Loved this tongue in cheek article in the latest issue of Wired:

The film industry is slowly but steadily being forced to part with quaint artifacts like the “hero’s journey…”

Of course in my Storytelling & Digital Media class, we meet Joseph Campbell and Aristotle head-on, cos’ you need to know the “rules” before you can break them.  Many of my students reached for the stars with our latest exercise: shoot a 2-minute film with a beginning, middle and end (Aristotle), doing only in-camera edits.

Here is just some of our work (all of our films are up on our class social networking site, www.mcdmspace.ning.com). Read more…

Joe Lambert, in his Digital Storytelling Cookbook, discusses the “olden days” of epigrammatic storytelling (meaning, the sharing of little stories with folksy proverbs at the end – which, if you’re Frank Capra, you build into entire movies, right?)

Lambert goes on to discuss why it’s so hard to tell stories nowadays:

“…we are bombarded with millions of indigestible, literally unmemorable, story fragments every time we pick up a phone, bump into a friend, watch TV, listen to the radio, read a book or a newspaper, or browse the Web. We cannot process these into epigrams, recite and retain them, and so they become a jumble of fragments that actually inhibit our ability to construct a coherent story.” Read more…

Poster for the movie adaptation of the cell phone novel "Sky of Love," which sold 1.3 million copies in three weeks.

A recent issue of The New Yorker had an interesting article on cell phone novels in Japan. Popularized about five years ago, these novels are posted to the Web by authors who write them on their phones, constrained by the limitations of the medium. The most successful of them are published on paper in a format that mimics the cell phone experience. Some are adapted into manga comic books and movies. And the form might be poised for success in America as well. Read more…

Nope, not a New Year’s resolution. A new guide to how women can survive this ongoing economic disaster, and a digital media success story.

I bring this to your attention for three reasons:

Read more…

I have always believed in the Media Singularity which is the ultimate outcome of increasingly cheaper technology combined with ever expanding online distribution.

I just never thought it would come so soon.

Read more…

“It’s total chaos over here. Army and Navy have been called in to assist police. The attackers are everywhere – in hotels, on the streets, in vans. They are firing indiscriminately.”

“there was just another blast at the Old Taj, the whole thing is surrounded by smoke as I type this. and 2 terrorists just been shot dead by the police.”     Read more…

Recently, the most hot topic in Taiwan is “Cape No.7″, a local movie which reveals the beauty and energy of the south part of Taiwan. Its box office receipts have already skyrocketed over $100,000,000, a rare milestone in the Taiwanese film industry. Usually, local movies in Taiwan are not popular at all. They may be good enough to win some international awards, but domestic audiences just don’t buy them typically.

However,”Cape No.7″ completely overthrew this unfortunate situation and became an instant hit. Read more…

My SPECTATOR/LURKING husband just asked if it was easy to CREATE a storytelling video.  What was his motivation?  Watching another persons YouTube video on a topic my husband is an expert on.  The video fell short of his expectations, could be improved on and he wants to make his own, improved one. (Read more about motivation).

What is your motivation to create?  Have you uploaded something to YouTube?