Posts Tagged ‘digitalstorytelling’

“iMovie” or “Photo to Movie”?

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

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…)

Preparations begin for DS5 – The only event for practitioners in the UK

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Digital Storytelling Cymru Network – Promoting Digital Storytelling in Wales and beyond….

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.

Linked thoughts

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Some thoughts on things I’ve seen for October 1st from 12:06 to 12:06:

  • Place-Based Digital Storytelling Modules – National Parks of America – As the latest Ken Burns series about National Parks hits the screens on PBS television in the USA a series of web tutorials about place based digital storytelling has been created by the the National Parks of America.
    As an elementary introduction to Digital Storytelling this series of screen casts is excellent. Well worth a visit. My one comment would be that the example uses way too may zooms on the still images and some images are repeated too often – you only need to see a picture once. All the same, the site is a useful resource for anyone wanting to develop digital storytelling skills.

Linked thoughts

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Some thoughts on things I’ve seen for June 18th from 10:38 to 10:38:

  • Short films saved for posterity – I an similar move the digital stories made in the BBC English Regions project “Telling Lives” were handed to the National Media Museum In Bradford. Over 350 stories were told by BBC listeners and viewers in workshops held between 2003 and 2005. Many of them are still accessible on the BBC Website
    I was exec producer of Telling Lives which ran in parallel with the BBC Capture Wales project. My teams were trained by the team in Wales with excellent results.

Linked thoughts

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

Some thoughts on things I’ve seen for June 1st from 12:31 to 12:31:

Linked thoughts

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Some thoughts on things I’ve seen for May 19th from 07:22 to 12:15:

  • Vicar’s shed for ex-cons – Yorkshire Evening Post – This is one of the stories I recently recorded at a workshop for the Yorkshire and Humber Faiths Forum.
  • What does social capital have to do with digital inclusion? : Connected Communities – A chance to participate in this event online. Storytelling is the heart of digital inclusion. The means to tell your story are secondary to knowing what you want your story to say.
  • Video tools list for journalists – Jumpcut is closing down. Yahoo bought it about 18 months ago and now they’re pulling the plug as “part of the ongoing prioritization efforts at Yahoo!”. So I went on a search for other sites that offered slideshow and video editing services. None appear to be as versatile as Jumpcut, but there’s a list here if you want to plough through and give them a try. If you find one that suits the digital storytelling process come back here and comment. After a quick browse through the list Movie Masher appears to be best suited.
  • 7 Minutes to Reinvent the Internet – The web has turned advertising principles on their head. The money is flowing in new directions and who knows where it will all end up. Seven people look into the not too distant future to suggest how advertising can be reinvented to fit the internet. Whilst these presentations are largely about making money, the lessons about how people use and experience the internet are valuable to all content creators.

The last two Engenious workshops start this week

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

I am in Salford on Thursday and Birmingham on Sunday running storycircles to start the last two workshops for engineers.

Engineers – you have a story to tell!

…but do you have the communication skills?
One of the most powerful ways of delivering a message is to tell a story. Being able to create a logical and captivating narrative is essential to this, and these same skills apply equally to writing a grant application or speaking clearly at conferences.

We are offering free digistories workshops run by someone who originally developed the concept for the BBC. These are based around creating short video, telling a personal engineering-related story, from photographs and a recorded script.

The films you create will be used to promote public awareness of engineering, influencing potential engineers of the future and showing them what we really do.

Obidos Digital Storytelling Conference

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.

Broadcast Engineers – tell your story

Monday, January 26th, 2009

National Media Museum logo The second digital storytelling workshop for engineers to tell their own stories has been scheduled for the National Media Museum in Bradford. It is essentially for Broadcast Engineers to talk about the events and inspiration that led them into their career. The workshop takes place on three consecutive Mondays. February 9th, 16th and 23rd 2009. Participants need to be able to attend all three days.
The aim is to raise public awareness of what engineers do and what motivates them and to insprie young people to consider the profession.
The workshops are funded by an award from the Royal Academy of Engineering to the Universities of Salford and Southampton. Places on the workshop are free but must be booked in advance. You can download a flyer here and find more information on the digistories website

You can watch stories told by acoustics engineers in a pilot workshop to give you an idea of the style of these digital stories.

For more details and a booking form contact Dr Zoe Stec. L.Z.Stec@salford.ac.uk

KQED Updated Digital Storytelling Manuals

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

KQED in San Francisco runs one of the best Digital Storytelling programmes in the world. Leslie Rule has just updated the manuals which include How Tos for the whole process of digital storytelling. They are well worth downloading, and they’re free.

While you’re on the site look through some of the stories told in their annual Coming to California competition. I find the more I watch, the better my stories become.