Webinar 2: Cultural Storytelling: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
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Part of MuseWeb Foundation's series about cultural storytelling, this presentation was given to a group of teachers who were recruiting students to collect local community oral histories, with the ultimate goal of producing audio and video projects. This "Youth Access Grant" project is sponsored by the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program. Museum on Main Street sends Smithsonian traveling exhibitions into small towns across the nation.
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Webinar 2: Cultural Storytelling: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- 2. #bHereMainSt @MuseWeb Selwyn Ramp Project Director Heather Shelton Digital Curator Selwyn@MuseWeb.us @SelwynRamp Heather@MuseWeb.us @MuseumsAgo www.MuseWeb.us/be-here-main-street http://www.slideshare.net/MuseWeb/be-here-main-street-project
- 3. What is cultural storytelling? …And how is it different from other stories?
- 4. Cultural Stories Are: • Not always based on hard facts • Can be told by anyone • Perspectives & experiences • Offer a sense of time & place • Rich & descriptive • Totally individualized & unique
- 5. What are the elements of a great story? Includes town name and state Creates a sense of context Provides rich, descriptive details Covers topics and subjects that can be linked to larger stories: TOURS Sound and imagery match mood and tenor of topic Narration is natural and enthusiastic
- 6. Capitalizes on students’ passions!
- 7. These are good stories! See if you can figure out why. Newspaper Inserter Eagle River, Alaska Small-town Life During Ice Storm First Job
- 8. What elements did these stories share? • Recounted a personal experience • Topic about something he/she new best • Natural speaking voice • 2-5 minutes in length • Referenced location • Made you think about another time or place
- 9. STORY?...How about a more traditional approach? • Producers must be passionate about the topic • Are concerned about length • Research matters but reading of a script is not engaging • Editing to know the most important parts of the story • Context is key • Rich details and character/place development matter Even with documentaries, you should be aware that:
- 10. Examples of good documentary-style student stories https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ihBjSJRvPE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqRQnki51f I
- 11. More Than the Story . . . Students to consider topics not studied in school as valid and worthwhile? Students to think beyond themselves and their school? Students to cross generational, gender or racial lines to collect or record the story? Did the Process Encourage . . . ? Students to make use of local resources like libraries, archives, museums? Students to experiment with new technologies? Students to be open to peer editing, review, and screening of stories? Students to consider themselves “experts” on a topic? Building Confidence, Skills, and Community Students to consider multiple points of view on a given issue.
- 12. STORY?...How could you group great stories? The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Stories grouped around a theme create a greater narrative, a cause, a movement. • Stories around a singular theme, age group, place … • Stories that build one upon the other • Stories that examine a topic from multiple
- 13. Good stories create context and can be connected online, developed into a collection, playlist, or series
- 14. Think about a tour … a group of 8-15 stories that are connected by a common theme. A typical stop on a tour is between 1-3 minutes.
- 16. Be part of a larger community. Upload to the Museum on Main Street Website Tag outside content to “Be Here: Main Street” #bHereMainSt
- 17. What makes for a bad story? What makes for a less successful story?Speakers talk over each other Students include last names and addresses Recorded in a loud place where background noise can’t be edited Too focused on editing bells and whistles—not as much on content Uses unlicensed audio or video Asks yes or no questions of interviewees
- 18. These are not-so great stories! See if you can figure out why. Yes or no questions! Reading script Background Noise! No mention of location
- 19. Questions?
- 20. #bHereMainSt @MuseWeb Nancy Proctor Executive Director Selwyn Ramp Project Director Nancy@MuseWeb.us @NancyProctor Heather Shelton Digital Curator Selwyn@MuseWeb.us @SelwynRamp Heather@MuseWeb.us @MuseumsAgo Contact Details www.MuseWeb.us/be-here-main-street http://www.slideshare.net/MuseWeb/be-here-main-street-project
Editor's Notes
- https://www.flickr.com/photos/jstephenconn/5340093717 This Webinar is made possible through a partnership between partnership between the MuseWeb Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street program.
- Photograph by Selwyn Ramp
- To put it simply, cultural storytelling are factual events/content told in creative and immersive ways. Voices lending to a bigger picture of a place. Their voices shouldn’t be the only one talking about a certain location – but about the feel of a place, what it is to be there- what the culture is, what makes the place unique. Like this picture of a homemade pesto burger… It’s about how it tastes– how it looks, how it smells…
- Differentiate between cultural stories and those that they might find in history books.
- This is something you can do no-matter what & when. Even if you are not involved with the YAG project until 2019! It’s about sharing passion about elements of the broad national themes from MoMS exhibitions. Ask the meeting participants to think about how local stories will connect to the MoMS exhibit. Think about how your local stories can help your community’s connect with the national When we talk about being a project for cultural storytelling, we mean that we want you to inspire others with your passion to an aspect of your specific history and culture. We don’t want to hear dry facts. We want to hear the context of behind facts. Is there music that will bring the story to life, or can you tell us about the personalities of the people you are talking about – don’t just talk about what Thurgood Marshall did, talk about who he was as a person. Help us imagine the times and the people in our heads – what is the story behind that architectural style, how did that artwork get here, what is the story behind it?
- All of these stories share common elements.
- Not all teachers are keen on the idea of free-form story collection. Some projects are going to require much more planning. Cultural stories can, of course, be both spontaneous or well rehearsed.
- These stories are great! Two things to think about in the first example is the use of the student’s name and the inclusion of popular music.
- What’s the purpose of this project? Just to collect stories?
- So… Grouping of stories- What happens to individual stories if you group them together with a theme? – you build an overarching …. Theme, a cause… you could almost listen to them like a novel that is being red to you.
- At the core of the program, is the goal to connect communities to each other, but also to others. Using the power of storytelling development/partnerships development. Storytelling has the possibility to do this because you are no longer talking about culture, but about the community – and everyone has some kind of interest in it- because they are part of it. As Seph Rodney wrote in the introduction to the Storytelling Handbook: “We have always told stories. … In inventing stories, we invented ourselves, through telling them to each other, we make a community. … [now more than ever] We need the light and the warmth of stories authentically told and shared. We need them especially from community members who are not typically heard—the citizen storytellers, corner oral historians who have a wealth of lived experience not found in official records or broadcast reports. Our technological tools now allow us to give local voices a new platform; we can pin content to geolocated areas that are triggered through smart phone apps. This initiative is a new and unique form of storytelling, yet it is also part of a deep tradition of making a world for ourselves in which we don’t just survive, but we thrive.”
- TYPICALLY… not necessarily. As we can see- a tour, or collection of stories for example in Minnesota - there is a collection of over 100 stories recorded. We are probably all familiar with the typical museum or city tours. A grouping of 10 to 15 stories, connected together through a predefined route. Most stops are typically soundbites of 1 – 3 minutes. It is probably not hard to imagine that this is possible to do with a smartphone… But what if we think beyond the typical- imagine a city, a community, or even a country to be covered with soundbites of 1 – 2 minutes, and instead of the content creator to be leading the way- the end user decides the route, and whatever story is near you, and relevant to the location you are in, simply starts playing. – and you can create if it were a soundtrack of the city. THAT is what technology nowadays allows us to do, and the best yet- it is openly available for anyone to use.
- TYPICALLY… not necessarily. As we can see- a tour, or collection of stories for example in Minnesota - there is a collection of over 100 stories recorded. We are probably all familiar with the typical museum or city tours. A grouping of 10 to 15 stories, connected together through a predefined route. Most stops are typically soundbites of 1 – 3 minutes. It is probably not hard to imagine that this is possible to do with a smartphone… But what if we think beyond the typical- imagine a city, a community, or even a country to be covered with soundbites of 1 – 2 minutes, and instead of the content creator to be leading the way- the end user decides the route, and whatever story is near you, and relevant to the location you are in, simply starts playing. – and you can create if it were a soundtrack of the city. THAT is what technology nowadays allows us to do, and the best yet- it is openly available for anyone to use.
- Ugly? Maybe not, but some stories are less successful than others.
- Therefore, this story is about Becky and Don, and was originally recorded for the Minnesota Humanities Center in conjunction with Water/Ways Exhibition of Museum on Main Street. Please listen & look at the pictures… … Though we cannot go to the physical location that this story is about, I have added some pictures that I was able to find online about the river and location they are talking about.- because this story was geo-located to a specific location, and I was able to easily trace where it was of relevance. Which of the two stories we listened to was more interesting? – and did the visual clues help you to relate to the story better?
- And that’s all she wrote! Does anyone have any questions?