Digital Storytelling

VOG

Adrian Miles (RMIT, Australia) writes about vogs -- video blogs.

Here's a tutorial He writes that "The tutorial is about how to do that, and why doing that in QuickTime Pro is completely different to doing that in iMovie, Final Cut Pro, and so on, it's a softcopy desktop video thing."

Most people at the Festival would, I think, reach for Premiere, or Final Cut, first. How do vogs and digital stories fit together?

Weblog Story

A wonderful personal story from the best political weblog: Joshua Michah Marshall's Talking Points Memo. Everything Changes, Everything

True Story

Some years ago (once upon a time) my eight-year-old sister wandered out of an art gallery, down the street, and into Athens. She didn't tell anyone. My parents were surprised.

That's the real story. It's kind of interesting. I could tell is various ways.

But think of all the things that didn't happen.....

It was Athens 1964. What if it'd been Berlin in 1938? Saigon, 1975? Or Rome mid-March, 44 BC? What if, instead of walking back to the Athens Hilton a few hours later, this had been the start of a new life? What if the next cut is a dissolve, opening on an interior in Corsica or Mars Base 6 or The Kremlin, a dozen years later as my sister decides to embark on a quest to find her roots? Fiction has advantages.

What really sold Bonifer's story about the long voyage upriver, the dinosaur, and the hysterical Danish flight attendant, was the appearance -- just as things couldn't get more weird -- of a speedboat full of naked German tourists. Life does this, sometimes, but real life often omits the third act.

1. Once Upon a time


2. And then....


3. But there was one thing they'd forgotten

The conventions of early digital storytelling -- short form, authenticity, personal voice -- make it tempting to fold the third act into the punchline. Brenda Laurel's Fray Café story did this: the first act (my marriage breaks down, I meet someone new, confrontation with Mother in Law) was very short, the second act (move to Olympia, big date at the strange restaurant) takes almost the whole length of the story. The third act is only two sentences long (Beginning "Which one of you...."; I don't want to give it away), but it's a really good two sentences. But this is very hard to do; why not let people improve nature?
(Yes, I agree, it's very bad to knowingly publish a falsehood. Fiction is a suspect quality. )

Birder in the House?

I'm here at athe Festival. No bins, no books.

I just saw a quail (sp) cross the road, followed by about a dozen chicks. Dangly-bit on forehead, dark rufous crest. Gambel's I presume? If you know, tell me; Gambel's is a lifer.

Truth or consequences

In a previous post, Mark Bernstein wrote, "I've never quite understood why it's important that the stories be true." He was referring to the Fray.com guidelines; but the same issue came up in his engaging and provocative talk here on Thursday, in which he used the Kaycee Nicole saga to raise questions about truth and fiction in online narrative.

I don't think there's any point in trying to establish a hierarchy in which either "true stories" or "made-up stories" is given precedence. Both have power and value; both can be used wisely or misused.

But I do think we all benefit from honesty in labeling. If I profess that a story is true and it ultimately turns out not to be, I'm going to lose the trust of my listeners. (This is, among other things, a hot issue for professional journalists Right Now.) If I'm writing fiction, great, but let's make sure people understand that. If I'm experimenting in the gray area between "true stories" and "made-up stories" -- as many experimental artists set out to do -- let that be clear, too.

If, as an artist, I set out to make a point by deliberately misleading my audience about the fact-or-fiction nature of my work, then it's possible that I will succeed, somehow, in wising people up or opening up their eyes. But it's just as, or more, likely that I will simply piss people off. (That might be some artists' goal, too, but it's one that tends to limit the reach of the art.)

Ultimately, I think,the label "true story" really does matter to most of us, even as we acknowledge how elusive the concept is. (A story can present a "true" event and yet my account of it might wildly differ from yours.) Saying, "I'm going to limit myself to material that really happened" is a formal constraint on a work of art -- it's like saying, "I'm going to use oil on canvas" or "I'm going to use iambic pentameter." It's also one time-honored and effective way of establishing a bond of trust between storyteller and audience. If you mess with that bond, you should not be at all surprised that people get mad.

Conference Video

Don Wrege has been walking around DSF with a camera all week, interviewing hapless victims on the meaning of digital storytelling. And you can watch! (Note: I'm not nearly as drunk as I seem.)

Switched

Kate Peters (narratus) is presenting digital stories for helping two companies to merge successfully. She's almost the only presenter who works with Windows; Apple positively dominates this field.

TiBooks and AlBooks are everywhere.

Derrick Story

Derrick Story from O'Reilly has added Top Ten Digital Video Tips to his earlier Digital Photo Tips.

Big rule: Have your camera with you. Digital stories happen everywhere. Also: Shoot at your highest resolution. Take your time. Get closer. No, even closer; the macro setting is your friend. Change your angle. Avoid backlighting. Use your flash outdoors as a fill flash; turn it off indoors. Try an IR filter. (!)
Interesting lesson: Story spent some time watching bad photographers -- casual tourists -- and seeing exactly what they do. It makes for a funny talk, but it's also a great way to see your own bad habits in a new light.

Heather Champ telling a story at Fray Cafe.

Fray Cafe 5 was outstanding -- a huge improvement over my previous Fray Cafe experience, even though nobody proposed onstage. It's interesting that events like this seem to improve, since so much (obviously) depends on the stories and the storytellers, and both change every time. Lots of fascinating people with fascinating stories.

Grand Text

Grand Text Auto blogs the Festival.

Other sightings: Mike Lee, MediaBurn, Harrumph,

Brenda's Backstory

I love the design of Backstory, Brenda Laurel's Art Center project.

Also, favorite line from Brenda Laurel: "We're not sharing. We're telling it like it is." The idea is, to talk to teenagers, don't use touchey feelie hippy language. Just give them voice and let them do the talking.

Ten Seconds

One of the most interesting parts of the Oxygen presentation was a metastory, assembled by the animator who help finish many of the Oxygen stories. He mentioned, in passing, that he figures on ten seconds of drawing a day.

For the sound track, in turn, he figures 2 minutes a day.

Image

"If you've got one great image, you've got everything." -- Kit Laybourne, Oxygen Media

FINDING BILL MURRAY

Last night, we had a premiere viewing of the working cut of Michael Bonifer's autobiographical documentary, Finding Bill Murray. In lots of ways, this film feels like a digital story, though it's much larger, bigger in scope, and richer in wit. More ambitious too, of course.

The puzzle, for Digital Storytellers, is finding lessons here to take home. After all, Bonifer's an accomplished filmmaker, and a very talented storyteller. Last night at dinner, he told about the film crew's long, dry voyage up the river, towing a brontasaurus for Disney, and saved from disaster (and the wrath of a Danish flight attendant who'd expected a brief tryst) by a buried case of tonic water and a boatload of nude German tourists. If you can do that without the images, well, what can't you do?

One lesson, I think, might the the utility of restraint and patience; I noticed few (if any) cuts that seemed unnatural or artful or profound. They were, of course, but everything seemed straightforward. That's hard to do.

Yavapi

Edward Uzumeckis leads a program here in Digital Media Arts.

A 20-student program in independent filmmaking. 52 (!) classes in digital video and internet publishing, in a town with 10,000 residents.

They're fans of iShell, and even do storytelling with PowerPoint.

{Fray}

Derek and Heather are presenting {The Fray} and The Mirror Project.

Fray is blogging the Festival, too.

The Fray -- a famous story site -- is unusual here because it's not cinematic. But other Fray properties are familiar to digital storytelling. Fray stories are always short (1000 words), personal, and true. (I've never quite understood why it's important that the stories be true)

Is fiction stranger than truth?

More Meadows Urls

The Photobus he drove across the UK taking portraits in 1973 and twenty years later with the same people. And digital storytelling for the BBC: Telling Lives and Capture Wales. Amazing work.

Meadows' Rules for Digital Storytelling Teachers

1. Keep making your own films.
2. Make your own training film.
3. Write your own cookbook. (Example: need to make the schedule failsafe)
4. Know what will happen when the initial money runs out.

Kitchen Table TV

Photographer Daniel Meadows describes Capture Wales, an exciting experiment aimed at helping people to create their own television. Over 180 people have made stories; Meadows started with a hilarious little digital story about a welshman who has four pairs of shoes and is surprised when he finds the love of his life has rather more.

It helps to have funny people. "I discovered I had the ability to bore people to death by reading my script!"

A digital story is, first and foremost, a story.

Mountain morning

Morning in Sedona. We're live and wireless from digital storytelling; Salon's Scott Rosenberg is about to start with the fox and the hedgehog. "The fox knows many small things; the hedgehog knows one big thing."

People are arriving from all over the country. I just saw Carroll Blue, whose new book -- the projected she discussed at eNarrative 2 -- is out (with DVD!) from Texas. Scott Rosenberg from Salon. Lotgs of other familiar faces.

Weblogs

On Thursday morning, I'm going to be talking about weblogs and stories. Some of the weblogs I plan to show are listed here.

You may peek if you like, but chiefly I want to be sure I could post a story like this one.

Are you speaking at the Festival? If you'd like a page of your own, send it to me. Or post it on your own weblog (or any other server) and send me the URL!

Travel

People are already beginning to close their suitcases, load their vehicles, and head for Digital Storytelling.

The Fray crew has already left San Francisco. They'll be hosting Fray Cafe on Friday Night, at the Canyon Moon Theater.

Salon's Scott Rosenberg is en route, too.