Script and storyboard
Based on many years of experience, the Center for Digital Storytelling has identified seven key elements of a digital story. Not all of these might apply to your learners' stories, or be appropriate for their audiences, but in general they should try to incorporate as many of them into their stories as possible. The challenge for digital hero booking is twofold: i) it is not about crafting the most compelling or engaging story, and ii) usually the digital version will simply be a copy of the paper version, which doesn't follow the seven elements approach. So if a learner's story doesn't include all elements, that's fine. However, it's still a good idea to keep the elements in mind for first and subsequent digital hero stories.
The seven elements are taken from Center's Digital Storytelling Cookbook (see sidebar), which is a free and excellent resource. While the cookbook explains the elements in detail, below is a brief summary of each with practical tips.
Seven elements of digital storytelling
Point of view
Every story needs to have a point. “What is the point of the story you are telling? What message are you trying to convey?” When retelling a hero book story, a learner can tell the whole story, not going into too much detail (think “wide and shallow”), or just focus on one part of it in great detail, e.g. My shining moment (think “narrow and deep”).
Every story should be aimed at a particular audience. Your learners should decide for whom they are telling this story, e.g. is it for their teacher, for their parents, for all young people their age or maybe just for themselves?
Dramatic question
The dramatic question is the “hook” that will hold the attention of the audience throughout the story. For example, a boy who's grades were very low tells a story about how he wanted to become a doctor one day. He says: “Ever since I can remember I have wanted to become a doctor. But my maths grades were too low for me to be accepted into university.” The audience is left wondering: does he manage to improve his grades?
Emotional content
Out of the seven elements, this is the most important one for youth. Remember, your learners do not have to tell their deepest, darkest secrets in their digital hero stories, but whatever they say should be truthful. The telling of a real life experience is filled with authenticity. An emotional disclosure, e.g. “I was really scared before the exams” creates a connection between the teller and the listener and deepens the power of the story. Emotions can be positive – love, courage or acceptance – or negative – loss, loneliness or rejection.
Safety tip: The storyteller needs to choose a topic about which they can feel comfortable talking about in public, especially with their classmates. If learners start writing a story, and find themselves bending the facts or not writing quite what they feel, they may need to consider writing an emotionally “safer” story.
The gift of your voice
The storyteller's voice has a huge impact on the digital story. It adds intimacy and sets the mood. If varied effectively -- e.g. slow/fast, soft/loud -- it provides the drama for the story.
The power of the soundtrack
Firstly, a soundtrack is not necessary for a good story; music can help to set the mood of a story, but if inappropriate, it can be distracting. Young people love to use their favourite song in their stories. It is important to help them choose the right music, a piece that matches the mood and message of their story. A few basic rules:
- The music should fade into the background as the voiceover begins.
- Avoid choosing music with a lot of volume changes.
- Lyrics can interfere with listening to the voiceover. It is usually easiest to avoid music with lyrics.
Finally, special effects can also be part of the soundtrack. Many sound and video editing programs include special audio effects. Sounds such as horns beeping, children on a playground, crickets at night, alarm clocks, can be successfully incorporated into a digital story.
Economy
Economy is about using just enough words, images and audio pieces to effectively tell a story. Too many images can be distracting, too many words and the listener will lose interest. Every element should support the story. Learners should be careful about not selecting images and music that contradict the message or tone of their story.
Pacing
Slowing down or speeding up a story can be a very effective way of keeping the audience engaged. The voice can slow down, the music tempo increase or the time that images are displayed varied. One constant pace is sometimes like a monotonous voice – not interesting at all!
For examples of digital stories that encompass these seven elements, go to www.storycenter.org/movies 
.
Writing the script
The script is probably the most important part of the digital hero story. It is important to spend time on this with your learners. Each learner should work on a storyboard template (DOC, 70K). They should save the file in their script folder.
INSTRUCTION: Tell the learners
We are now going to write the script. These are the words that accompany your images. Or if you record an audio voiceover, then it is what the viewer will hear as they watch the images that make up your digital story. Everything hangs on the script. It is your message, in your own words.
Your script should be between 100 and 200 words long. It needs to be short because your digital stories will be quite short – 1 to 2 minutes long. You may need to leave out some parts of your hero book. That is fine. The important thing is that your digital story script flows as a piece on its own.
- In OpenOffice Writer or Microsoft Word, open the file storyboard_template.doc.
- Click File > Save As and rename it to storyboard_template_YOURNAME.doc, e.g. storyboard_template_SteveVosloo.doc. Save the file in your script folder.
- At the top of the template, type in your name.
- Type in your script in the blocks on the left.
- When you are finished, remember to click File > Save.
Creating the storyboard
Each learner is to create a storyboard. In the long run, it saves time to first plan the story on paper. If the learners have an idea of what images and sounds they need, they will find these more easily and quickly if they need to go online. It also saves them from scanning, photographing or recording anything that they don't need.
INSTRUCTION: Tell the learners
A storyboard is a plan, on paper, that represents what the digital story will look and sound like. By creating it before the digital story, it lists the images and sounds that need to be sourced to illustrate the story, and in what order they will appear.
A very simple storyboard shows text on the left – this is your script that you will be reading – and on the right the images that go with the words. You have typed your script on a storyboard template, so what you need to do now is think about the images that go with the different sentences of your story.
- Open your script, e.g. storyboard_template_SteveVosloo.doc.
- Separate out your script into the left-hand blocks – according to the images that will display at the time. For example:
BEFORE
| Script | Image |
| My name is Steve. I am 13 years old and like to ride my bicycle. I'm interested in the human body and one day would like to become a doctor. |
AFTER
| Script | Image |
| My name is Steve. I am 13 years old and like to ride my bicycle. | |
| I'm interested in the human body and one day would like to become a doctor. |
Now, print out the page. On the printed version, on the right hand side you should name or draw the image you would like to use, e.g.
| Script | Image |
| My name is Steve. I am 13 years old and like to ride my bicycle. | Photo or drawing of a bicycle |
The images you use can come from your existing hero book drawings (these will be scanned), new photos you take with a digital camera or images from the web. If you want you can insert the image directly into the document.
| Script | Image |
| My name is Steve. I am 13 years old and like to ride my bicycle. |  |
- You should have 5 to 10 images for your story.
- If you take images from the web, make a note of where you found them, e.g. the web page address, name of the image (if it has one), name of the person who photographed or created the image and any licence information that appears with the image, e.g. All rights reserved. For example, for the bicycle image above you would record: Bike on street corner by Golban (http://www.flickr.com/photos/80368104@N00/787695219), CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
