Looks like the theme for this blog at the moment is VOICE!
A little while ago I was alerted to this excellent production of student work from South Western Sydney, and I’d like to share it with everyone here on the blog.
Coming to Voice is a collection of ‘literary videos’ from students at Sir Joseph Banks High School. The video production by Westside is 5 minutes long, and showcases an innovative layering of student stories, voices, and animation:
Coming to Voice from BYDS on Vimeo.
From the press release:
Thirteen students from year 7 worked with the Chief Editor of Westside Publications, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, to develop writing that was then animated by 2012 SHORTCUTS film festival winner Vinh Nguyen.
The literary video, called ‘Coming to Voice’ will be screened at an assembly at Sir Joseph Banks High School and will also be launched on the BYDS website as a new web series on August 23rd.
Digital stories, literary videos etc.
BYDS (Bankstown Youth Development Services) seems to have a range of resources relating to the local community on their website: http://www.byds.org.au/ including oral history and photomedia materials. I’m so glad that these kinds of digital arts-based resources are flourishing!
When I talk about ‘digital stories’ or ‘digital narrative’ with teachers, it can be hard to explain the possibilities for the genre. There is of course the Daniel Meadows school of thought that advocates for 2 minute, 12 frame, voice-only digital biographies. The digital storytelling project at QUT uses a similar form.
I think the folks at BYDS have cleverly carved out a different kind of genre here for what they’ve produced – a “literary video”. As the students are reading their POETRY, the production is not quite of STORYTELLING. Could they have called them “digital poems”? Perhaps. But that might distract from the multimedia nature of the production, and the way that animation and video shots add meaning to the piece.
Literary videos… I like it! Thanks for sharing Mariam!
Kelli McGraw 
#1 by biancah80 on September 23, 2012 - 7:26 pm
These are just awesome – I wanna do some collaborative video stuff with my kids. Year 8 weren’t keen when I suggested it this term … basically cos I said it would go on YouTube and they didn’t like that idea.
My sons think the poems and animation are great – I like that the poems have encouraged the boys to write using poetic devices about something personal.
Epic!
#2 by kmcg2375 on September 23, 2012 - 7:38 pm
Ha, we’ve found students’ Achilles heel – they are afraid of YouTube!
Do you think they would do the project if it just went on the school intranet?
I agree with your boys – I want to learn how to animate!
#3 by biancah80 on September 23, 2012 - 7:58 pm
Yeah, it was such an unexpected response re: YouTube. I think being in Year 8 they are very identity-conscious and have been sold that whole, ‘The Internet is evil’ line from parents and other teachers. A shame, really. If I’d discovered it earlier I would have had time to work on some fun projects to help reshape their attitude to creating an online identity … maybe still time yet 😉
#4 by kmcg2375 on September 24, 2012 - 9:26 am
A unit filming sock-puppet interviews?
They could make up totally in depth characters for their sock-reporters, read about the journalists code of ethics, research someone to interview, and then get to film their acting and voices, but NOT faces (only sock puppets), for YouTube!