CREATE YOUR OWN STORY | Urban Deep Map

Create Your Own Digital Story

All information correct at time of publishing: July 2019.

Introduction: What is a digital story?

Digital storytelling is sometimes used as a general term, covering any type of digital or online story (or narrative) but it actually refers to a very specific approach developed by Joe Lambert at the University of California – Berkeley, in the early 1990s (https://www.storycenter.org/stories) specifically aimed at giving people a voice. Digital stories allow you to capture and perhaps share, your memories, opinions and thoughts about anything you find interesting or important to you. The instructions and resources here will help you to create personal, place-based digital stories based on your experiences in/around your neighbourhood and perhaps inspired by its long and rich history.

Style: A story narrated with your voice

Stories created in a narrative style are the most personal in topic and tone. Written in the first person, narrative stories are told with your own voice. This experience-based story is then supported visually by images/film clips.

Instructions:

Create Your Digital Story

Step 1: Find Your Place-Based Story Idea

Your story may be about an event, an experience, a conversation or indeed anything so long as it relates to you and your neighbourhood in some way. There is no ‘wrong’ story – it’s your story, it is always right! Perhaps you already have a story idea in mind? If so, jump to Step 2 below. If not, don’t worry there are lots of places to look for inspiration. A couple of relatively quick options are a walk/ride around your neighbourhood or an ‘armchair trip’ through your paper or digital photograph album. If you are relatively new to the area and just beginning to create memories and albums, you might find inspiration in the past of the neighbourhood itself. Search online and visit the online collections and information of your local library/archive/museum, historic environment record (every city/town council will have one) or local history/archaeology society. Finally, ask someone. Start a conversation with family, friends, colleagues who also know your neighbourhood – a little or a lot – and see what stories come up and what they mean to you and others …

Step 2: Write Your Story

Writing or ‘scripting’ your story can sound intimidating but, you already have your story – in your head – it’s just a case of getting it down on paper before reading and recording it. The ideal length of a digital story is between 2 and 3 minutes and to give you an idea of how many words that is, the image below shows a 1.53 min / 285 word story.

Getting started is often the hardest part, but Joe Lambert* provides the following questions as prompts:

– How would you describe the place?

– With whom did you share this place?

– What general experiences do you relate to this place?

– Was there a defining experience at the place?

– What lessons about yourself do you draw from your relationship to this place?

– If you have returned to this place, how has it changed?

There’s no limit to the number of draft stories you can write and if it helps, share your story with another person just keep going until it ‘feels right’ to you.

* Digital Storytelling Cookbook, 2010: https://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/cookbook.pdf

Step 3: Create Your Digital Story

Once you have a story script you are happy with, it’s time to record it before adding images or video clips that support/emphasise what is being said. A simple video editor (and the one we use in our workshops) is part of the free Windows Photo App (image below). If you have Windows 10, this app is installed as standard and you will find this listed in the Start Menu, otherwise, you can download it here: https://tinyurl.com/Windows-Photos This is a basic editor but is easy to use and does the job!

The first task is to record your story, so find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Although the Windows Photo App is easy to use, it does have some limitations and one is that you cannot record your story directly into the app. Most devices, including smartphones, will have an app you can use to record your voice or download the Window’s Voice Recording App here: https://tinyurl.com/y2pgk5nm Once you have a recording you are happy with, upload this to the Photos App (via ‘Audio’ option).

The next task is to gather together images or video clips to support the story you are telling. There’s no hard or fast rule as to how many images/clips you should use but for a 2 minute story somewhere between 8 and 12 seems to work well.

Just remember, if you find something interesting online, such as a photo or image, and want to use it in your digital story you must have the owner/creators’ permission to do so. If this is an organisation you’ll usually find details of what re-use is allowed/not allowed and any fees payable on the organisation’s website – you may have to search around for the ‘small print’ or alternatively the contact details of someone you can ask.

If there is something you would like to include but you don’t have a digital image of, for example, a book/album cover, postcard or event ticket, try taking a photo of it with your phone or camera or alternatively use a printer to scan it. Your local library will have a printer you can use to do this.

First load your images/clips into the Photos App: Project Library (via ‘+Add photos and videos’ button) and from here drag and drop them into the Photos App: Storyboard section in roughly the order you want. Next press play in the Photos App: Preview Section to view your video and adjust the order and duration of each image/clip as required. You can also add motion, text and other effects to your video via the Photos App: Storyboard options, for example, you might add the title of your story to your first image/clip and have it displayed for 1 – 2 seconds. Have a play and see which, if any, work for you.

Also, if you think you might share your story it is important to protect your own copyright. The simplest way to do this is via a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons is a global non-profit organisation which aims to support online sharing and re-use of creative work in a way which encourages people to be creative and share their work but in a way which is fair, ethical and under the control of the author/producer. There are several different licenses available which define who can re-use your work (e.g. can commercial organisations use it?) and how they can use it (e.g. can they change it in any way?). The Creative Commons website will walk you through a couple of questions to help you decide which type of license is right for you and how to communicate this online. It also lists which existing popular media sharing platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo, have Creative Commons licensing options built-in.

The most restrictive Creative Commons license and therefore the one which offers the most protection for your digital story is the ‘Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International’ license. This allows people to share your work online if full credit is given to you and no modifications have been made to your work and prohibits all commercial use. If this feels right for you the simplest way to license your work is to add the text ‘CC BY-NC-ND 4.0’ to the first and/or last image in your digital story.

When you are satisfied with your digital story, you can create a video file to keep or share via the ‘Export or share’ option (top right-hand corner of the screen).

Well done – you’ve created your own digital story! If you would like us to add it to the neighbourhood deep map (subject to moderation) please email it to us at: urbandeepmap@outlook.com

There are lots of other free video editing apps available for download. If you would like an editor with more features, although a little more complex to use, than the Photos App above or if you are an iPhone/Pad or Mac PC take a look at the following:

Windows

OpenShot: https://www.openshot.org/download/

Blender: https://www.blender.org/download/

VideoPad (Windows): https://tinyurl.com/y2hm9bso

iOS/macOS

Splice (iOS): http://spliceapp.com/

VideoPad (Mac OS X): https://tinyurl.com/y2hm9bso

Smaller Digital Storytelling Projects

Re-photography (or Repeat Photography)

Not technically a digital story until a narrative is added, re-photography is a form of photography in which the same site is photographed at two separate points in time and then combined digitally to create a single "then and now" image.