Category: Charlestown Digital Story Project

Digital Story Critique: “It Takes a Crisis”

Often times, an instance of adversity can have long-lasting effects.  In searching for digital stories that give a short glimpse into how people adjust to sudden changes in their lives, I found another story from the Charlestown Digital Story Project entitled “It Takes a Crisis.”  The narrator, Charlotte Valentine, talks about how the psychological adjustments she had to make before and after she decided to divorce after 13 years of marriage.  For this critique, I chose to critique the story using the following assessment traits:

  • Originality/Voice/Creativity – From her time as a shy child to her success as a confident Certified Public Accountant, Valentine narrates her own story.  She discusses how growing up, she always was tough to “please others” and then later on, she learned how to “please herself.” Although the narration sounds a bit scripted, it feels genuine.  The story collaborator, Daniel Rodriguez, gives Valentine “room” to tell her story through her voice and her archived photographs.
  • Flow/Organization/Pacing – Rodriguez wisely presents the story in chronological order.  He organizes the still photos making it easy for the viewer to absorb.  There’s a nice variety of image movement (some story creators rely too much on bring the photos in and out, which was popularized by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns).   The pacing of the images is accompanied by cuts of light and playful piano music.
  • Media Grammar – Overall, the media elements are put together well, but their is a moment where it looks like a photo of Valentine in her flooded basement, after surviving a hurricane, appears to be Photoshopped.  This moment seems to interrupt the genuine nature of the archived images.

I highly recommend anyone to view either this story or the many other stories on this site.

Digital Story Critique 3: The Story of Sy Bakker

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m very interested in the topic of adversity.  My past struggles have been largely financial, but I’ve be fortunate to live out of harm’s way.  Not so for Sy Bakker, who had to endure Nazi oppression during the German occupation of The Netherlands during World War II.   Bakker, and other Charleston Retirement Community members, told their stories as part of The Charlestown Digital Story Project which involved students from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

For this critique, I focused on three assessment traits to gauge the storytelling:

  • Voice: This story is a straight “I was there” narration told by Sy Bakker himself.  There are no other soundbites.  At times, I could hear Bakker’s tone change as he described an encounter with a German soldier pointing a gun at him.  In another instance, he describes the terrible conditions at a prison camp: the straw floors, the small amounts of bread and the tiring labor tasks.  The recording is crisp, clean and easy to hear.   In a historical context, voice is important to consider since the eyewitness can give a unique account of small details of a large war.
  • Flow/pacing: The students at UMBC do a very good job of organizing the main audio elements of the story: Bakker’s narration and simple violin music.   The breaks in the narration gives the viewer a chance to reflect on Bakker’s experiences.  There is a nice flow of historical images, still photos and a picture of Sy Bakker at the time of the recording.  Pacing is important to give the viewer a chance to soak in all the historical details and gain a greater understand of what it meant to be a prisoner in a Nazi labor camp.
  • Media application: Like the comments before, the students use a simple mix of audio and video elements.  Some of the still photos are of sunsets and barren fields, which I believe gives the viewer an opportunity to briefly reflect.   It would have been nice to see additional historical photos of Bakker as a student in The Netherlands or maybe of his family in France, but such archived material may not have been available.   If there is one more thing I would have liked to have seen, it would have been some type of statement/reflection from Sy Bakker about how that time during Nazi occupation changed his life.   Maybe he could have passed along some words of wisdom to younger generations.

There are many more digital stories from The Charlestown Digital Story Project and I recommend anyone to click on the hyperlink above and check them out.