Core Methods

Over the years and with the assistance of our colleagues, we have defined a core methodology for our Standard Workshop …

1. The Role of Story. Story defines and leads all aspects of our Standard Workshop process. The Standard Workshop is built around script writing, and the edit of the visual material is led by the narration. Our initial step of showing sample stories and facilitating group script feedback is meant principally to inform the writing of the script. We also work one-one-one with participants to ensure they are happy with the final version of their script and with their recording.

2. Personal Voice. Participants work on first person, personal stories. Whether the stories are reflections on a particular event or a larger issue, we stress teh value of focusing on firsthand experience. In this sense, our work shares methods with creative memoir writing workshops.

The dynamics of a group of people sharing life experiences through story have a special magic. This magic doesn’t happen if the writing takes form as an expository essay or a distanced presentation on a general subject, with little connection to the author. Even if the goal of participation is to eventually develop stories related to subjects outside of their direct experience, teaching someone how to find her/his own voice is invaluable. The focus on personal stories generally encourages participants to be thoughtful about their writing and to make an emotional commitment to the Standard Workshop process.

3. Still Images vs. Video. Pre-existing visual archives, i.e. the family album and home video, inspire many of the stories created in the Standard Workshop. In most traditional forms of film or video production, a script or video interview leads to production of the media elements and to the assembly in the editing suite. Conversely, the assumption of our Standard Workshop is that most of the critical visual elements of a participant’s digital story already exist, and that these elements inform the design of the narration.

Delving into their own photo archives allows people to get in touch with a profound sense of meaning, through a process of reflecting on a set of images from their lives. As such, these images can be an ideal prompt for creative writing.

Photographs can be organized and brought into a computer with relative ease. Video, by contrast, is much more time consuming and difficult to log, organize, and manipulate in the design of a story. As such, we promote a restrained use of video in the Standard Workshop, particularly given that so many of our participants are new to the media production experience.

4. The Seven Elements. Our Standard Workshop begins with a brief lecture intended to provide a context for participants as they draft their scripts and design their stories. The lecture, called the The Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling, follows the introductory content available in the Digital Storytelling Cookbook, touching upon key aspects of effective storytelling (i.e., narrative structure, image selection, pacing, etc.). Reviewing and analyzing a small number of stories enables us to establish a framework for offering feedback in the group scripting process and inspires a degree of thoughtfulness, creative experimentation, and risk-taking among participants.

5. The Story Circle. Each Standard Workshop includes a group script review process. Participants either bring script ideas or written drafts for presentation. Our facilitators invite feedback and brainstorming when appropriate but closely moderate the process to avoid overwhelming the storyteller. We are committed to:

a. Offering positive re-enforcement and accentuating the strengths of the story concept/script.

b. Encouraging collaborative assistance on script writing or design issues.

c. Identifying specific ways to focus a story, based on the Seven Elements, to focus a story, rather than making vague/general comments.

d. Allowing the participant a graceful way to terminate the review of their story idea.

6. Equipment and Software. In our Standard Workshop, choices about software tools and production environments have been considered in detail. Our many years of teaching experience have shown us that different software and hardware configurations will have different impacts on participants and on the stories they create. We prefer to use slightly advanced software programs rather than freeware (Final Cut Express on the Macintosh platform; Adobe Premiere Pro on the Windows platform), as these programs offer participants a greater range of opportunity for working with effects.

Our production environments have been set up in ways that allow easy viewing of projected tutorials, ready distribution of material (i.e., voiceover files, scans, captured video), adequate space for group processes, and room for people to spread out and work with their script and image material.

7. Workshop Tutorials. Our approach to teaching software tutorials in the Standard Workshop has been informed by an awareness that our participants bring with them varying levels of computer proficiency. We cover the minimum functionality necessary for the completion of a digital story. At the same time, we have designed our tutorials to inspire and excite participants about the potential of new media tools. This expands the creative palette being introduced and creates a powerful potential experience for all participants, regardless of prior experience. The tutorials are meant as a first orientation, and we emphasize that each of the steps or procedures being taught can be re-visited individually during the production process.

8. Management of the Process. Managing the participant’s journey through the Standard Workshop -- from sharing a story with a group of strangers to completing a final project -- requires immense attention from our facilitators. Participants enter the process with significant strengths and weaknesses in various components of group work and media production. Facilitators work with each participant to determine reasonable expectations, monitor their progress according to the daily schedule, assess their choice of design/production priorities, and support them in establishing a pace that will allow them to complete a story by the end of the session. Facilitators gently intervene with participants who become stuck in the process and direct them through the steps necessary for finalizing their stories.

9. The Final Presentation. An essential component of our Standard Workshop is the final story presentation. Facilitators do what is necessary to make sure that each participant completes a digital story within the three days, as we believe that initiating a production process and ending it without closure can give rise to frustration and fears of inadequacy. Finding the means to allow participants to be celebrated in what they have accomplished, to see what others have achieved, and to envision where the workshop experience may lead them in the future, pays off the entire process. This is true equally for the participant and the facilitator.

These methods distinguish the Standard Workshop experience from a number of training methods available in the larger marketplace of technology training and community media production services, which tend to focus on software mastery or individual steps in production rather than guiding participants through a production process from start to finish. Over the years, we have watched our methods become accepted practice in many contexts, and we look forward to a continued dialogue with fellow community artists experimenting with how story and media can enrich cultural and social movements globally.