Making a  story.
Making a ''
story should be an interesting and educational
process. If nothing else it should make you think about your
own thoughts, basic beliefs and ideas as you set about your
production. It should challenge your creative and technical
abilities as you combine all of your sources and battle with
whatever software and hardware you have been provided with.
If it seems daunting and difficult to do, it may not be your fault.
Although both software and hardware are becoming easier to use it
is still these items that are constraints on the creative process.
Consider the list below and if you still need help please email my_story@cardiffschools.net.
Process
So what are the steps in producing your ''
story?
| a) |
Decide on the content of your
story |
| b) |
Research your subject - look
at your story from every angle |
| c) |
Assemble your 'assets' -
these are the sounds, pictures, photographs, videos that
will be your source material |
| d) |
Collate your assets into a
digital format - scan photos, digitize sounds and
videos |
| e) |
Write your 250 word script |
| f) |
Storyboard your content -
link your pictures to your script. |
| g) |
Gather any other supporting
material and format it into a suitable digital format. |
| h) |
Check you have permission to
use all of your material - (cardiffschools has a generous
copyright permission) |
| i) |
Edit your material - combine
your spoken text with your graphical material |
| j) |
Show your work to your
friends and ask for their comments |
| k) |
Re-edit your presentation, if
necessary |
| l) |
Click here
to upload and describe your story |
| m) |
There is no stage m |
Visit Daniels excellent online tutorial at Photobus  for some first class
advice and guidance
or look at this Cookbook.
Technical Recommendations
We have failed to find little hotbeds of Linux and Apple users
in schools around the county so we are stuck with Microsoft's
Windoze based machines for this project.
There are a number of software packages that can be used to
produce a Digital Story. Two packages, that represent extremes on
the cost/performance scale are Microsofts 'Movie Maker 2' and
Adobe 'Premier'.
The 'no cost' route is to download
MovieMaker2 and use this free programme to generate your
video. It is a simple but competent package allowing you to
edit video and stills, include transitions between shots and add
sound.
Adobe Premier is the 'industrial strength' video editing package. There is a
video introduction to the package here. Premier
can be daunting but provides all of the functions necessary to produce
professional presentations. (The software is available to educational
establishments for less than £100).
The Figures
There is no single route to producing a ''
story and the server will accept
contributions in 'Real', 'Quicktime' and 'Windoze Media' formats, in fact
it will accept any video format and convert the file for
"streaming" (the process of drip feeding large files
continuously to be watched in real-time). Find out much more
here.
Once you have finished your presentation you can either send it to
the ''
server as and .avi file or you could compress it yourself (which helps us a
great deal). If you are compressing or exporting the file yourself you
need to know that our preferred format is a screen size of x * y in Real (.rm
format). You can download a free version of the compressor from www.real.com
but you must have already produced your video in the x * y screen size to use
the free option.
When compressing a video you will normally be asked which data rates you
want to compress for 56k -for dial up modems, 64k for ISDN or 128k
for dual ISDN. Lets be bold and not try to service these trivial
connections. Bandwidth is getting cheaper all the time, so lets look to the
future and only encode for 256k 312k and 512k. This is quite sufficient
to carry a good quality picture and sound. <<to be
completed>>
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