Introducing: Story Lab X

Does the art of the storyteller translate well to video?

It's a question that storytellers have wrestled with since the beginnings of the American storytelling revival, which predated the rise of the home video recorder by just a handful of years.

As a performer (and as an audience member), it's an interesting dilemma, as video has the potential to increase reach, at the same time that it may or may not capture what is essential about the live art.

There's been some recent chatter (again) about the invisibility of this art form in today's broadband media landscape, and this called to mind recent efforts (like those of Ellouise Schoettler, Philip David Morgan, Eric Wolf, and RED Internacional de Cuentacuentos, among others) to use the Web to showcase videos of storytellers telling stories.

So, along those lines, for your consideration, to consider both the plusses and minuses of watching storytellers on video, I'm launching a new site, Story Lab X.

I'm simply curating-- scraping videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Ning, Blip, etc. (so if one day you happen to catch one of your own videos there-- don't panic. I'm simply linking to where you originally posted it using the 'embed' code. (If you don't want your online video shared online, then might I suggest disabling the sharing option?)).

I chose the word "lab" to call to mind an experiment. The videos that appear will not only differ in their content, but in their approach to the medium. There are aesthetic issues the translation to video entails... some of these videos are clearly using what different about the medium to their advantage, and many, it is clear, have not thought about it. Posts on some of these issues raised, the plusses and minuses of translation to video, are coming soon.

Meanwhile, over at Story Lab X, the videos are there for you to ponder, to enjoy, and to stir up questions of aesthetics.

Here's your first assignment: enjoy the videos: http://storylabx.tumblr.com

For the time being, there's a new video posted each day.

(But if that's not enough for you, there is always my semi-curated storytelling collection on YouTube)

Escaping from the Well

"Brand storyteller" Michael Margolis of Thirsty-Fish on "Finding Meaning and Authenticity in the Storytelling Brand"

Margolis's content is not groundbreaking.

That you can read it here is.

Storytelling Conferences: Shouting Down a Hole

There's a motif in several European fairy tales, where a sister has to rescue her brothers from a supernatural fate (such as their transformation into geese, or ravens), by remaining silent for a lengthy period, say, seven years, seven months, and seven days. Often, the consequences of remaining silent bring her hardship and grief, and in some stories she digs a hole in the earth, and into this hole releases a torrent of emotions in words and sobs. She must then cover the hole, and bury her emotions, so that no one will know that she has broken her silence.

Sometimes I think of storytelling conferences in this way.

Conference attendees gather from all over, get together to speak, but the logistics of the conference are such that if you weren't there, you'd never know that anything was said. For all intents and purposes, the conference covered over the hole where the discussion went on.

I don't envision gatherings of storytellers as sharing of grief, though. So the other vision I have is that of Fight Club. Or maybe a conference of ninjas. The attendees think of themselves as a secret brother and sisterhood, with knowledge to share among each other, but not to those outside the secret club.

Now I've been to some of these conferences. I've learned a lot at them, networked a lot, met some great people, seen some terrific stuff happen as a result of conversations that started at these conferences. I'm not knocking storytelling conferences per se.

I am knocking their dissemination and distribution.

I can think of a lot of historical reasons why storytelling conferences didn't publish proceedings, probably many related to logistics and money (i.e. no papers to publish (because the focus was not academic), there not being enough financial incentive to record and distributed keynotes).

That's all changed. The barriers to entry for publication and distribution have fallen dramatically with the advent of the World Wide Web.

Ten years ago, Story, from fireplace to cyberspace : connecting children and narrative (1998), a conference of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Allerton Park Institute published its proceedings as a journal. Nice to see that they've released all the contents digitally... so you can read what presenters like Anne Shimojima, Janice Del Negro, Joseph Sobol and Karen Morgan said there. (Link)

I can't find a single storytelling conference since then that has done the same. Online? In print? Anything? It's been ten years. (Please-- someone, anyone-- correct me! Show me I'm wrong!)

In 2007, I was not able to attend the National Storytelling Network's National Conference, held in July. In October, I inquired about obtaining a copy of a recording of a keynote. It took months for anything to happen (An audio of the keynote was, for a brief time, made available for sale. It is not currently). For that 2007 conference, the text of the keynote by Ron Turner is publicly available via the Web (link) for anyone to read. The text of the keynote by Jo Radner is publicly available via the journal Storytelling, Self, Society. (And good luck trying to get a hold of a copy of that particular issue of that particular journal if you're not an academic).

In 2008, Eric Wolf brought his own recording equipment to his panel discussion at the National Storytelling Conference and released the audio of the entire session on the Web as an mp3 file, under a Creative Commons license. I can't find any evidence that any other part of the conference is available, in text or in audio.
(BTW, Eric Wolf is singlehandedly doing the work of a national storytelling advocacy organization: via his podcast, he is disseminating discussion and insights from a wide variety of respected practicioners to an international audience. For free.)

<Oops. Left out a significant source of conference coverage and interviews on the Web: Storyteller.net. See comments, below.

With the economy what it is these days, I'm predicting that there will be fewer people in attendance at storytelling conferences this year. That makes it even more essential that these gatherings make an effort to share and disseminate widely the goings on.

I'm attending a storytelling conference next month. I had hoped to encourage liveblogging and twittering during my session. Turns out my room will not have WiFi coverage (although, there may be cell phone access if anyone wants to text out). I will be blogging from the conference.

Coming up in future posts: I'm going to look at various storytelling conferences held in 2009 across North America and rate them on their accessibility for those who could not be there in attendance. (I'll likely look at both accessibility during the conference (via blog posts and Twitter), and dissemination afterwards (via their own websites, YouTube, blogs, Storytell, etc)-- let me know in the comments if there is a metric you think I should track)

Oral Tradition Journal Opens Its Doors: It's All Available, Free, Online.

Since 1986, The Center for Studies in the Oral Tradition at the University of Missouri has been an interdisciplinary center for research on oral traditions. Its flagship journal, Oral Tradition, has been a treasure trove of papers in anthropology, archaelogy, linguistic, religious studies, performance studies, literature, folklore, and various languages.

It has just opened up its archives (dubbed eOT) via the Web for everyone to access (Previously, you had to have a subscription, or hope your local university library subscribed or could grant you electronic access to the issues since 2003). Every article it has every published, available, now, online, for free.

With the advent of eOT, the free, open-access electronic version of the journal based here, we aspire to remove many of the natural barriers created by print-based and subscription media. Since we believe that academic contributions should be as democratically available as possible, we are from this point onward offering the journal as a pro bono, gratis contribution to the field. Anyone with a connection to the internet will be able to read and redistribute its contents – not only the current issue, but also the entire 22 years and 10,000 pages of back issues.

In addition to reaching a much larger and more diverse readership, we hope that eOT will encourage submissions from scholars whose voices are not customarily heard in western print media because of the difficulties involved with currency exchange and distribution networks.

The archives are searchable by keyword, there's a master index, and all articles are available as PDF files.

Even if you're not an academic, the site is a fascinating treasure trove of papers on a variety of subjects: from Homer to Beowulf, from Coyote stories to The Canterbury Tales, from Japanese theatre to French covers of Bob Dylan songs to the epics of India. Do a little digging and find a story to tell.

And if there are any academic journals out there focused on other specific aspects of oral tradition, ahem, might I suggest (again) considering open access as a publishing model?

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Learn more about Open Access at Wikipedia or at the Public Library of Science.

1000 True Fans Revisited

Kevin Kelly revisits his "1000 True Fans" hypothesis, in which he suggests that microniche artists could make a living from a limited fan base.

On his blog, he's beginning a series of interviews with artists who are using this very model, and the first one is ambient musican Robert Rich, who's been self-producing for 30 years. In his response, Rich tempers Kelly's enthusiasm with a hard dose of reality:

In reality the life of a "microcelebrity" resembles more the fate of Sisyphus, whose boulder rolls back down the mountain every time he reaches the summit. After every tour I feel exhausted but empowered by the thought that a few people really care a lot about this music. Yet, a few months later all is quiet again and CD/downoad sales slow down again. If I take the time to concentrate for a year on what I hope to be a breakthrough album, that time of silence widens out into a gaping hole and interest seems to fade. When I finally do release something that I feel to be a bold new direction, I manage only to sell it to the same 1,000 True Fans. The boulder sits back at the bottom of the mountain and it's time to start rolling it up again.

Hat tip to Sean for this one.

New Models for Performers: Kevin Kelly's "1000 True Fans"

(via boingboing)

I've been aware, pretty much since the rise of Napster in 1999, that the Web was changing the way performing artists connected with their audiences and changing the way artists would generate revenue.

While new models are still evolving, even National Public Radio has recently reported on how artists (like Jane Siberry) are tapping into their fan bases to create highly decentralized patronage systems... working on commissions from your audiences.

Kevin Kelly, he of Wired fame (or, for you old timers like me, the Whole Earth Catalog) has posted his analysis of these new emerging models on his blog (link):

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

Kelly's post is required reading for self-employed performing artists (this means you, storytellers).

More thinking needs to be done to create a workable model for storytellers. The typical working storyteller has thousands of fans, but upwards of 90% of them are in an educational setting. Regardless of whether these kids have disposable income, a school setting is not an appropriate venue to push sales. Even if you could find a venue outside of school, kids aren't going to spend a hundred dollars a year on their favorite storyteller.

Then, as you move to teenagers and 18 to 25 year olds, you have to find the true fans amidst the sea of audiences who are accustomed to getting their culture digitally for free.

For storytellers, even those with adult audiences, $100 per true fan per year may be high. But I think $50 is doable.

And I suspect that a storyteller who has taken either Doug Lipman's marketing course or Sean Buvala's Outside In Boot Camp, and combines it with this True Fan model, will lead the way in creating an alternative model of making a living at storytelling.... one that does not depend on the whims of school board or state funding of elementary schools).

(This is not to take away from those storytellers right now who are making a living at storytelling... they work hard, and they deserve every penny. But I'm intrigued by the alternative model that Kelly describes.)

Guest Opinion: Gregory Leifel on Storytelling Recordings

Responding to a proposal from Joseph Sobol, a small part of which was "to support preservation of audio and video recordings of storytelling performances, and devise more effective ways of marketing and distributing them in established and new media forms," Gregory Leifel wrote this posting to Storytell, which I reproduce here with his kind permission.

I have been to the Jonesborough Festival (one example) a number of times and experienced some fantastic performances, as many of us have. A huge problem, as I see it, is that after a particularly great festival performance, I'm pretty much left with only being able to purchase the personal CD of particular performers. With the exception of a few compilation CDs or DVDs offered from years' past from Jonesborough performances (I saw these in the marketplace tent), what other choices are there to disseminate that experience that I just sat through? What does the Festival Organization do with the audiotaped and videotaped performances? (I have noticed them videotaping a number of times, but seldom see where I can purchase those live-recorded performance tapes--with few exceptions). I assume since they are using sound boards at the festival they audiotape every session. Are they archived in some library that you have to travel to to hear them? Why aren't they available through the internet, downloadable like iTunes (with a portion going to the artist)?

As great as some of the storytellers are that appear at festivals, let's be honest, the studio produced CDs resemble very little the hummpfft of a live performance feel. So, I come home from the Jonesborough Festival and I'm excited about our artform and want to spread the word about Storytelling (or individual performers I just saw) and pretty much what I have as a promotional vehicle is a blander, studio-produced or a barely audible audience, live recorded CD (no offense tellers) of a prior performance that does not resemble the fantastic live experience I just had. There's no comparison.

I buy the cds because I'm a storyteller who wants to understand and learn from my peers how they put their stories together. But that's a limited audience. This begs the question: How will our artform (at least the platform performance aspect) ever be taken seriously as a choice for entertainment (for people other than storytellers) if the only way you can experience it is to have to go to a festival or local coffeehouse or show up at your kid's school?

Okay, the contrarians are going to say it's the same way with theater--live is the only way. But when storytelling venues attain numbers like community theaters I'll buy that point. You can download nearly every piece of music out there, and live concerts still sell out. Books do well, even if made into movies. Are we too protective of live storytelling?

With many creative videographers out there, there ought to be a way to videotape and capture the live feel for DVDs, public television, or some outlet the public can have better access to. (I saw one such storytelling program on public television and it was a good step in the right direction.) Is this a matter of the artists wanting to protect their copywrited materials? I don't know, I'm asking. I assume the festival has some rights when it comes to the audio or video taping at a festival, since it always clearly states only they can do it. How are they using those rights? Archival only? I'm curious.

It seems to me if your repertoire as a top storyteller is X number of stories, then allowing outstanding-quality videotaped performances of a handful of your stories to be disseminated freely in an effort to teach future audiences that this is a valid (not just for kids) and entertaining choice would help our community and yourself by raising the awareness, and creating audiences that aren't primarily just made up of other storytellers.

The pictures on the National Storytelling Centers' wall that come closest to the feel you get in Jonesborough are the ones that show the teller from behind looking out to the huge audience. It provides context; tent, teller, audience, audience expression. A picture taken straight on of a storyteller on a stage with however crazy an expression tells us little about the storytelling experience. People go to plays, movies, anything live and entertaining because there's a certain something you can't get off the television. But that doesn't mean you should limit things to live only. There's too much talent and technology out there to not try and recreate the experience and use it as a promotional tool to get demand for festivals popping up all over the country and world.

As a storyteller I'd love access to any archives from large festivals, because that's how I better learn my craft. I'd love the public to have more access to the festival experience because I often feel like an army of one or a very small platoon through the local guild or regional organization, in promoting storytelling after I've been to a festival.

I long for the day when I tell people I tell stories and they say, "Oh you mean the kind of storytelling I saw on television the other night? Wow!"

You want to think outside the box? Has anyone noticed that the Metropolitan Opera is now showing performances inside some movie theaters? Yes, you can go see The Met Performances inside your local movie house. How about stories before the movie starts?

Just some thoughts,
Gregory

Gregory Leifel
www.ThrivingMoss.com
and soon, www.AhhhFinally.com

My thoughts, and yours, in the comments section