The NFB recently released a DVD set from their award-winning Filmmaker-in-Residence project, which highlights digital storytelling as a tool for social action in a Toronto inner-city hospital.
The video above will give you an idea of what you’ll see in the collection, which includes two DVDs and a CD-ROM packed with content.
This short film charts the Filmmaker-in-Residence project’s five-year history, investigating the creative process from within as media makers join health care workers to reflect on ethics, interventionist filmmaking and shifting cinematic genres. Intricate, difficult and delicate situations come alive in this 80-minute documentary, featuring seven distinct yet interconnected experiments in collaborative media.
Win Filmmaker-in-Residence: The Complete Collection — We have a copy of this set to give away to one of our readers. For your chance to win, leave a comment with your ideas on how digital storytelling can play a role in social change. We’ll pick a winner on Friday.
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
> beyond the obvious ways in which digital storytelling can easily be created, edited and distributed without any sort of publisher or censorship. The most important aspect is how quickly it can be accessed across millions and millions of viewers within a short amount of time.
Ease and speed of dissemination… multiple methods of interacting with content (personal on a mobile device/ collectively at a screening). Can spark conversation and debate immediately through interactive channels
The accessibility of digital media and its means of distribution makes an important and powerful shift from the common distribution system designed by the Hollywood studios. But what it is more important is the ways in which filmmakers and their subjects (actors or people in the case of the documentary) could interact in more dynamic and deeper ways in the process of making a digital piece. Specially in digital documentary, the distance in between the subject and the filmmaker will be torn away in order to create a participatory media socially engaged with the increasing desire for making a social change through the digital storytelling tools.
Due to the fact that both our work, exercise and play can take place on the internet, various digital consoles & television our storytelling is better accessed, consumed and spark creation if we adapt to the digital change. If we do not adapt to this change, it may stunt the growth of new artists due to limited access.
Releasing all NFB films on YouTube would reach a global audience and teach the world about Canada’s rich culture.
Affordability and representation are correlated.
Cheaper access to recording devices and recording time allows for a larger group of story tellers and story recorders. Who has the right to tell a story is becoming less and less of an elite group. This is a revolutionary change in how we view media.
Get cameras into the hands of the people who's story you want to tell, and you will have a better story. Self-recording has allowed for more honesty in story telling. homelessnation.org has demonstrated this very well.
You're bang on, Scott. HomelessNation.org is a great example of the democratization of media thanks to advances in digital technologies (and the hard work of many committed activists and media-makers).
Digital storytelling allows for more diverse, underrepresented stories to be told, as storytelling individuals and groups do not have to rely on mainstream media outlets to pick up on their story, deem it worthy to be aired, or be subject to mainstream media outlets' agendas, but instead have the power of self-representation within their control to a greater degree.
If one can access an internet connection (free in, I believe, many public library districts even if one doesn't have a library account, as well as community media facilities), one can set up a free blog, for example; if one can access a video camera, one can create one's own video media and upload it to a free video hosting site), &c. Media subjects are also their own producers.
Storytellers using digital media can bring about social change by introducing ideas to upset, debunk, and dislodge hegemonic views that support the perpetuation of current social injustices.
Reaching thousands of people through social media and overcoming the typical control mechanisms of hegemonic media
@Saskboy We're putting a list of our top-viewed films on YouTube, Daily Motion, and Facebook this month. We also have a very active community on YouTube – over 10k subscribers. http://youtube.com/nfb
Having said that, we work hard to make our films findable, free, and sharable and our stats show that over 60% of our traffic comes from search (Google, Bing, etc) – so we are definitely succeeding in reaching new audiences.
Thanks for your comments –
Matt
Content Manager, NFB.ca
Open access to digital media and freedom of speech through digital storytelling is already, according to me, a huge social achievement. We have to remember that most of the world doesn't have a comfort of expressing their anger, frustration or concerns through any medium. So, I think that a social change can be only achieved through a massive digital creation.
We should encourage mentally and financially the part of the globe where freedom of speech is endangered or doesn't exist. We should organize screenings of independent creators to inspire people and show them a different idea of the world then the one that's presented in a telly.
stories build on the past and open themselves up for future collaboration. stories don't stop when they are put into print, or made into image. digital storytelling makes visible the layers within the story, providing unequal opportunity to build upon and recreate the narrative
The most amazing thing about digital storytelling is its accessibility. When I was in Serbia last year I was amazed that in a society where none of the young people are interested in the news or tv everyone seemed to be watching stuff on the internet. Many of them had never been able to get out of the country but were so hungry for input. And not just blockbusters – documentaries and political stuff, too. Anything that would help them make sense of the world and make them feel connected to it.
Thanks for your comments, everyone! And a big congrats to Amber, who won a copy of the Filmmaker-In-Residence box set. (Amber, I've emailed you with details.)