While editing software is available for both platforms, Windows and Mac, I work only on Apple computers, using mostly Photoshop, iLife and Garageband (Final Cut Pro for advanced projects).
Like any art form, digital storytelling requires technical and artistic skills. It’s an art and a craft. If you want to create a good story, a story that touches your audience, you need to apply some rules of storytelling and movie making.
There are basically three ways I can help you to make your own digital story:
1. Learn how to do it yourself
If you have basic computer skills, you can teach yourself. Watch examples, read books and manuals, and buy and/or learn the necessary software, until you know enough to create a digital story on your own. For many people, though, this is the hard (and lonely) road.
An easier way is to learn it with somebody who knows the technical challenges and has the artistic experience. Depending on your skill level, I can teach you how to create a digital story from scratch, the whole process, from finding the right story to burning the DVD; or I can guide you through certain steps where you need help, for example voice recording.
2. Get help with the production
If you feel a bit overwhelmed with computer technology, or you don’t have the time to learn it yourself, I offer you a solution: We produce the story together, one-on-one.
You are the director, making the creative decisions; I am the producer and editor, taking care of the technical side and guiding you with my knowledge and experience. In a private environment, you can enjoy the creative process without having to learn new technologies. With a flexible time frame, you can dig deep and let out your artist.
3. Create with others
The third option is to create your story in a digital storytelling workshop of 3 to 5 days. In a small group (depending on the available computers), we guide you every step of the way. The big plus of doing it this way: There are others like you sharing their stories, giving each other feedback, helping each other. In our experience, this circle of storytellers has been a place of great inspiration and support.
Currently, Your StoryWorks does not offer prescheduled workshops. But we can provide facilitation for a group workshop (working with Mac computers) upon request.
Let’s assume that we are producing your story together, one-on-one.
It begins with the idea. Do you know which story you want to tell? Wonderful. Sit down and write. Most people, though, have many stories to tell and need to decide which one wants to be told NOW. In this case, I help you get clear by listening and asking questions. Then you write your story. Remember: keep it short.
Together, we edit this draft, shorten and polish it to the final script of not more than 500 words. With me as a coach, you practice reading the story out loud, until we are ready to record it. This narration becomes the spine of the story.
We look through the images you have, and develop a storyboard so we know which image is needed for each part of the text. Video footage can be used, but it is much more time consuming than still images, so I encourage you to stick to still images, certainly for the first story. I scan the pictures or objects (unless they are already digital), edit and size them and create, together with the narration, a rough cut of your story.
Let’s talk about sound. Music can express a lot. We have a library of copyright free music and many sound effects. Or perhaps, you use commercial music depending on where you plan to show it. If you’d like to learn new software, you can compose your own music on the computer. Or you can play or sing yourself and we record it.
Now comes the fun part, the fine editing. You are the director – with my suggestions, I am the editor. With transitions, effects and graphics we weave all the elements into a powerful audio-visual work of art. After adding the credits, the digital story is complete and we burn it onto a DVD. You can view it on a computer, a TV or publish it online.