A really useful basic user guide presented in a series of video tutorials.
Tags: aplle, editing, finalcut, Tutorial, video
Posted in Resources, Software, Tips, Tutorial | No Comments »
