This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, September 17.
Our workshop: a chance for digital storytelling discovery
It happens each time: we start with an introduction to mobile, linear and visual storytelling, then the participants apply what they learn in creative exercises.
We have concluded another successful and intense four-day workshop, this time with the NOZ Digital team in Hamburg, Germany.
Again, the results have been worthy of praise as young journalists settled in to learn the essentials of how we consume stories on mobile devices. The group learned that the writing/editing/designing process begins with the smallest of platforms.
This is what happens in a typical workshop.
The theory
- I offer an introduction to the way we consume information today. The presentation includes a catalogue of stories told digitally.
The practice
- The practice exercise begins: first the group will identify stories that have been published in a non linear way, and will then take those and re do them as visual, mobile and linear stories.
Here we see one of the participants explaining the hand drawn sketch for how he would outline his story
2.Once those outlines are discussed an approved, the participants then turn their attention to translating those sketches into actual working examples for each of the stories.
The final versions
3. Finally, the stories are presented and dissected by the group. We prepare those stories to be published!
The outcome
A workshop like this is all about transformation.
What usually takes place is a combination of discovery, a re-examination of our craft and “the way we have always done it”, and then the realization that, indeed, we now have the tools to tell stories better and more completely.
As a reporter participating in this workshop put it: “This linear storytelling is a different way of writing and looking at how a story is assembled. I had to deal with visual images as an integral part of the story, and not as merely photos that accompany my text. It was a challenge, but exciting, too.”
Linear storytelling is all about team efforts. There are no solo numbers when it comes to assembling such stories. That is one of the reasons that, in these workshops, it is always teams of at least two journalists.
At the end, participants were not just doing a story, but also adding push notifications to promote the stories, as well as participating in the creation of a newsletter promoting content generally at specific times of the day.
For these journalists, the end of the workshop signifies the start of a new professional journey.
I am happy and honored to lead them there.
First results
TheMarioBlog post #2908