How can a digital storytelling project be formed? In this series we present projects from around the world to give you inspiration to your work with digital storytelling.
Center for Digital Storytelling is the most important institution in the movement and practice of digital storytelling. Center for Digital Storytelling is to where it all started.
In 1994 the media producer and artist Dana Atchley, had developed NEXT EXIT, a multimedia autobiography. In his work he met the local theater producer/dramatic consultant Joe Lambert. Joe Lambert and Dana Atchley soon found out that they had a common interest in storytelling and media use. When they met Nina
Mullen the Center of Digital Storytelling was born. The Center was built around a unique training process, the Digital Storytelling Workshop.
The Center for Digital Storytelling became to be the primary institution associated with digital storytelling.
The center offers workshop all over the United States and beyond in the process of creating digital stories as well how to teach the process of making digital stories, involving media professionals, teachers, students and any other people with interest in telling their stories.
Usually it is a three-day intensive workshop, which offers an introduction to working with digital imaging and digital video software. Students craft and record first-person narratives and collect still images and music to illustrate their pieces. In managing the software tools they get help from computer tutorials, which enable them, with teacher support, to edit their own stories. At the end of the workshop each student presents a personal 3-5 minutes digital story (Storycenter.org).
After 14 years of practice, the knowledge gained from these workshops is available in a so-called ‘Cookbook’. ‘The Digital Storytelling Cookbook’ is a practical guide in how to make digital stories and is considered to be the bible in the field of digital storytelling.
The model practiced at Center for Digital Storytelling is referred to worldwide as the Californian model.
To read more about the center, please visit www.storycenter.org