Activity: Create Your Digital Story

* If you have already created a digital story as part of a similar assignment in another course, you may not use the same digital story to complete this module. You need to make a new one.

First, a note about quality:

Creating a digital story will take however much time you want to give to it. Therefore, what I am asking for here is a really strong first draft of a digital story. You can try to make it perfect, but it will take a lot of time to do so. The important thing here is that you get the experience of creating one of these so that you can evaluate whether to use it in your practice, and so that you can learn some common media production tools that can be used in other contexts. It does not need to be perfect. Shoot for a polished first draft, not an Academy Award.

The steps are:

1. Make sure you have the right video production software: Windows users can use Windows Movie Maker, a free video editor that you may already have on your computer. Mac users can use iMovie, which should be on your computer. There are other free video editors which you can find by searching online as well.
2. Write a script. Generally speaking, your script should be around one-half to three-quarters of a page of double-spaced, 12-point font text. That’s not a lot of space, but remember that you have the images and the soundtrack to help you tell the story as well.
3. Find or create images to support the story. You can use your own pictures, find pictures online, or you can create your own images.
4. Record the narration, using the audio recording software built in to your video editor. If you are stuck with a video editor that allows just one audio track (such as an old version of Windows Movie Maker), then you have an extra step: you’ll have to use a separate audio editor to mix the soundtrack and narration together before importing it into Movie Maker. I wholeheartedly recommend Audacity for this job. See MD101 for more info on Audacity.
5. Select a soundtrack that you want to accompany your narration. Instrumental music is best. This is a good spot to find soundtrack music. Consider adding your work from MD101: Sound Mixing or from MC202: Advanced Coding, if you’ve attempted either module.
6. Pair the audio with the images using video editing software.
7. Tweak the duration of the images on the screen, add titles and credits, and fiddle with transitions until you are satisfied.
8. Save the movie as a movie, not as a project file. You’ll know you’ve done this correctly if it takes longer than an instant to save.
9. Post your digital story online. To post the video to YouTube, see the instructions here. You will need a Google account for this. If you don’t have a Google account, and do not want to sign up for one, then consider posting your video to Vimeo. With YouTube, you can choose to make your digital story “Unlisted” so that only people with the link can see it. With Vimeo, that option is only available with a paid account, so if you want to make your Vimeo video so that the general public cannot see it, go to the video’s settings and under “Who can watch this video?” select “Only people with a password” then give your video a password. Make sure to include it when you post the link on the next page.
10. Upload a document below with your name and the URL of your digital story.