Liam Galton at Mt Tabor Station recording arrival.
My part in it was to facilitate the creation of series of Digital Stories by the young people taking part with the support of their community Elders. The whole team drove out to Mt Tabor station two hours drive north east of Charleville on the western side of the Carnavon National Park. Mount Tabor Station is owned by the Bidjara Council and is managed as a working cattle station and to preserve the important cultural heritage sites on it and surrounding properties.
Reeghan interviewing Aunty Carol at Boonoroo Spring
Shaun recording vision Carnavon Rock Shelter
It was a real buzz to be with the young and old as they explored sites like Lost City, Goats Rock, Bulla Cliffs, Boonaroo Springs and the Carnavon Ochre Pots. One of my challenges however was to facilitate the creation of stories about these sites and this country with a group of country town youth whose principle interest was football. Still we managed. As everyone started to absorb some of the specialness of the sites they were given much to think about. Digital stories with their emphasis on oral storytelling and visual creativity seemed a perfect match.
We had Multimedia Lab support from the Qld State Library in the form of 5 Sony Vaio laptops and from West End Community House with 2 Mac laptops, scanner, cameras etc. The visits to the cultural sites gave participants wonderful material for both scripts and imagery. Each of the community elders was assigned a site and one or two young people for the project. At the sites the young people took photos and interviewed their elders. Once back to the Mt Tabor station house scripts were written and photos selected.
Creating scripts on the Qld State Library Vaios at Mt Tabor
One interesting Digital Story practice consideration was around two of the participants writing their scripts about a site, the Carnavon Ochre Pots, before they went there. Although initially a challenge, with a little support to imagine how they might experience the site from the perspective of their main passion in life - football, they did really well. In fact, the digital stories that present an experience through the metaphor of a personal interest or passion or often the best.
Our show and tell session on Friday evening at the CWAATICH (Charleville and Western Area Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation for Health) centre was wonderful. Fed with marinated kangaroo kebabs and a great salad, my wonderful volunteer, Christabelle Baranay, and I wrestled with the vagaries of Microsoft MovieMaker, recalcitrant laptops, a different data projector and a hastily thrown together sound system to show the participants Digital Stories in an open air movie theatre under the western stars.
Perhaps the most dramatic moment for me was when one of the parents who had earlier been complaining about the possible content of one of the stories came up to give me a promised opinion. I held my breath and waited. "Well, I said I'd give you my opinion......... I think .......... they are wonderful. You've done a really good job."
Mind you the job is not finished yet. First get the finished movies approved and then publish the DVD's. Then get them up on the State Library Queensland Stories site if everyone agrees.
I'm really looking forward to getting back to Charleville again and doing another project with a focus on the Elders' stories. Hopefully we can get the funding because it would be good to extend the training component of the project. I believe Digital Storytelling has tremendous potential as a community cultural development tool.
Regards
Daryll
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