Digital Storytelling

     I’ve always qualified my presentations on digital storytelling with the disclaimer “Makin’ Movies” because there are some differences in approach between “classical” digital storytelling and the videos that I promoted in my school district. Here is a brief comparison between the Center for Digital Storytelling’s seven elements.
     1. Point of View is good across the board. In the CDS model stories are very personal and created by one single person. Many of the videos my students worked on were team projects and, except for family immigration stories, not very personal. But even commercials, historical reenactments and literature videos need a point of view.
     2. Dramatic Question again, this works for well for both genres whether it be what difference a person made in your life or why you are attempting to sell a certain product.
     3. Emotional Content can really tug at your heart strings in the classical digital story. In student/team videos it often shows up in the form of comedy. Though there can be some very poignant irony when historical characters talk about their hopes or future.
     4. The Gift of Your Voice is invaluable in a personal narrative. Since student videos can cover such a wide range and often include interviews, we want to translate this element as the students’ understanding of the material being presented. Here’s where some higher order thinking and synthesis come into play.
     5. The Power of the Soundtrack provides an instantaneous shared experience to the viewers and can be very powerful in creating and sustaining a mood. We all know how movies bring us to the edge of our seats with their background music. Additionally, student videos can employ a range of sound effects to bring the action and the message home (i.e., Civil War soldiers talking with gunfire and explosions in the background).
     6. Economy used to be defined in writing assignments as “at least 500 words, 3 pages,” etc. With student videos the assignment limit usually starts out with “no more than…” In any case, less is more. 30 or 60 second commercials and PSA’s (public service announcements) can pack an awful lot of power. And since you will want to eventually share everyone’s video with the entire class, 3 minutes per project is a good maximum for just about everything. Anything longer than that really does start to feel like a feature length film or documentary (which isn’t always bad). Caveat: watch out for “blooper reels.” Make sure that it is clear from the start that bloopers don’t count. I’ve had more than one project where the out takes were longer than the video.
     7. Pacing is what really sets the great storytellers and joke tellers apart from mere mortals. No matter how visual a student video is, it has to be well written and prepared. It’s in this written preparation and storyboarding (along with helping them get and keep the facts straight) that the teacher can and should have the greatest influence on the final product. Caveat: transitions between clips are easy to add and very seductive, but they can take away from the story when they are over used or too noticeable.
     It’s elemental!

     "Opinions build walls, stories build bridges." Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher
     I just started thumbing through the Center for Digital Storytelling’s new edition of Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community. I didn’t make it through the first paragraph before I could hear author Joe Lambert’s voice and see his face. No, really! Sort of…
     The summer before last I went out to Kean University in NJ for an educational conference on digital storytelling. Higher ed and storytelling, that was a combination I hadn’t seen before and besides, Joe Lambert was going to keynote. Unlike other keynoters at conferences I’ve attended, he stuck around for both days. He sat in on sessions, shared anecdotes and his experiences, ate with the participants, and we ended up flying back to O’Hare together where we continued our lengthy conversation before he continued on to Berkeley. So from Woody Guthrie to union ballads to the Weavers to Spalding Gray’s one man shows, I can see and hear Joe as I read through the introduction. As for higher education and storytelling, that’s just what I got in NJ in the summer of ‘05 and what I’m reminded of as I go through this new edition.
     We in the K-16 educational branch of digital storytelling owe a lot to the CDS and its cofounders Dana Atchley and Joe Lambert. Their commitment to social activism and theater put a name and a level of legitimacy on making movies and moving pictorial narratives that academia couldn’t provide. When they talk about students, they are mostly talking about people in the neighborhood who are not enrolled in a school of any kind. And those neighborhoods are on six, maybe even all seven continents now. When they talk about progress, it’s not AYP. They empower people to be heard; they empower us to hear each other. Through that they encourage positive change for humanity’s sake.
     You can get a taste of their storytelling cookbook by downloading the introductory chapters from http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.html
     Catch a story. Build a bridge.