Module 5: Storytelling and Creating Video

In this module, we looked at techniques for telling effective stories.

I do not think I am good at telling stories. Though I haven’t had to form stories in this sort of educational format where I put more thought into my structure and presentation. I think naturally I fill my stories with a very personal touch and get my audience involved. I can create suspense surely but I also think it helps if the story I am telling is inherently suspenseful which is probably why I am telling it. It would be harder to make a boring story or a story that hides a lesson to be suspenseful. That takes a lot more construction and manoeuvring on the side of the storyteller.

In my life, I have met a lot of people who are horrible at telling stories and I remember that much better than all the good stories. When I think of stories too I think much more about books and movies that stick with me. There is a quote from someone that I love and it goes like, I can’t remember the books I have read any more than the meals I have eaten, yet they have made me. I think that speaks a lot to me and the power of stories, I really agree with it and especially because I have a horrible memory. Also, in terms of teaching and being able to absorb lessons from stories comes from this idea. If the audience can tell you are trying to bake some sort of meaningful lesson into a story it becomes boring or condescending quickly I think. But when the story is really good and uses those different storytelling techniques, you can’t even tell that you are learning something and this leads to a greater chance the audience will take something away from it. It is like when you have to hide your dog’s medicine in a treat or something like that. 

I used to love branched narrative stories when I was a kid or how I knew them as, choose your own adventure books. I think it was American Girl that made these books for little girls where you would have to make hard decisions that would lead you down different paths. I remember I always read one about some sort of dog adoption storyline. Those are always great. I remember books like these being very popular with the kids. The format provides a more active way for the reader to be involved and be able to make decisions about the story.

The Bill Gates Malaria Ted Talk actually made me gasp when I read that he opened a jar of mosquitoes at the end. That for sure really resonated with people, very much show don’t tell.

Using Twine at first was overwhelming but once I got the bare basics using different resources I was able to begin. I knew I wanted images though because playing this little game with sole text is quite boring. I just wanted to write something fun and silly to experiment with the program. It is really fun to use actually. One of the videos I watched said something like the program makes you think in a non-linear way which is true and cool. It makes you think about your story in a different way and come up with new branches and diversions.

If you say no:

If you say yes:

To silence:

To music:

I find watching videos much better for learning things like this, the cookbook for Twine was kind of outdated, not all the information worked on this current version of the program and I didn’t want to read all that text. However, I was able to easily find these YouTube videos that guided me much faster. 

So I learned how to start working with Twine with this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhn39SPETMM

and learned how to import images with this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K70lS5p2puA

Then I created my learning video on my phone. I created a script and a storyboard.

Here is the link to my video: https://vimeo.com/1030568031?share=copy

When filming on my phone vs a screencast I forgot about how much the camera moves. I made sure to use the camera stabilizer on imovie to still my video. I think if I was to make a more clean video I would need a tripod, or even better what I would need is another person to hold the camera.