 Welcome, and thank you for joining us for today's TechSoup for Libraries webinar, Lights, Camera, Advocacy to Action, Digital Storytelling for Libraries. My name is Crystal and I will be your host. Today I will be joined by two guests and together we will provide some examples of how to use digital storytelling as an advocacy tool. And we will also share tips for how to develop top-notch stories. But before we begin I have just a few announcements. Today we will be using the ReadyTalk platform and please use the chat in the lower left corner to send questions and comments to the presenters. We will be tracking your questions throughout the webinar and will answer them at the designated Q&A section at the end. All of your chat comments will only come to the presenters, but if you have comments or ideas to share we will try to forward them back out to the entire group. You don't need to raise your hand to ask a question, simply type it into the chat box. Should you get disconnected you can reconnect using the same link in your confirmation email. Now you should be hearing this conference audio through your computer speakers but if your audio connection is unclear you can dial in using the phone number we have shared in the chat which is also in your confirmation email. And if you have any technical issues please send us a chat message and we will try to assist. This webinar is being recorded and it will be archived on the TechSoup website. If you are called away from the webinar or if you have connection issues you can watch a full recording of this webinar later. You will receive an archive email within a few days that will include a link to the recording, the PowerPoint slides, and any additional links or resources that we share. Now if you are tweeting this webinar please use the hashtag TS4LIBS. We have someone from TechSoup live tweeting this event so please join us in the conversation there. TechSoup Global is dedicated to serving the world's nonprofit organizations and libraries. TechSoup was founded in 1987 with a global network of partners. We connect libraries and nonprofits to the technology, resources, and support that you need so you can operate at your full potential, more effectively deliver your programs and services, and better achieve your missions. TechSoup has helped to distribute over 14 million software and hardware donations to date through our product donation program. We offer a wide range of software, hardware, and services including the Adobe Creative Cloud and other Adobe products. For more information about TechSoup product donations or services please visit TechSoup.org and click on Get Products and Services. Now for today's webinar we are joined by two guests. Alli Vizdigian is on the team here at TechSoup where she is the Interactive Events and Video Producer. She creates videos for the web as well as manages the annual storytelling campaign, Storymakers. She has particular interest in digital storytelling and also in accessible and augmentative technology. Alli is going to share some tips for storytelling, planning, and shooting your digital stories and we'll talk about some of the technology that you'll need. We'll also hear from Michael Dunn who is the videographer, photographer, and editor for the Davis County Public Library in Owensboro, Kentucky. He is also owner and lead videographer of Evermore Productions. Michael will share some of his experience at the library and this includes a video that was entered into last year's Storymakers Contest. My name is Crystal Schimpf and I'll be your host for today's webinar and I'll be starting things off in a moment by talking about how libraries can leverage the power of digital storytelling for advocacy. Assisting us with the chat we have Susan Bard and on Twitter we have Molly Bacon both joining us from the TechSoup team. Now we'll have time for Q&A at the end and we'll be tracking your questions throughout so please share your questions in the chat as they arise. All right, well let's start things off with just a quick poll. We'd like to know how your library or if you're joining us from a nonprofit today we'd like to know how your organization values digital storytelling. And this might include just pictures or it might be video, however you interpret that concept of digital storytelling tell us how important it is to you. And once you've submitted your response you can see the results on your screen should appear. And I can see that actually for the majority there's definitely some importance being placed on digital storytelling and that's great to see. And obviously it's probably why you came to this webinar today to learn more about it. I do see that a few of you are indicating that your library doesn't prioritize or doesn't value digital storytelling. And I just want to say that if that's the case you may pick up some ideas today for how to convince them of the value of digital storytelling. And some of the things that you will learn in today's webinar. I also, let's see, we'll just give a few more seconds for this poll. For those of you who already value digital storytelling you still may pick up some new things to bring back to your library today in terms of what the value is and how you might use digital storytelling particularly around this topic of advertising. So I'm going to go ahead and close this poll. And that way everybody can see the results now even if you did not respond. And so there you can see the majority at least say that it's somewhat important. And it's good to see that close to 30% say that digital storytelling is very important. I would say that here at TechSoup we certainly agree with that sentiment. All right, so I think we're ready to go into our topic. And I just wanted to start things off by saying why are we here to talk about digital storytelling? And I've got just a few things that I'll introduce here. First of all, we're talking about digital storytelling here in this webinar because technology has become such an important part of our lives. And whether you are using computers, desktop or laptop computers, tablets, or smartphones, chances are just today you've probably looked at several images that may have been in some type of story format, maybe even some videos. Some of you might even be looking at your smartphone or other device right now if you're doing that webinar multitasking I know that happens sometimes. So you might actually be using some of that technology to look at images right now. And digital stories can be still images or they can be videos. And in today's webinar we will focus on the video platforms particularly although we may occasionally talk about photo and still images as well. Now video is really one of the most engaging formats but it's also the most challenging to work with because there's a lot more technology and planning involved when it comes to digital storytelling. Now there are of course some common video platforms. We'll talk about some of those. And these platforms and the way that we view videos are changing but there is this constant out there that digital stories, video stories are something we are receiving on a regular basis. We don't think that's really going to change much. Now another reason why we are talking about digital storytelling is really because images and the combinations of images and stories can really capture our attention and create an emotional response. And video is a powerful way to kind of spin and to tell a story. And if you have the right storyline, the right script, the right narration, video can really elicit an emotional response or drive people to take action and to pay attention to what it is that you are talking about. So video can really grab us in that way. Now video can be used by nonprofits and libraries to defend our mission or to talk about what our mission is and that's where the advocacy piece really comes in, to raise awareness about the work we do and to talk about our cause. And this doesn't have to be complicated. Sometimes we think of video as being incredibly complicated and having major storylines but they can also just engage simple storylines. They can call on our staff and our volunteers and patrons. And in this image that I'm sharing here is from a video that was created by the Field Museum in Chicago. And this was for something earlier this year, The Day of Bacts, which was a campaign on social media. I'm not going to play this video right now but we will include all those links in the archive and I encourage you to watch them later on. And this particular video really talked about why facts matter. And in doing so, they also showcased the collections at the museum and the people who work and volunteer at the museum. And they used a simple sign format where each person held up a particular sign that helped to tell the story. So it was a very compelling video and it made the rounds on social media. If you haven't yet seen it, please take a look after the webinar today to see what made that video particularly interesting. And a good example of advocacy, albeit from the museum area. So I'm going to talk a little bit now about library advocacy and how that plays into the digital storytelling and how we want to think about library advocacy when it comes to video. And then I'll share a few examples of some library specific videos that I think particularly portray advocacy in a good way. Now one of the things to think about with advocacy is that there really is a spectrum of advocacy. And I wanted to point that out today. And when we look at this advocacy spectrum that you see on your screen, we start off with general advocacy which is really raising awareness about the good that your library does or your organization. So that's just general advocacy. Action-driven advocacy is where we might call on people, whether it's our patrons or our supporters to do something, whether it's to donate money or to sign up for an event or to sign a petition, whatever that is that we're asking them to take action on that action-driven advocacy. And it's a little bit more involved I guess you could say. And then the third type of advocacy that we see here is political. And this is a very specific type of action. And usually we see this involving a ballot measure or a campaign to vote yes for the library. Usually that involves something to do with funding at the local or regional level. And I know that for many people working in libraries you may not be directly involved in political advocacy but it may be happening at your library. It may be something you're involved in as a citizen or you may be working with your friends or foundation on because of course as a public library employee you may not be able to engage in that yourself. But it's important to be aware of that as part of the advocacy spectrum and know how your work in the library might relate to that. Now when you think about creating a digital story for advocacy you want to think about what type of advocacy it is that you're working towards so that that way you can focus your goal for the video and your story for the video to meet that particular type of advocacy. And you may be focusing on one of these or there may be a little bit of two or sometimes even three. But definitely we see crossover between the general and the action-driven types of advocacy, some middle ground in there. And so think about what type of advocacy you're doing and then set the tone of your message and of your story to that particular type of advocacy. Now the other thing you'll want to do is think about your particular advocacy goal. And just to think about some of the questions you see here to help set that goal and further define what your story and what the tone of your video will be or your digital story. So what is it that you're trying to accomplish and what's the community need that you're trying to address here? Who is the audience that you're trying to reach? Is it your library users, your patrons? Or is it funders or other stakeholders in the community? Or is this something that you're creating to share with grantors who have helped support the library in the past and show progress on a project? What's the type of advocacy that you're doing and what is your goal? And then also the last two questions, think about how the people watching the video might be able to help or get involved. What is it that you're asking of them? And why does this matter to them? All of those are very important things to include in your videos. You're coming up with your message, your story. So those are just some very important questions to think about. Now I'm just quickly going to go through three examples for digital storytelling. And these videos that I'm going to share, I'm actually not going to play them in the interest of time. I'll share the links in the archive of this webinar and you can watch them later on. But I'm just going to briefly give you a summary of what each of these videos covered and how they covered it and also talk about what type of advocacy it was that they were addressing. So the first of these comes from the Pickering Public Library which is in Canada in the Ontario province. And in this video this is related to the Libraries Transform Campaign which is a national campaign from the American Library Association. And in this video they showed several different examples of people holding signs like the one you see here. And if you're not able to see it, this sign says, because my daily commute is bearable thanks to their audiobooks. And then it has the hashtag for the campaign libraries transform. And each person featured in this video held a different sign that spoke to what it was they got out of the library, what benefits they were receiving from the library and why they supported the library. And this video was there to raise awareness and to also address library users and supporters to try and bring more people into the library but also to raise awareness for the general community about what the library did and what good the library did in the community. Now the second of these examples is the Pleasant Hill Public Library had a video called The Library is a Treehouse. And this was a very simple video done in kind of a stop action or time lapse I guess is the way that they did this video. And it showed the painting of a treehouse in watercolor and had a very simple narration that called people to think of what the treehouse meant to them. And then also how the library was like a treehouse in that you bring your own imagination and you create your own story there. And all of this was done and it's a very nicely drafted narration if you'll watch it later on. But this simple narration ends with a call to action to have people come and help re-envision what the new library will look like in this community. And so it was part of engaging the community and also a call to action saying we need a new library and we need your support in that as well. So that's from the Pleasant Hill Public Library. And then the last of these is from the Southeast Steuben County Library which is from New York State. And this was a political campaign video that they needed to have people vote for a tax increase to help fund library services. And it had a series of funny vignettes where people talked about what they could get at the library without paying for it. And it was kind of hushed voices and cafes and in library spaces of people saying you can get it at your library without paying. And so it was a very fun and humorous video that resulted in the tax measure being passed. So they won the Vote Yes campaign that they had. And it also showed a lot of people using the library and library services in different ways representative of the community. So that's another one that you can watch as a good example of something you might try to adapt for your library and take inspiration from. So we're about to move on and hear from Alia. She's going to tell us some tips for digital storytelling and talk about some of the technology and planning pieces. But if you're looking to get more storytelling and advocacy resources related to some of the things I just shared, there are a few links. We will share these in the archive with you. But one is from the Public Library Association Turning the Page which is a set of free advocacy training that's available online now. The United for Libraries which is the Association for Friends and Foundations Group has the Citizens Save Libraries Power Guide which has some helpful information. And then every library which is a political action committee for libraries has Vote Libraries resources including images like the one you see on the screen here. And so those are just three resources you might be able to tap into and learn more about. Alia is going to tell us more about TechSoup's Storymakers which our resources will be sharing with you quite a bit. So I'll let her tell you more about that in just a minute. Now before I hand things over to Alia, we have time for just one more quick poll and we're just curious now that we've talked about what digital stories are and how your library might use them. We'd love to know if your library has already created digital stories to kind of get a read on who's here today. And you can click to respond to the poll. You click the button next to the response and then click the link to submit it. Or you can skip to the results if this isn't a poll you'd like to answer. And I can see that actually there are a few here who have created a fair amount of stories. But the majority we're seeing have, let's see, about 50% so far say they haven't yet created digital stories. And I'll say for those of you that are responding that way you've come to the right place because this is a great way for you to get started and to learn a little bit more. I'm also seeing about 37% are saying they've created a few stories, one to five perhaps, but not too many saying that they've created several or lots or even a whole lot. So we'll give just another second or so here on this poll before I close it to get all of your responses in. I'll go ahead and close the poll now. Great. So I'm glad to see that so many people are fairly new to this idea of digital storytelling. And with that I'm going to hand this control over to Ali now so that she can start to tell you some of the practical tips that will help you create digital stories. So Ali. Hi, thanks Crystal. I'm Ali Bizdikian, Interactive Events and Video Producer here at TechSoup. I create story-driven media as well as co-manage our annual story-driven campaign called Storymakers. I'm very excited to be here today to discuss storytelling tips as well as production considerations you should think about as you embark on the adventure of making media and story creation. I just first wanted to echo many of the things Crystal has said. From the TechSoup perspective, storytelling starts with effective communication. It's really about uncovering the heart of what you're trying to convey and then outlining how best to share that message through conversations with your staff and members. In my job, storytelling starts by understanding your audience, where they are and which message delivery is best suited to meet them. You need to know what they like and why they like it as well as what they don't like and why they don't like it. This is principle number one of good storytelling which is really know your audience and who you're trying to reach. Now you might be asking yourself how do you go about discovering this helpful information which leads nicely to tip number two. Try story mining. Talk to people. You can get their opinions on your latest video or photo series, newsletter designs or whatever you've recently created. You can even survey them officially. You can also think about building a story around them. Ask yourself, can I take a photo of them and possibly insert text overlays of something interesting they said to share on social media or possibly in that next newsletter? Can you use your camera phone to capture a quick interview of them, adding value to your mission, or even snap a photo of them having a great time at your next event? And when you do have the chance to interview, don't be shy in asking very specific questions to get those specific answers that will help you build a story around. Feel free to ask for quote unquote feel stories, how they feel or have been impacted or affected. Ask about their own impact story even if you already know it. You know a good story gets told and retold over and over in many different ways. Ask to meet an individual group or ask to go to an event that best represents impact and frame a story around that. At TechSoup we have a number of ways we think about storytelling. We tell our own stories. I personally have a series of videos that introduces some of the technology partners in our catalog and the value their products can have on the nonprofit and library communities we serve. But at the end of the day you need to dig deep to get at the heart of what you're really doing. You need to understand your mission before you can create stories that capture that mission. So for us part of the heart of what we do is in spotlighting and sharing rich stories coming from our community. We map out member success stories. We have an annual campaign called Storymakers which Crystal referred to earlier where we support nonprofits and libraries with the tools and resources to take those baby steps or steps wherever you are in the process to effectively reach your target members by telling your own story. Again wherever you are in your program development. We recently created a learning course for members to follow in going through the steps of pre-production to production and post-production. And I will go through some of those resources in a bit. But again any of you participating today have access to these resources. Go check out that content. It's very helpful in starting out very rich when you're trying to get the process going for yourself. A good story focuses on a critical moment of change. Identify the critical moment of change in your story and use this moment to frame the surrounding narrative. A video about a new building can fall under this or even a new program launch could be this as well. As the slide says transform change into a truck via transformer. Have a hero be a hero. Do you have amazing people doing amazing things? You absolutely totally do. These people are your library volunteers, longtime staffers, and patrons doing great work. These are your heroes. Let more people know about them. And it's never a bad thing to call out the amazing work you are doing. Media creation is a great way to spotlight this content. And for my final and possibly most important tip, just do it. No matter what happens, just start. Just begin somewhere. Just go out and start making media, take photos, try starting out with your smart phone, but just start somewhere. You'll get better as you go, so trust that. And getting going is probably one of the most important things. Like so many things, practice makes perfect. So be intentional in your practice, but just get going. So now that you're excited on getting started, we need to get ourselves organized, right? In this section, I'll go through some of those considerations. I'll frame the rest of this section in terms of pre-production, production, and post-production. So when you're first starting off, you're in the pre-production phase of budgeting, resource allocation, storyboarding, all of which lay the foundation for the media being created. This slide shows the introduction page of the TechSoup Storytelling course. From this introduction page, for example, you can navigate below to the production and post-production modules to find resources that correspond to wherever you are in the process, as I mentioned. Here you'll find everything from storyboarding templates, example shot lists, budgeting templates, tool recommendations, and release forms. We've all been here, right? You want all the things, but all the things cost money. So let's go through some options for tools on budgets from low to medium and high, starting with low. Your smartphone is a perfectly capable videography tool. It just needs some accessories to be fit up. Think about apps that allow you to add some more advanced video capture features that might not necessarily be included as part of your phone's native camera. Think about enhancing your production value by including a tripod. Always think about mic and lights. From the medium to high end options, if you're planning on doing a lot more multimedia projects or editing, it might be a good investment to go with some higher grade equipment. So, for example, a DSLR or high-end point shoot will come in handy for other marketing and promotional purposes. So that's another way to think about it. And this happens at the budgeting stage. A compelling story makes a video stay with its audience, but quite frankly, if it looks poorly made, nobody is going to watch it. So as you're plotting out your next great digital story, make the equipment planning and budgeting part of the process. Again, there's that word budgeting. It's so important when you're starting just to allocate some resources or whatever you have just to get started. But no matter what your budget is, no matter what your movie making experience is, you can find the right combination of equipment for your nonprofit or public library. So just going down the list, the camera is probably the priciest piece of the equipment. But it really doesn't have to be. If you're working on a smaller budget, consider using your smartphone, like I said, or somebody else's on staff, ask for personal equipment if it's handy, use it. Microphone, many cameras have built-in mics, but they always have a limited range in terms of the sound quality they capture. So take that into consideration. If you're shooting at distance, clip the interview so that the audio comes in clear using a lapel or lav mic. A shotgun boom mic, on the other hand, might be more appropriate for shooting where background and ambient noise might be appropriate or desired. But again, sound is one of the most important things to take into consideration. Tripod, so the shaky camera technique is not the way to go. When holding a camera, the camera will move with your breath or as you walk. So not only does this movement look unprofessional, but it can also make your viewers feel sick or dizzy. And you really don't want that. You want them to focus on the story that you're trying to say, but most importantly, to take that action that you want them to take. If you have the right light source, so just moving on to lighting for your shooting environment, you really won't have to spend a lot of time in post-production making the adjustments or edits to the lighting. A clamp light and or reflectors are inexpensive lighting sources. You could also try to DIY it, build your own what you need and how much of it depends on where you're shooting and if you'll be changing environments around throughout your video. The last consideration you should make here is storage. You need a secure place to store all of your footage. You could store everything on an internal or external hard drive depending on how much space you have on the capture device. But there are also a number of cloud storage services like Dropbox or Box. So I recommend saving both locally into the cloud for extra backup, but no matter what, backup. So here I have listed the four important essays which are Storyboard, Script, Schedule, and Shots. Feel free to use the resources listed in the TechSoup Storytelling course. They are all available there for free. So let's do this. Now we're getting pumped for shooting. This is the production stage. Make sure you have all the proper release forms, prep the location for the look and feel you're going for. Don't be afraid to coordinate in advance with your subject ahead of time to make sure the quote-unquote set looks right. So you get there, you're on set, and you're ready to shoot. The primary interview, the person that you're going to talk to is called the A-Roll. But just as important to consider in shooting is B-Roll which is really that footage that surrounds the main interview. I know that Michael has some tips about this coming up, so I won't dive into it too deeply. But some of the most important things to consider at the time of shooting are these next three slides. So here we go. Composition, this is what shows up in frame. Your first impulse might be to stick your subject directly in the middle. You can do that if you want. It's a solid way to shoot. I do that myself. But I like to change it up using the rule of thirds. Shown on this slide, the rule of thirds says to place your subject along the intersection of the lines to draw the viewer in. Lighting. So there are different configurations for lighting depending on what you want. There's a three-point lighting for when you have three lights consisting of the key light, fill light, and backlight. They're listed as 1, 2, 3 here on the slide. You can take a look at it later for more detail. But if you don't have three lights, don't worry about that. You can play around with your configuration with two and even a single light source. So the key here is to eliminate shadows and create some contrast and separate your subject from the background just to give them a little bit more animation and depth. Audio. So audio might be the most important of these three. If you don't capture anything at all, if your footage ends up being black, if you have clear and captivating audio, you still have a story. Think about ways to control the noise level during your shoot and always, always use a mic, either a directional or lapelier mic. It'll make post-production that much easier. So now what? Now that you've captured all this footage, what do you do? As you head into post-production, there are a few more things to think about. There are two different source of platform considerations that come up at this point, an editing platform and a publishing platform. Video editing platforms come in all sorts of shapes and sizes depending on your budget. You can get functional editing capabilities in YouTube's Video Editor, for example, which is free. You're going to get more editing options if you pay for it. But if you don't need a lot of fancy effects or if you don't plan to produce a long video, you can probably get by with free tools which work. There are some ways to get high-end video product software. For example, at a disc out, TechSoup has an Adobe donation program where you can find the Creative Cloud all-apps plan with Premiere Pro, as well as Premiere Elements, which is also available, as well as JourneyEd, which has a lot of video editing software available as well. But Windows Live and Apple iMovie come free with either a type of computer, Mac or PC, Lightworks, for example, is a great tool that has both a free and paid option. So wherever you are in this process, different editors have different features. But the idea is pick one, get to know it. If it doesn't work, you can go on to a different one, either free or paid. So in terms of publishing platforms, your platform determines your presentation's length, equipment needs, and promotional plans. So really think about this in terms of where your video is going to be visible, how are people going to see your video. So take YouTube or Vimeo, for example. Both are flexible platforms, almost all websites support embedding YouTube videos. And it has excellent social features. Vimeo obviously is comparable to YouTube, though not nearly as popular, I'd say in our community. But with videos now being embedded also, for example, on social platforms like on Facebook or Instagram, you should also think about how social engagement can amplify the success of your media. The last major consideration in your post-production effort after your media asset is created is really how to build support around it. After all the hard work you put into the creating of your story, you want people to see it. So depending on your target audience, again you can go through your typical promotion channels, but also create some new ones through relationship building and word of mouth. So at this point I wanted to leave you all by saying that here at TechSoup we are trying to shift toward using storytelling in everything we do, from communication with our partners to supporting our community and uncovering those rich stories. One of the ways we do this is our annual storytelling competition as previously mentioned, Storymakers. Storymakers is how we were lucky enough to find the work of Michael Dunn at the Davis County Public Library, and I'm very happy to introduce him onto the program now, but first let's watch his video submission for Storymakers 2016. Have you a real love of books and learning? You do, that's good. Hello everyone, thank you for having me. Thank you, Alan, thank you, Crystal. As I mentioned, my name is Michael Dunn. I work at the Davis County Public Library in Owensboro, Kentucky. Let's see, we produced that trailer you just watched. The full documentary is about 20 minutes long and is available on our YouTube page if you're interested in checking that out. I'm primarily going to be talking today about our experience making that specific video. Our library sets in a county with a population of about 100,000 people. There are some university libraries but we are a one-ranch public library so we're pretty busy. I'm fortunate enough to be the full-time videographer and photographer for the library. So a lot of times I would get, you know, why does a building with a bunch of books need a videographer? And to be honest, I wasn't sure if I was either. I was just glad they wanted to hire one, but I quickly learned that this library, like a lot, hosts a couple hundred programs a year and wanted to document a lot of them, but we also had a strong genealogy department called the Kentucky Room and they were very serious about filming oral histories from local residents, about historical events in the county, and interviewing our veterans about the nation's wars, and that's kind of how it all got started, was interviewing our local veterans about World War II. So my job is not only marketing in the library and its services through video and photos, but it's also documenting local events and preserving the past through those oral histories of our patrons. Our library has typically been very supportive and progressive of all of the arts. We were the first library in Kentucky to participate in the Human Library and we have a video on that if you're interested on Facebook and YouTube. But the visual arts seem to have really been promoted here pretty heavily. And a community of local filmmakers and enthusiasts started to materialize and use the library as a hub of sorts to help promote what they create. Horror films have been shot here. In fact, you can rent that one, Volumes of Blood. It was filmed after hours here. It's at your local family videos. You have one of those, or it's actually available to stream on Amazon Prime. It was made using some of my co-workers and patrons as PAs. That pumpkin head right there is a fellow co-worker of mine, Wes. And that's him again next to another co-worker of mine, Harry Potter, the great Potter heist we created a short film about two guys who break into the library trying to get the new Harry Potter book before it came out. We have programs where we showcase local filmmakers, short films, and we have been working to produce documentaries of local events, as well as programs to teach filmmaking techniques to teens and young adults to promote their creativity. So what am I getting at? Well, as most of you all know, the library has a lot more to offer than just books. And I think a lot of people in the community that surround these libraries still look at the library like that, like it's just a building with a bunch of books. So when the ALA started their library's transform campaign, we jumped on board with stickers and window stickers and advertisements and t-shirts. And we wanted to change the public perception of what we were and we wanted to make a documentary. And we partnered with several other libraries in surrounding counties and our mission was to show the communities that, you know, there's more to your public library than you may think. And we wanted each library to be able to tell what important things they did for their community and how they've transformed over the years. So our planning process began and we started scheduling with each library. I calculated, you know, I probably need about an hour at each place and I calculated wrong and I'll come back to that. I developed a plan, a three-part plan, and that was to interview the director and then interview a patron, hopefully. And then get B-roll based on what they talked about, which Ali mentioned B-roll. For the most part, this worked out great. And I'm glad, you know, I didn't do it the other way around and get B-roll first because, you know, I may have missed something that they spoke of in their interview. And, you know, the interviews are extremely important when you're making this type of video and ultimately who you interview is going to tell your story. So you may be able to guide it a little bit or shape it the way you want when you're editing but, you know, if they don't talk about it then it's not there. And vice versa. It's just good storytelling to be able to show your audience or B-roll what it is that they're talking about. So when you go to film B-roll, make sure you're filming the things that you can use to tell your story. Also, I knew I wanted to pack as light as I could. I'd never been to most of these libraries before and wasn't sure where we were going to do interviews. You know, I didn't want to bring a lot of equipment. This is going to take up a lot of time and space. We use Canon. There's a picture right there. We use Canon DSLRs for their video quality, lens options, portability. Audio and DSLRs are notorious for not being very good. So I always recommend getting an external shotgun microphone to mount on the camera. If you want to take it a step further, we also use Zoom audio recorders with lavalier microphones when we are interviewing someone. Most of the time, you know, to sit down and interview, just kind of on the fly, that shotgun microphone attached to your camera will do just fine. So once we got everything scheduled, we hit the road. And, you know, I had a lot of footage from our library, but I wanted to get as much material from the others as I could that we didn't have. So for the most part, my three-part plan worked, and it worked great except for my time estimate. So sit-down interviews always took longer than I expected. We're finding a good place to do it. We were in libraries. Finding a quiet spot wasn't really that hard, but sometimes finding a place with good light was an issue. I didn't pack any artificial lighting. Like I said, I wanted to pack light. So if you find yourself in that situation, just try to get by a window, and usually you can work with that. Let's see. I knew I was getting plenty of material to work with, which was great. I just knew it was going to be a bigger job in post-cutting and all down. But ultimately, you would always rather have too much than not enough. So it's a good problem to have. I usually asked about three questions per person to stay within our subject matter, and with whatever I'm doing interviews for a video, I try to stick with that three-question rule. I don't really break away from it unless, you know, I need them to clarify just a little bit more on one of the questions. As soon as I thought I had enough interview material, I would try to go film some of the things that they spoke about, and make sure to get plenty of shots of the physical building and anything that somebody who hasn't walked in a library for 20 years would say, wow, they do that at the library. And when I'm filming, I try to remind myself over and over what my goal is. So not only do I get what I need, but usually if you prepare like that, you have time to get something you didn't plan on getting, and it ends up being, you know, a really sweet bonus. So, for instance, one of the libraries in our video told us when we got there, which we didn't know about beforehand, that they had a 3D printer that they used for teen STEM programs. And, you know, like I said, I didn't know that before I got there, but that ended up being, it certainly fit with the library's transform message from ALA, and it ultimately ended up being one of the main parts we used about from that library. When filming was pretty much wrapped up, it began post-production. And, you know, I started with all the interviews and syncing all the audio to the interviews and taking notes of my favorite parts of each. I usually do that with every project. I'll make notes, and then I'll, once I put it in the editor, then I'll cut it down to match my notes. From there, I like to go back and find my B-roll. They complimented whatever they were talking about and, you know, impair it to it and cut it down to something manageable. On B-roll shots, you know, over somebody talking, I like to use about two to four second clips and then, you know, maybe change the angle of what I'm looking at. It just gets boring to me if it's much longer without a different perspective. When making it, it quickly became apparent because we were trying to cover so many different things that the library does that I was going to need kind of a bridge between subjects. So I asked that co-worker, Kevin, who was in the Harry Potter picture in the beginning, if he would kind of be my narrator for a script I'd written. He did a wonderful job. The final product was pushing 20 minutes, and I made a short teaser trailer for social media, which is what you all viewed, and we submitted that to TechSoup in one, so thank you very much to them. It was a lot of fun to make and, you know, kind of chaotically throw all these things at the viewer that the libraries, you know, are typically known for. And ultimately, again, that was the main goal was to, you know, to show the library as much more than a room full of books. With the trailer and the main video, both, you know, I had to cut things out that I really liked and often run into that with projects. You know, you feel bad when people take the time to interview on camera and then you don't use their interview or you just only use a couple seconds of it, but really in the end, you have to go what you feel is best for the video and your editing. I can usually tell when a filmmaker used a shot or, you know, something just because, you know, they liked it, but it has nothing to do with the story. I'll end with my suggestions just as far as how I approach videos I produce for the library and otherwise. I always allow for extra time. Not only does not being in a rush help you get better shots, but it also allows you to get more creative. When you're interviewing people, if they're briefing to the point, you know, they seem to be getting off subjects, you can try and stir them back on track, or if you find they're repeating themselves, then, you know, maybe that's all they have to say about that particular subject, so it's just best to move on rather than keep pressing them. Let's see. Don't be afraid to cut things that don't help tell your story. Don't fall in love with a shot, you know, if it doesn't help tell the story, you know. Film as much as possible, but film what's important. There's lots of something you'll never use just because it looks cool. However, you know, if there's another project you're planning on doing down the line and something just happens to be there, absolutely get a shot at that. With documentary type videos such as this, you know, your interviews are the base of your story or the cake, you know, and B-roll is kind of like the icing. You know, everybody loves icing, but there's no real substance to it if it's not complimenting the story that you're trying to tell. And lastly, just prepare, prepare, prepare, not only will your finished product end up better, but it will allow you more time to have fun and be creative with your shots. I think that's it. If you'd like to keep up with the videos we're producing at Davis County Public Library, follow us on Facebook and YouTube, and thank you very much for having me. Great. Michael, thank you for sharing your experience, and it was really great to see just a short teaser for one of your videos in the start of your presentation. So I'm glad we were able to share that. And I just wanted to point out that we've shared the links in the chat to your YouTube channel and your website, and also to the specific video that we shared, and all of those will be shared in the archive of this webinar, which will come out within a few days. So those of you who want to take a closer look later, you'll be welcome to do that. Now we have been getting in some questions, so we'll move to that now. I'd like everybody to add any other questions that you might have for Michael or for Allie into the chat, and we have a few moments for those right now. If for any reason we don't get to all of the questions today, then we'll follow up with you via email later on. So let's see. Allie, I think we're actually going to come back to your section first, and we had a couple of questions about some of the technology. And first off, I'm going to ask a question about the budget and the smartphone. So it was mentioned, Gabriel asks, it was mentioned before that on a low budget one could use a cell phone, a smartphone. How good or bad is the quality of the audio and the video from them without any external equipment? So Allie, do you have a response for that? Yeah, great question. So the audio video quality really just depends on the expectations that you have, the budget restrictions that you have. But like I mentioned, using your smartphone is completely acceptable. I don't know if you guys have seen this, Apple has an entire ad campaign, the quote unquote shot on iPhone 7 or shot on whichever version of iPhone adds. So again, just call it out. Be honest about what you can and can't do. So I think it's always helpful to include language at the end that says shot on smartphone or shot on whatever it is that you're using. I think that's a pretty solid approach. Just be honest with what you can and can't do. Great, thank you for that response. Now we have another question. In this one, Michael, I'll see if you want to respond to this one. You both actually had talked about B-Roll and what that is. And I was wondering, Michael, if you could go back and summarize the definition of B-Roll for us again and just anything else you'd like to add about how you approach. I thought you had some nice things to say about the way you approached B-Roll, so if you have anything else to add to that. So what is B-Roll? Well B-Roll to me is just anything that kind of supplements the story that you're trying to tell. For instance, the majority of your story is somebody telling a story through interviews. You've interviewed people. You want to go then and film some of the things that they talked about in their interview to help tell the story. I mean, B-Roll, I don't want to say it's any less important than A-Roll by any means. It's absolutely just as important. But it kind of just helps you tell your story. I mean, if your video is not a bunch of people talking through interviews, if you go and you just film an event, your B-Roll could just be details about the event, the sign of what city you're in, the sign of the event, the building, the outside building to show where you are at the event. Anything to just kind of help narrate the story in your video. Great. An excellent answer, an explanation of what B-Roll is. All right, Allie, I've got one to go back to your section again. Laura asks about story mining. She says, when story mining, do you ask people to record a video right then, or do you ask them to come back to do so? Yeah, great question. I think it kind of depends on if you're digging for research, for research purposes, kind of in that discovery phase, or if you're actually wanting a piece of media as the outcome right then and there. I personally think giving whoever you're speaking to as much lead time as possible to give them time to prepare their answers. I often like to share the questions that I'm going to ask and just give them a second. If you don't have that luxury of an advanced coordination, you can do exactly that. Say these are the questions that I'm going to ask you and give them five minutes to prep for it. I do think there's something to be said in terms of value in capturing people in the moment. I think that's a fine way to go. Great, excellent answer. I have a question now, which Michael, I will pitch this to you first because I think your experience in the library setting and working with the community might have something to share here, but this might be in an area different than yours. It's about getting movie makers and community members involved, but I'm going to read you the whole question. She says, for rural areas such as those in which New Mexico, for example, is so vast and very rural, transportation is a big problem. The population is small and spreads throughout the state. They do have movie makers there. The question is how can you get them involved facing some of those challenges you might have in rural areas? Michael, I don't know if from your experience you have any tips that might also be applicable to more rural areas like that. Well, all I can speak of is the experience of our library and really it kind of all started with making the library the center. When we have an amateur filmmaking program, we have it every weekend for like two months in the winter and people come and share their short films that they've made and people have driven several hours away to come show their short film and talk to a live audience about it. We've had people Skype in from California where you guys are with their short films. People want to share and talk about things that they create. I guess my suggestion, maybe not specifically that type of program but whatever you can come up with, but just try to make your library the hub for it and use social media to your advantage and reach out and host events that creative video makers would want to come to and hopefully you'll get something started. Great. Michael, thanks for sharing that. I think your experience here has certainly been applicable in other situations so it's just nice to hear what your experience has been. And it sounds like you've had a lot of engagement in your community which is great to hear. So Ali, I know your experience is a little bit different being from TechSoup but I'm wondering if you have anything you could share about getting others involved in the creation of videos maybe outside of those just within your organization? Yeah, well I think one of the most important first things to do is like for example media makers out in your community. I think talking to them for example to see what sort of stories they value or want to create or what sort of involvement they want to have and map their goals and values to your own is a good way to start. This of course is assuming that you know where they are and how to reach them so that might actually be step number one if you haven't done that already. But again reaching out and talking to them to see what sort of stories they want to create and how your values align is a way to go about doing that. Excellent, thank you for sharing that. Well I think that's all we have time for in our questions today. If you ask the question and we didn't have time for it we'll follow up with you later via email. And thank you for all your questions and for participating in this webinar today. Now stay on for just we've got a few brief announcements and then we'll have a survey where you can tell us what you thought of our webinar today so I hope you'll stay on the line. But as we wrap up I hope that you picked up some new ideas and some skills with regards to digital storytelling and that you can take those with you. Again we'll share the links and resources in the archive so you can follow up with those within a few days and also see some examples of great digital stories. And of course we're also sharing some of our TechSoup resources in the chat right now. We also have some webinars coming up in May that might be of interest to you, slightly different topics but still of relevance to libraries in particular on Thursday, May 4th we have a webinar on Building a Stellar Grant Seeking Team. And then on Wednesday, May 31st we have a library specific webinar on libraries as innovation hubs and community-driven design processes. And I hope you'll mark your calendar and save the date for that. A registration is actually open for both of these right now. And so you can find that on TechSoup.org on our events and webinars page which we shared in the chat. Also I hope you'll visit TechSoup for Libraries website at TechSoupForLibraries.org where you can find library specific information, blog posts, webinar archives, and also sign up for our monthly newsletter so we hope to see you there. All right, well that's all we have for today and I just want to thank ReadyTalk for being our webinar sponsor and to thanks also to Allie and Michael for sharing their knowledge. And thanks to all of you for joining us. I hope you have a great day. Okay, bye-bye.