Place Based Story Telling & Final Assignment

Why do people find stories about places interesting?

-        

  Because of things that happened there. People connect with theses stories emotionally and create meaning

- They are markers in time that anchor your identity – they do this just by being there, and by staying there – this is why it is important to preserve, not just buildings but environments

-  They have multiple ways of being told – they can embody many different types of meaning and story – so they can continually be retold

So, telling stories about places, is as important about telling stories about family, events, history – because the land remains, the places remain and so they are a visual memory of who you are, and where you come from.

Techniques/Approaches to take when creating a place-based story

1.    
Try to understand why something is there. Reveal the underlying social and economic world behind the landscape or building, what was it created or used for?

2.      Look at a story, or a place from several angles. Think of all the people who were, or are, connected to a place and look at it from their perspective and what it might mean to them. This generates great ideas for storytelling.

3.    
Try and identify a small aspect of a place, or something very specific about it that you can base your story on and tell the bigger story of the place. Everyday objects can often reveal, or tell a bigger story.

4.    
Place the story in the context of something larger. Many people find it difficult to get engaged in a
specific story unless they have a frame of reference. Provide them with one by connecting your story to something they might already know about.

5.    
Maps or contextual images are a way to break through the disconnection with place, if you can’t be physically there. Maps take your eyes and place them above a landscape and help the viewer orient themselves to a location. Good , wide establishing shots serve a similar function.

Examples

The examples I used aren’t meant to be copied, but just show how you can use different devices within a story to help locate the viewer in a place.

Assignment 4

Assignment 4 is to produce a digital story based on your own idea. It can be about anything you like, but it needs to involve some research by you, needs to have a target audience, and needs to be in the digital story format we have been practicing for the other assignments.

Develop a dramatic question, a point and include narration, emotion, pacing, soundtrack and titles.

I want you to include three components:

1. A Covering letter

Write a covering letter that summarises your project for me. Save the document as Your Name_Assignment 4 (a MSWord, Txt or RTF format document or similar). In the covering document I want to see:

1.Your Details

·         Your Name

·         NM 2203 Assignment 4

·         Student ID

2. Title of the Movie

3. Introduction

Introduce to the story, tell me what your objectives are with this piece, what it is you are trying to convey.

Tell me who the intended audience is, what they will take out of this story, or how they will find it useful, or how it will meet their needs.

4. The Process

Tell me about how you went about making this movie. If you had to do a field trip, or an interview, some background research, etc. Tell me about the process and how you established your ideas and why you chose to use the approach you took.

5. Files

Describe the folder structure where you files are located, so someone who had to go and remake or edit your movie could find the files they need.

6. Permissions

Give me an overview of the files/interviews that you used to make the movie, and where you sourced them. Pick a Creative Commons Licence for your movie.

Remember, you get a lot of marks for simply documenting and uploading your assignment correctly. Double-check your spelling and grammar. Get someone to check it for you. It is important.

2. Your Storyboard – in the same format I specified in Assignment 1 – i.e. in columns across the page. Name it ‘Your Name_ Assignment 3 Storyboard’

3. Your Movie file – create a movie file and name it Your Name_Assignment 3. Try to keep the file under 100MB.

It is a good idea to zip up these three files into one Zip Folder and upload that. That means you only need to upload once.

DROPBOX

I will create an Assignment 4 Dropbox on LearnJCU. Upload your files here by Monday 29^th  October.

To recap – upload 3 files for me ( or zip into one folder and upload the folder).

1.    A covering document

2.    Your storyboard
Your Movie file

Have fun.