Slice of Life Tuesday: Creating Digital Stories
Posted by blk1 on July 1, 2008
There was a time when I knew exactly how many digital pieces I had created, but not N any more, especially after our ABC movie collaboration last year. Thank God Kevin and I were able to expand the community for the project but we still took on a large number of letters each… A is for…, B…, C… Last year at this time we were wrapping it up. Remember, Kevin?
For this piece, I was commissioned by the NWP ELL network to document their TESOL pre-conference workshop focused on ELL writers in the digital age.
Judy Rance-Roney, a member of the ELL network of the NWP and a buddy at SUNY and our writing project, invited me to participate in this conference day when the group was in its earliest planning stages.
At first I was asked to collaborate on a digital storytelling workshop and document the day as well. As I sat with the group for an initial planning session last November at the NWP conference in NYC, I realized that I could not do both and everyone seemed to agree that wearing both hats would be just impossible to do justice to either work. So I moved to observer role happily.
This pre-conference day kicked off the TESOL conference and what was I thinking? Tuvia and I returned from Israel the day before and of course, I was just beginning to suffer from Jet Lag. As I rode up 6th Avenue in a taxi cab I was kicking myself for not planning differently. Oh well, next time, I have to remember, more down time to adjust.
But the group was a great one to work with,very sympathetic as I dragged myself up to the hotel room where the last minute details were being shared. The conference would be held in typical conference rooms just two floors away from us and even though the lighting was terrible the number of participants,30, made the setup perfect for documenting . I spontaneously abandoned my still camera for the video recorder and the inner lighting worked better than the odd external flash on my advanced point and shot, which has been put on the shelf when I moved to my Nikon D60 SLR with an external flash.
I knew I was taking a risk and walking around with the camera, not always resting on my tri-pod caused some shake but these days, with You Tube, it’s not as much of a problem. So I left the conference not filming everything but with almost a full hour of video and some photos. Given the comfort with presenters and a good group of 30 participants, and an clear plan to document their movement throughout the day with this hands-on experience with technology and its power for ELL’s, I had a challenge that could be achieved and thinking about what I have almost finished,
So here’s my request. Just below this post is my video draft. If you have a few minutes, 7 minutes, 15 seconds to be exact, I’d love some feedback. My goal was to move with the participants from start to finish and to see what they left with, so comment away.
I’m going to include some of the comments I already received via email.
Here’s the You Tube link if you can’t access it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0HROCVB05k
Bonnie
July 1st, 2008 at 7:18 am
Hi Bonnie,
The DS on TESOL is muy cool. I really like it. Have some feedback if you’re still in drafting mode:
There were some things you did around the middle that I really liked in terms of helping the audience get a sense of the workshop itself. I loved the part where you caught a shot of one of the presenters (Lynn, Judy, etc.) and put in their name and workshop title. It really helped us see that afternoon breakout sessions. (Did you get and name Joe and Alish too?) But seeing that made me, retrospectively, want a little more structure for the front end. I wasn’t sure that people would really get the recording activity and it’s point. So I wondered about
Putting in some text, perhaps via questions. Like, what if “What happens when you introduce something as simple as a digital recorder?” moved across the screen. Then we see the scene of the recording and we hear the participant reflecting on her answer to that question. Or something like that. I thought it might make the capture of that part of the workshop clearer.
I also wondered if in the very beginning we could get a sense of some of the questions for ‘twittering into the day’ either through onscreen text or a shot of the bingo sheet. It would connect, then, to the lovely capture of the person reflecting at the end about all the questions she couldn’t answer at the beginning of the day but can now.
And I realize that it is the prerogative of the filmmaker to put herself in or not, but I’d love to see you in there too…or some signoff by you or something.
Elyse
July 1st, 2008 at 7:19 am
Bonnie,
Got it on YouTube. What great video captures. I had forgotten the great comments that emerged from the session.
Don’t be afraid to use your voice to frame the story. You are the creator of this piece and I always love getting “the sense of Bonnie” in the DS, especially in introducing the day.
Judy
July 1st, 2008 at 7:20 am
I just watched the video. Nice job.
I have some reactions that I can share, if that is OK:
There is a title called Twittering into the Day, but no reference that I could tell to Twitter itself. Is there a reason why you used that title? It sounds good but it just struck me that most people will look/listen for the Twitter reference.
You know what I loved? The group in the hallway singing that song. I thought: that should be the opening sequence to the video. Just a thought.
Some of the titles are in white font and hard to see at times. I always struggle with this and never come up with a good way, but it is distracting at times.
I loved the break-out session work. Great insights.
I loved seeing old friend, Joe B.
The final reflections and ideas — wonderful stuff.
You know there was the comment about the stereotype of the writer (isolated) and it felt to me that this was important and could have been moved up or highlighted somehow. it gets a bit lost at the end.
And the end of the video comes suddenly — it almost needs a final clip to wrap things up, in my mind.
I hope you don’t think I am being critical here, just being constructive. Feel free to ignore my ideas. I loved the work.
Kevin
July 1st, 2008 at 7:40 am
I love that you are reaching out to folks for feedback.
It shows the power of the community.
Kevin
July 1st, 2008 at 7:49 am
I was thinking about you when I did it.
Bonnie
July 1st, 2008 at 8:45 am
[...] Bonnie Kaplan, of the Hudson Valley Writing Project, is working on a Digital Storytelling piece about the NWP/ELL conference and has a draft up on YouTube. She is looking for feedback, so check out the video and leave her your two cents, either at the video itself or at her blog. [...]