DV for Teachers

[Updated to add Part I to the title.]

These are my notes from the morning session of the Digitally Mediated Storytelling workshop.

The “Digital Campfire”

A point to keep in mind: among other reasons kids don’t engage: many kids come to school to rest up for that night’s game session. So engage them in storytelling – not telling them a story, but telling a digital story about themselves – changes their attitudes about reading & writing

Good source: Grammar of Fantasy by Rodari

One way to start: “what would happen if…”

• you woke up as a dog
• you could suddenly fly
• everybody could suddenly fly
• the world was flat
• you could save the world

• what if gravity disappeared and you had to ‘save all the roller coasters and theme parks’

  usable to build curriculum and meet standards

  Digital cameras: if not available, use cameras in the students’ cell phones for this
  

  Any object can be a story:

• toys as character (Toy Story)
• at the table – knife and spoon
• taboo or dark stories (Beauty and the Beast)
• Story of YOU: your obit, how you want to be remembered
• throw words at them:
  • what if spoons were flat?
  • a girl, a red cape, a wolf, a grandma, and a helicopter (throw a wild card into a familiar story)

• umbrellas were inverted

  Seven elements of storytelling: (this from Joe Lambert’s Center From Digital Storytelling, with his approval)

  1. Point of view: every story has one
  2. No one narrates a story without a reason
  3. they’re told to make a point
  4. pattern of describing a desire, a problem that must be addressed by a central character
  5. POV drives the reader/listener to empathize with the character and identify with the story
  6. POV questions
     • what’s the reason for the story?
     • What is the premise?

• How authentic?

• Fourth and twelve story: boy relates to dad through football; dad is late to championship game where son’s playing; killed in car crash on the way. Boy isn’t told so he’s not distracted; team needs big last minute score (fourth down, twelve to go) to win, and he makes the play. Finds later dad died at… fourth and twelfth street.
• Emotional content
• engage the viewer
• “Contrast and affinity” are essential; someone you’re rooting for and someone to root against
• resurrection tales: must find something that’s missing, something must be lost and regained (Comedy) or lost forever (Tragedy)
  • Gain theory – people would rather gain something than have it – sometimes chasing it is the story
• think Cheers with Sam and Diane, and how the show almost jumped the shark when they got together; Diane leaves, the tension, and interest, and quality returned
• fundamental emotional paradigms
• death, our sense of loss, love

• loneliness, confidence and vulnerability, acceptance and rejection
• Power of Voice-over
• Reading vs. reciting changes the story
  • too many get self-conscious, and don’t read engagingly
  • tell them to “say it, don’t read it”
  • have them do he project, then have them critique it and ask them “What would you do differently?”
  • then have them do it!
• then have them include needed vocabulary, other concepts, etc.
• children love to hear their own voices, or a familiar one

• voice is a great gift – telling the story in your own voice; your audience hearing it will identify much more
• Soundtrack
• match the emotion
• sound effects and music
• overlapping/blending
  • don’t have scene/picture end as music ends
• music should bridge picture changes
• Supplemental to visual, or is it MTV generation-type where the visaul supplements the audio
• music plays on our perception of visual information
• Key: for these purposes, do the visuals first

• write a script about the pictures, rather than picking pics for a song (unless that’s the point)

• if they can do this successfully, then the story is likely to be much stronger and engaging
• Pacing
• considered by many to be the true secret of successful storytelling
• rhythm of the story determines much of what sustains an audience interest
• vary the rhythm
  • match the emotion
  • or change it
  • intonation
  • vary the speed
  • rapid cuts and long takes and long pauses when they fit – and in a good story, it will fit
• lots of percussion, long smooth sequence

• make sure the vitality matches the emotional mood

  Page to screen

  • Screenplay is only an outline
• Have a theme
• Linear structure: beginning-middle-end
• Has a subject
• Student question: “Why read it if I can watch the movie?” “That’s their interpretation; what’s yours?”
• Make a “book trailer” – a commercial/booktalk on video: Digital Booktalks at UCF
• Storyboard thinking – visualize the sequences
• but often, students don’t need to do it first; get them going, then use storyboard as revision, to clarify point, pacing, etc (same with teaching, BTW)
• Who is your target audience?
• keep it authentic
  • if it’s a digital booktalk from a 5th grader, do you need to fix a minor audio glitch?
• Likely not, for authenticity’s sake.
• Power of epic thinking, building to a big finish, a solid resolution
  • see “Drive By” on the Digital Booktalk site as an example of economy
  • peer evaluation helps a lot here; all do the same book, confer with each other

• good ones go on the web site, and they decide which ones are the good ones

  Project hints

  • Good title helps set the scene
• Have a beginning-middle-end
• Tell visually… “text as a crutch” only when necessary
• Use transitions with a purpose
• Use color (as motif – red is significant)
• Use of tempo, length of time pictures are onscreen
• Music (Garageband, if Macs available) – Copyright issues!

• Credits – everyone gets listed

  Showed several examples from kids….

  Another book cited: The Call of Story, by a physician, (psychiatrist?) clients did better telling stories in therapy.

  Showed some by homeless people too, who are irrepressible once they’re started…

  Lunch break – new post for after lunch.