In preparation for my digital storytelling session in Anaheim, I wrote this short reflective piece. However, the workshop involved a much different exercise than I anticipated, so I wasn't able to develop the script any further. Thus, I'm sharing it on the blog in case I ever want to translate it into a digital narrative later on. Here it is:

"Everything I learned about media literacy, I learned from dinosaurs. Throughout my childhood, I was obsessed with them  - I couldn't get enough of the rich, expansive, seemingly mythological world. So I read book after book from the library, re-watched movie after movie, and collected an array of cards/toys/and merchandise. It wasn't long until I could tell you exactly which dinosaurs were prevalent in the Triassic, Jurassic, or Cretaceous periods. I could tell you about any species' diet, behavior patterns, and mating rituals.  And I would definitely tell you that there is no such thing as Brontosaurus - it's an Apatosaurus. Brontosaurus was the result of incorrectly matching the head of Camarasaurus on the body of Apatosaurus, a blunder which took 100 years to correct. These kinds of stories were so exciting for me. I became a kind of information archaeologist,  hunting down and uncovering  data from an array of sources and piecing together the clues to formulate my own interpretation. We might think of those skills as the beginning of literacy today, but not the complete picture.

Dinosaurs became not just a personal hobby, but also a subject for connecting and collaborating with other people.  At my Dinosaur themed birthday parties, I expected guests to research and act like their favorite dinosaurs. The idea was that if we each reenacted a different species, we could explore some fascinating interactions together.  This was great fun, until one time I caught a supposed herbivore eating pepperoni pizza. (There's the door)  I also put on various dinosaur shows for my parents, complete with balloon props, colorful hats, and sound effects cued up on the tape player. My parents would film me prance around, rattling off factoids and roaring loudly. I then could share the video with my friends and family, despite a lack of any clear coherence.

Nevertheless, the important lesson was that rather than merely consuming media for myself, I was producing it, sharing it, and performatively demonstrating my findings. I could teach an audience as the expert on a topic. This turned out to be a powerful learning tool for mastering the dinosaur universe, contributing to my success in the classroom later on.  And now, with the ubiquity and accessibility of digital media technologies, it's never been easier to tell stories to and with people from around the world. So even though I've grown past dinosaurs, (and given my height perhaps into one) , my passion for storytelling, media technology, and digital literacy allows me to re-experience that same sense of excitement, creativity, and imagination all over again."

 

Last week, I attended my first NMC Conference in Anaheim. It was amazing to meet so many people with similar interests, catch up with old friends, learn a ton about educational technology, and bump into various Disney characters along the way. And while there is much to report back, I'd like to reflect on one underlying theme that seemed to resurface throughout the conference, particularly with regards to digital storytelling and teaching and learning. After various conversations and panels about the current state of technology and culture, it occurred to me that the broad dispersal of content across media platforms and the simultaneous convergence of media platforms (i.e. the iPad) puts educators in a strange position. How do we prepare students for a digital world so entwined with both sets of phenomena?

Part of the answer is to develop two distinct yet complementary skills: transmedia navigation--the ability to scope out, evaluate, and produce content from a range of different media sources and multimedia integration--the ability to synthesize various media elements into one coherent and meaningful composition. In other words, transmedia navigation involves finding and creating the 'puzzle pieces' from a range of media channels; multimedia integration involves piecing them together.

Let me give you an example from a pre-conference workshop I attended called "Learning from Telling Visual Stories." Taught by Bryan Alexander and Joan Getman, two of the top thinkers in this area, the session provided a terrific overview of story structure, visual literacy, and cloud computing. In particular, we focused on strategies for transforming fact-based research into compelling digital narratives. One exercise asked us to experiment with this notion of translation by converting an original 6-word story (which we wrote earlier in the workshop) into a 6-image digital story. Instead of using a single video editing application however, we ventured into the vast Web 2.0 terrain--playing with possible combinations in Five Card Flickr, recording voice over in Aviary, developing a timeline in Dipity, cutting together video with Jay Cut (to name just a few of the options)--and then figuring out how it could all fit together.

No one platform could accomplish everything and each platform had distinct disadvantages and advantages. The trick was to learn my way around these free, open source products, evaluate what element of the story could best be told here, and decide how it might be exported into another platform. This was a much different experience than tossing a smörgåsbord of media into iMovie and working within a centralized hub. After just 15 minutes, here's what I came up with:  



(images from Flickr, sound effects from FreeSound, voice over recorded in Aviary, compiled in Jay Cut) 

Despite being a silly, whimsical piece, I did get a sense for the value of story creation in the transmedia mode. What really struck me was the sheer breadth of easy to use, Web 2.0 services that could, when properly coalesced, produce comparable basic videos to iMovie.
Let's face it, when students enter the workplace, many are never going to touch a Mac after their access to Media Commons expires. But they may remember that Voice Thread worked best for group collaboration or that Aviary worked best for podcasting. And crucially, students will be able to access these services (or something similar) anytime, anywhere, long after they graduate. 

Henry Jenkins recently noted that transmedia refers to the "dispersal of content across media platforms," whereas multimedia refers to the "integration of media content within a single application." So by this logic, we might think of free online services as tools that promote transmedia navigation and software-based applications like iMovie and Final Cut Pro as tools specializing in multimedia integration. My question is essentially this: shouldn't we be teaching both?

In my previous post, I examined video's unique storytelling potential. Now I'd like to focus on specific variations of digital narratives, beginning with the public service announcement (PSA). A PSA is a short 30-60 second commercial that informs the audience about a public concern, while also triggering an emotional reaction (ideally leading to action).  In the United States, the Ad Council is perhaps the most famous producer of such content.  To demonstrate how a student might think about translating raw information into a story, I've tried to outline the creative process here. In this case, I tackle the danger of Hypertension (High Blood Pressure).

Step 1: Do the research.

Ex: -About 1 in every 4 American adults has high blood pressure, also called hypertension, which is a major risk factor for heart and kidney diseases, stroke, and heart failure.
-People are most likely to develop Hypertension when they are over the age of 35, overweight or obese, not active, drink too much alcohol, eat too many fatty or salty foods, excessively stressed.
-High blood pressure is especially dangerous because it often gives no warning signs or symptoms.
-You can find out if you have high blood pressure by having your blood pressure checked regularly.

Source: http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/hypertension-overview-facts


Step 2: What message do you want to get across? Try to articulate it in a single sentence.

Ex: High blood pressure is a silent killer.

Step 3: Brainstorm general ideas, taking into consideration style (music video, documentary, interview-based) and tone (comedic, dramatic, shocking).

Ex: We see a man go about his everyday life while hearing the sound effect of a ticking time bomb. A narrator provides some information about blood pressure as we see the man eating breakfast, going to work, greeting his children, cleaning his house: he's living a normal life. However, whenever he eats salty foods or drinks caffeine or decides not to work out, the ticking gets faster and faster. This builds up until the end, when the timer suddenly 'Dings' and we cut to a black screen. Text: "High blood pressure causes heart diseases and strokes without any warning. Take the time to check it, before time is up."

Okay, it's a little morbid, but I think it would get the message across.

Step 4: The next step is to write a working script, exactly what we see on the screen. You don't have to use screenwriting lingo, just write cinematically--so only things the audience will see and hear. This might be a sample:

Ex: Scene 1: An older man, about 40 years old, wakes up in his bed. We hear the noise of a single tick while soft orchestra music plays in the background. The man glances at the treadmill in the corner of his room. It's dusty and dirty. We hear another tick. He hesitates, as if he's going to use it, and decides to shower instead. Again, another ticking noise.  The man sits down at the kitchen table, dressed in a suit, eating breakfast with his kids. He eats a McGriddle delightfully. The ticking noise now gains a steady pace.

Step 5: This is the storyboarding phase. Envision what your video might look like. You don't have to be a talented artist (or an artist at all, as you can tell), just include enough information so that when it's time to start shooting, you have a clear plan. Even better than drawing, take a camera and shoot photos of how you want to frame your shot. You can also use any clip art at your disposal.


Then you're ready for production! Maybe someday I'll get around to actually filming this PSA, but in any case, I'll leave you with one of the most effective and provocative PSAs I've ever seen:

 

Continuing my series on digital storytelling (DS), I want to focus on a crucial component of the planning and development phase--translating raw information into compelling narrative. Often times, students begin a video project with an existing written essay or a series of facts from their research. In order to maximize the potential of visual storytelling, they must have a basic understanding of how to use the language of video/film, how to show not tell, and how to engage the viewer through questions and answers.

To be clear, the goal of Media Commons is not to turn students into film majors; rather, we are interested in sharpening another skill set for them to effectively communicate in their discipline. Hannah Inzko astutely pointed out that when faced with a deadline, students don't want to be overwhelmed with "film speak;" they usually want to know exactly what skills and resources are necessary to complete the assignment. As such, I stress the following topics when speaking about digital storytelling in general, but I try to tailor a class workshop towards a specific project's needs. (ie interview-based documentary vs. PSA commercial vs. fictional narrative).

The Language of Video/Film

Most of us don't notice, at least overtly, the language of moving-image storytelling. Yet through hours and hours of viewing experience, we've been trained to understand its mechanics and underlying structure. For example, if a character looks off screen and suddenly becomes surprised at something, we expect the next shot to be his/her point of view. It would be quite jarring to see an establishing shot instead (and for many avante garde films, that's the goal).

Because we tend to focus on a film's story, not its construction, adopting the visual conventions and grammar is not intuitive. From my experience, students do not inherently know what a medium shot looks like or how to frame an interview.  So in thinking about the language of film, I focus on three communicative strategies: camera techniques, mise-en-scene techniques, and editing techniques.

Camera Techniques
There are many ways to position the camera in a scene. Different camera angles, distances, and movements have different expressive qualities.  Yet while we typically tell students to use close-ups, medium shots, and wide shots in their movies, we don't explain why one would make sense over the other. In her article "The Shot Tells the Story: Dissecting Wall-E" Karen Lloyd provides a nice framework for this. And so in my digital storytelling workshops,  I provide a quick summary of why an establishing shot might be useful,  using examples from Titanic. (For the sake of brevity, I won't go into the details) 

Mise-En-Scene Techniques
Mise-en-scene refers to everything that we see in the frame--props, costumes, actor performance etc. Here, I cover three point lighting, rule of thirds, framing, and background design. I include some tips on sound as well, both diegetic (within the storyworld) and non-diegetic (existing outside the storyworld) In film, everything is a choice. Special care must go into how an image is composed, and, without going into the theory, the more control over mise-en-scene, the better the overall production value.

Editing Techniques
Finally, I explain that editing choices communicate story information as well. A slow fade indicates the long passage of time, whereas the jump cut signifies an immediate transition. Montages tell the reader that a lot of events have occurred over time. Slow motion makes a particular gesture more dramatic. And so on.

But to return to Hannah's point, I don't think students need to know every detail about film language. My goal is to 1.) show that everything in film is a choice for a desired effect and 2.) provide a vocabulary for students to use when building their storyboards. I want students to think about what voiceover we hear over a certain image, how much time has passed in a scene, where the camera is located, what transitions they might use, the list goes on. Even if they don't include all this information, at least they have an idea of what to think about. Basically, rather than waving their flip cams wherever they please, I want students to be aware of all the possible details that go into production. So when it's time to start shooting, they have a concrete plan.

Showing not Telling

While novels excel at describing character motivations, psychological depth, and inner conflict, films communicate this information entirely through actions and performance. A screenwriter would never say, "Tom was feeling happy today;" they'd have to express that visually. Maybe he'd be dancing down the street, greeting random strangers while jovial music plays in the background. (See example here ) In the DS workshop, I highlight a number of examples (from Miami Vice to Pushing Daisies to Citizen Kane), but my favorite clip comes from the Wizard of Oz. In the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,  L. Frank Baum describes Dorothy's introduction to Oz as follows:

"The little girl gave a cry of amazement and looked about her, her eyes growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw. The cyclone had set the house down gently--for a cyclone--in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies."

The film version from 1939 conveys the same information but with a much different grammar. Take a look: 

Wizard of Oz.mov

While Baum can freeze story time to describe the wondrous and amazing details of Oz, the film version does not have this luxury--the story continues on in real time. The viewer must interpret all this descriptive information within seconds and evaluate its glory. Obviously, the transition from black and white to color cues our understanding of Oz's magnificence, but the camera movement through the door accentuates this change, gliding into a new world as if it's seeing it for the first time. We hear the harmonious sounds of the birds and the melodious music spiking. We see the luscious set design, along with bright angelic lighting. And rather than a narrator telling us Dorothy's emotional state, we learn from her reaction and gestures that she is in utter amazement. Thus, a combination of camera angles and movement, editing, mise-en-scene, and music guide the viewer's emotional response to the story.

This is an important concept when crafting any digital story. Students are quick to add voice-over to their images, even though the visual content speaks for itself. The best practices allow the viewer to feel a particular emotion, rather than being told it. For example, I recently worked with a group of students doing a video on the lack of accessibility for elderly folks around town. Instead of presenting a bunch of facts and figures, they spent a day in the life of an older person. That is, they went about their normal day using equipment that simulated specific disabilities. One person wore glasses that constrained their peripheral vision. Another student maneuvered entirely in an elderly scooter. Seeing their frustration and agony at the lack of mobility and convenience perfectly demonstrated the poor design of the facilities there.

The Power of the Question

Any great story draws the audience in with dramatic questions, especially from the very beginning. I like to show the famous opening scene to Citizen Kane as an example, though it could work for really any movie. It would have been easy for Orson Welles to begin the film with Kane's childhood and explore his growth thereafter, but instead he begins the story with Kane's death. Why? Because the question "What is Rosebud?" entices us to keep watching the film. We ask even more questions throughout the first scene. Why was he holding a snow globe? Why did he die in this fairy-tale castle? Why is it so ominous and dark there? These are questions that propel our interest in the film. (As a side note, I show the corresponding passage from Welles' screenplay which further demonstrates how to write with visual language)

Likewise, in a digital story, it does no good to show the following picture of the Kent State shooting and narrate, "On May of 1970, a fatal shooting occurred..." This image is so expressive and so powerful that it raises many questions all its own, namely "What happened?" So to draw the viewer in, we might begin the piece with a black screen. We then hear sounds of gun shots, screams, and rioting, and suddenly...this image:

Maybe then we get a voice-over: "Imagine this scene at your campus..." Now we have a compelling intro to the story, not a textbook recount of the event. Thus, whenever we experience visual storytelling, we naturally want to ask questions, make hypotheses, and form assumptions. A masterful storyteller plays with this instinct and carefully reveals answers, while asking new questions. Here's Ira Glass talking more about the process:

Well, this post has gone on far too long. My main overall point is that we need to stress the limitations and affordances of moving-image storytelling. Digital narratives have a unique set of aesthetics and medium specific potentials that are just as important for students to understand as iMovie. I will continue to keep blogging about specific types of digital stories and provide more information about how the creative process works from conception to execution. In the meantime, thanks for reading!

Chris Millet recently wrote a post about how Digital Storytelling can enhance college students' ability to retain information and synthesize research. He argues that creating effective narrative-based videos--ones that elicit an emotional response from the viewer--can be a powerful tool for teaching and learning across disciplines.

 

To understand why, and Millet outlines a number of reasons, we might look at our response to a natural disaster from across the globe. Reading about the number of fatalities from an earthquake may startle us, but it's not until we see the photos from the destruction and hear people's stories on the news that we respond to the tragedy on a visceral, gut level. This potent combination of narrative and imagery, what I'm referring to here as "digital storytelling," humanizes factual statistics, giving them real meaning. And so rather than having students robotically regurgitate dates, or rush through an essay for a single reader, we are asking students to dive deep into their topic, discover the most compelling narrative elements, strategize how their message can best be conveyed through video, and convincingly show a public audience why we should care. Thus, the students become more than the experts; they become the teachers.

 

This may see like an intimidating task, but the learning process involved is multi-layered, collaborative, and often times, enjoyable. In fact, faculty who already incorporate digital storytelling into their coursework have told me the most challenging aspect of the project has little to do with technical knowledge. Indeed, with user-friendly Media Commons equipment (flip cams, iMovie, Kaltura) and user-friendly Media Commons support, students quickly learn how to shoot and edit moving images. The real problem occurs on a more abstract level---how to conceptually develop an engaging video narrative. This issue deserves significant attention. Just as students need to be able to string together sentences in a coherent fashion, they need to be able to organize multimedia content meaningfully, especially now.

 

In light of this, there is a crucial step in the planning phase of digital storytelling that I think we need to emphasize more as educators. Most students begin with some sort of written essay that they then must adapt into their final movie.  This process of translation, from text to video, is not a manner of recording one's voice reading over the essay and then inserting random images. Because video operates differently as a medium than print, students must understand its unique limitations and affordances. And to maximize a video's storytelling potential, students must rework their papers so as to "translate" it for the language of cinema. My next post will explore exactly what I mean by this. Thanks for reading!

Next January, I will be co-teaching a workshop on Digital Storytelling (DS) at Winterfest 2010. In just two hours, we will cover everything from writing the story, to gathering images from Creative Commons, to publishing the final video on the web.  Because we can't possibly delve into the intricacies of DS during one brief workshop, I'd like to share some thoughts on the craft over next few posts here.  So consider this the teaser trailer for the training session...

 

Though the definition is purposely open-ended, digital stories are generally considered to be 2-5 minute videos featuring multimedia elements, such as still-images, music and voice-over narration, as well as video-clips, animation, and comics. Many organizations, like the Center for Digital Storytelling, specialize in the aesthetics of this craft, recognizing its potential for driving introspection and formulating communities. At its finest, DS merges a compelling, well-written story with an engaging vocal performance and visual style. Scissors, by Daniel Meadows, is one that caught my eye.  Whether a story is about family histories, personal discoveries, cultural practices, or social movements, a person's unique perspective can inspire some truly inventive, surprising, and astonishing work. The key is to provide students the opportunity and the platform to create it.

I like to think of digital storytelling as representing a culture in opposition with that of YouTube. To be sure, both involve amateur videos. Yet instead of instilling quick, instant hits of satisfaction and entertainment, digital stories aim to promote reflection and contemplation. We might look towards Ohio State's excellent digital storytelling showcase for some examples.

 

Indeed, we live in a world that is saturated with media and overflowing with information.  Rather than using technology superficially, as a means to multitask through life at warped speed, digital storytelling requires you take a timeout, pause, and utilize the tech tools to think critically and express oneself meaningfully.  (I'll have more to say on this in the upcoming 'Why' section)

Digital Stories are also about perspective, about seeing experiencing the world through someone else's eyes and hearing listening to their message.  For example, in the story "Take a Walk in My Shoes," Jamaine Del Rosario describes what it's like to care for a family of seven, all of whom live in a one-bedroom apartment in the projects.

If you're that person who says, "I don't really have any stories worth telling" then, well,  you are incorrect.  Everyone has their own individual experience, their own point of view, moral values, beliefs etc, yet we also share together a collective experience by virtue of being human--our curiosity, emotionality, self-consciousness etc.  The trick is to capture our own personal journey in order to convey a universal truth. Thus, digital stories are about understanding other people, about learning how they view the world, and realizing that is there is far more that unites us than divides us. And that is a story worth telling.

Hello! My name is Aaron Smith, the 'young cub' at Penn State's rapidly expanding Digital Commons program. In my position as Traveling Digital Commons Campus Consultant, I provide multimedia support for Penn State's eastern commonwealth campuses, frequently leading class workshops and consulting with faculty on how best to integrate technology into the classroom.

I'm fascinated not only by the technical applications of digital media, but also in how emerging technologies motivate new forms of learning, storytelling, and creative expression.  Mostly, this blog will allow me to share my thoughts on media literacy, highlight some interesting examples, and reflect on the various projects that come my way.  I encourage anyone, Penn State affiliated or not, to comment and join the discussion! Stay tuned...