99 lion PENs

99 Balloons

This digital story is of a father talking to his baby who has Trisomy 18. The father does this in a journal type way starting with his entries from before the child is even born. The father explains to his child what is going on with him because of the Trisomy 18 and expresses how much he and the mother loves the child. Video and photographs are used in chronological order with a voice over of the fathers voice as well as written words saying what day it is. I think doing this story in chronological order is very effective because it makes the audience go through the same journey path of emotion that the parents went through with their child. The video footage has a sort of shading effect around the edges, which gives it a home footage feel. When the photos come on screen they are bright and there are sound effects of pictures being taken as well as the page turning noise when the number of days change. This video works very well, every aspect of it seems to add to the gift of the story rather than take away from it.

WARNING: tearjerker


(at 4:36 Eliot is wearing a BAMA shirt... roll tide!)



Christian the Lion

I know most of us have seen this video but it has always been one of my favorites and I am pretty sure it qualifies as a “digital story”. This is the story of two men who had a pet lion, which they had to set free into the wild when he got too large, and their reuniting. This video has one song playing the whole way through and no other audio effects but has subtitles written throughout the story about what is happening. The editing plays with the speed of its footage as well as the power of zoom. This video is very simple and that is what adds to its beauty. It would be very difficult to watch this story and not be touched by the powerful concept of friendship. At the very end the message “Love knows no limits and true friendships last a lifetime. Get back in touch with someone today” reads across the screen, giving the audience an even bigger gift than just the story itself but also encouragement to reach out to a friend you’ve lost touch with.






The PEN Story

I wasn’t exactly sure if this one counted as digital storytelling but wanted to share it anyway. It is told entirely through stop-motion and uses mostly only photographs to tell the story. The music sets a very nice tone to the whole piece. The video uses very interesting ways of setting a scene and making the photographs interact with the surrounding objects. There are many parts of this that stand out to me more than others, like when they jump into the pond made of other pictures of water, when he walks up the stairs or when they are on the hot air balloon or the parachute. The story also has a nice way of going full circle, comparing the first picture to the one 50 years later (to keep with the 50 year anniversary of the camera this is a commercial for)