Digital storytelling for beginners, get started and learn the basics

We recently held our first digital storytelling workshop in Sydney, which was fully-booked. Designed for beginners, the workshop offered attendees with a great mix of theory and practical hands-on exercises, allowing them to learn by doing and most importantly, have fun! Here’s a summary of some of the things I learned from the workshop.

During the workshop, we looked at four key areas to creating a simple video using compact Flip video cameras including:

• Planning the video
  This process is called pre-production, which involves anything that takes place before the actual shoot. This includes storyboarding, script writing, choosing the equipment to use, finding talents, budgeting, gathering photos and doing research for the content.
• Shooting the video
  Using techniques to stabilise the video, framing the shots and understanding the importance of lighting
• Conducting an interview
  Interview clips are often an integral part of a video to enable the audience to hear directly from the person involved. Here are some tips for conducting and shooting an interview effectively.
• Editing the video
  This part of the process is called post-production, which also includes sound design, importing title and music, and publishing.

Here's what a few of the other attendees thought of the workshop:

"Information was presented well and was easy to follow, good to get some lecturing as well as hands on experience.”

“Presenter was knowledgeable, humourous and engaging. Fast paced class. Great mixture of practice and theory.”

“Really informative, good overview of lots of topics. Got a lot out of the day.”

Upcoming digital storytelling workshops

The digital storytelling workshop will also be held in Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne on the following dates (find out more by clicking the links):

• Adelaide: 26 July 2012
• Brisbane: 31 July 2012
• Melbourne: 8 August 2012