This document provides guidance for developing a digital storytelling project. It discusses finding story topics, including ones from your own life, community, or causes. It explains how to shape stories using three-act structure and point of view. Tips are provided for writing a one-page synopsis and pitch. Examples are given of different types of narrative stories covering topics like recovery, changing lives, death/dying, and humor. Students are instructed to develop a storyline and synopsis for an initial class assignment due in mid-September.

1. Digital Storytelling Basics
• Finding stories
• Examples
• Shaping stories: structure and point of view
• Narratives of different story types
• Synopsis

2. First assignment: develop a story
• Develop a storyline that will drive future class projects.
Remember you will produce Projects like audio slide show
and video story, and include them in a website.
• Do research and brainstorming.
• Select a topic or theme.
• Shape the story.
• Write a blueprint as a one-page synopsis (due Sept. 15)
• Present to others why that project is worthwhile (Sep. 20)

3. What we are looking for:
• You already know how to tell a story. Everyone has stories.
• Stories come from a variety of places: yourself, your community, your
country, or even international issues. If you are doing a story about
yourself, it can come either from your past or present/future.
• Throughout history, storytelling has been used to share knowledge,
wisdom, and values. Stories have taken many different forms. Stories
have been adapted to each successive medium that has emerged, from
the circle of the campfire to the silver screen, and now the computer
screen.
• Digital Storytelling is just “a modern expression of the ancient art of
storytelling” (www.storycenter.org).

4. Where to look for stories.
1. Yourself:
Family, Identity, Relationship…
2. Community:
On campus, your sports team, home town, ….
3. Causes and issues
National issues, activism, your organization,
4. International issues

5. Family story example: 1890 Stories by Natalia
Anglin
• What visual elements
were used in this
project?
• What audio elements
were used?
• How did the images
move?
• When you plan this
type of story, be noted
that you have pecific
deadlines.

6. Identity stories: Running to Ozone, Caroline Pari
• What visual and audio
elements would you
have included in this
project?
• What did you think of
the beginning and
ending?
• A more sophisticated
example.
Sofa by Wayne Richard

7. Relationships: Daddy’s girl
• Perhaps one of the most
common project topics
for students.
• This project is a focused
one. But would not get a
good grade from me. You
will need live image and
audio element.
• One of our own student
projects. Paul.

8. Community examples.
Examples on campus
• On campus events that specifically
attract students
• You and your sports/ activities (dance,
gymnastics, rugby, golf….)
• Campus issues such as crime,
residency, hate speech etc.
• Boilermaker sports (but you cannot
just preview games and/or show you
and your friend watching games)
• Christian life or religion on campus
• Ecology on campus
• Politics on campus
Examples of hometown
• Local attraction and story behind it.
• Community shelters
• Animal shelter
• Local attraction
• NGO’s
• History
Student example:
Awareness on campus
Be aware of your audience. W

9. More instructions about how
to find stories: How can you tell
a story about large issues like
national and international
issues?

10. Tips: Localize and personalize large issues
• Example story: Robert Krulwich and Will Hoffman, NPR Online
• To tell the complicated story of health care for NPR Online, Krulwich
and Hoffman zeroed in on the personal tales of a few individuals.
• http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/06/01/121158190/a-
locksmith-s-tale-and-other-health-care-stories

11. Shaping stories: You may find ideas but they are
not stories .
• Structure: Stories are presented in narrative styles. Typically they have
beginning –middle – end.
• Set up: characters, location, time and other elements.
-in a way that allows events to unfold so that audience wants to know more and
more about it
-tell how are your characters are affected
-how they develop a solution (or not) and finally where they go from there.

12. Narrative stories v. Reports
(Pyramid) (Reverse pyramid)
*Freytag’s Pyramid: originally developed to analyzed Greek and Roman plays.
Exposition: Introduction to the characters, the conflict and basic setting.
Rising action: More detail. Reveal the nature of the conflict.
Climax: the moment of greatest tension. Turning point for better or worse.
Falling action: heading to the conclusion. Sometimes continued tension.
Denouement: where complications are resolved and the story comes to end.
*Compare it with the reverse pyramid.

13. In our projects most stories will be
shaped according to 3 act principle.
Storytellers think of story structure as three act play (Means
recommended by the instructor).
Act 1. Introduce your characters. Let us meet them. Show location
and time. Give a reason why we should care about them.
Act 2. Reveal the complication. Usually the longest part of the story.
Let the complication intensify.
Act 3. Resolve the complication. And finish the story in a satisfying
way. What choices were made in the crisis?

14. Point of view (POV)
• First-person POV: e.g. Greys anatomy. Many of bio videos.
• Second-person POV: Direct address by the actors to the audience.
e.g. Think of on-spot TV anchors.
• Third-person POV: Most common in storytelling. Audience are
detached observers.
• Character POV: One character is dominant in a series of stories. e.g.
sit com Seinfeld.
• Conflicting POV: Mixture of different point of view.

15. Exercise: identifying structure and POV
• “Hungry: Living with the Prader-Willi Syndrome”
Identify the three part acts.
https://vimeo.com/5717103
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5BSpxvqL2A
• Sofa by Wayne Richard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPrnDD51Y5s&list=PL7AC307C5
535EF045

16. Next step: plan the storytelling.
• As a producer, once you have a concept, you need to find a way to
finance its production.
1. determine the essential content and structure of the story and the
best way to treat the story
2. determine the best audience/market for your story
3. develop a sales presentation for the story – this is THE PITCH.

17. How to write a synopsis, prepare pitch
• Students write, rewrite, and continue the writing process through
multiple drafts. In most cases, this writing takes the form of a
personal narrative about a particular story from a student’s life.
• The pitch itself is a highly condensed presentation of the story.
Lasting usually no more than two or three minutes. The best way
to begin to develop a pitch is to create a synopsis of the story.
• Tips for writing one page synopses are posted on the blackboard
and class blog.

18. Tips: Visualize a long history
• Manage a long time period with digital story telling. You cannot tell the whole
story with writing or just still photos.
• But mix them with interviews, graphics, archival footage makes them manageable.
• Gather the materials and edit them, you can take audience back in time. Think of
the great story book chapters.
• Video: mix A roll and B roll.
• Photos: new and old.
• Audio: music, narration and interviews
• Example
• Take care Media Storm
• http://mediastorm.com/training/take-care

19. Tips: Generalize what you see around you
• Example story: Age of Uncertainty
• https://vimeo.com/1229405
• Photo by Josh Meltzer, Roanoke Times
• The photographer saw a woman who assists her fellow church
members. A colleague encouraged him to think more broadly about
what this lady did a story on caring for elderly people in general.

20. Narratives of video stories
by topics (Video)
Examples for writing narratives for video project.
From Josh Meltzer’s instruction book.

21. 1. Contests & Sports
• Competitions has natural built in story arcs
• Conflict is obvious
• Easy to find narratives
• Example: two men using competitive narratives. Content is about
their resolution to win.
• https://vimeo.com/9865278

22. 2. Recovery
• Also provides natural narrative
• Give the suspense of unknown results. Build up tension.
Remember what you learned from storytelling structure.
• Get inspiring quotes
• http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-jewish-addict-ss-
htmlstory.html

23. 3. Changing a life
• Journey style
• Follow the same subject.
• Getting the natural narrative is the key.
• http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com//2009/06/16/showcase-7/

24. 4. Death or Dying
• Audience are naturally drawn
• Death is a universal experience of all people.
• Powerful as it is. Do not over-dramatize.
• http://www.theconcentra.org/en/nominees/2010/casey-
kauffman-baby-feras/

25. 5. Localizing/humanizing a national
problem
• Use ordinary people for a highly reported cases.
• Often present different cases.
• Sometimes require time and skill
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mFcGJyUxJk

26. 6. Humor
• Multimedia are built for humor
• Much easier to make others laugh with a photo or video than with
words
• http://kylegreen.photoshelter.com/#!/video

27. 7. The unusual amidst the ordinary
• Everyone has a story. But not all story are appealing.
• Often takes on a form of series or omnibus
• http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-
million/index.html#/stefanie_rinza