Our Process

An established time frame for production activities is what kept the project running smoothly. We made sure that the students had enough time to write and produce their stories without lingering too long on any particular step. Since computers are not yet sustainable at the school, we chose not to have the students themselves edit their stories, but rather work with an editing team.

Meet the students at Ecole Sinthiou Mbadane 1, our pilot school in rural Senegal, and all the people who made this project happen!

The on-site component of our digital storytelling production process lasted three weeks and involved the following chronology (as reported by Jeremy Teicher, Project Manager):

Day 1: Met with school stakeholders including representatives of the parents, village leaders, and teachers to introduce the project—how it would benefit the school and community. We also visited the nearby villages where many of the students live and introduced ourselves.

Day 2: Met with teachers to discuss the time frame and curriculum; discussed what the project entails and how we aim to accomplish it. We addressed logistical issues as well. The teachers selected about 20 students ages 10-15 to participate. Because school was not in session this week, we went to the various local villages and gathered the students.

Day 3: Our first meeting with students. We explained what the project is and why it is significant. Then we showed them an example video, discussed the storytelling process, and let them play with the video cameras. By the end of this first meeting, they couldn't wait to get started.

Day 4: The remainder of the week was spent instructing the students on how to use the camera, set up shots, and so on. Each student, with the help of a questionnaire, selected a topic. With the teachers' help, we paired everyone into groups—resulting in nine groups of two and one group of three.

Day 5: The last day, after we felt confident that everyone was comfortable with the equipment and knew what they would be filming, we gave each group one camera for the weekend and Issa and I left for Dakar. Ideally, both partners in the group would film their stories by Monday.

Day 1: Most of the groups still hadn't finished filming; they were given fresh batteries and told to finish that night.

Day 2: The cameras were collected. As I watched the footage, I was struck by the candor of what the students had filmed—an outsider definitely could not have captured this type of material.

Day 3: I continued to sort through the footage and weed out anything unusable. One group—the group of three—didn't actually film anything that could be put into a story. (In hindsight, they were too young to be doing the project). Another group only filmed enough to make one story between the two partners.

Day 4: Each student wrote a rough draft narration to accompany what he or she had filmed. I collected these drafts and used them to get an idea of how I should edit the footage.

Day 5: By the end of Week 2, rough cuts of each student's films were complete.

Day 1: The first three days of the week were spent recording the voice-overs. We could only work for about one and a half hours at a time, since there was no way to recharge the computers at the school.

Day 2: The students had a day off while I combined the rough cuts with the narrations to create the final movies. I had been working on this throughout the week, combining the stories the narrations I had recorded that day.

Day 3: The final viewing party, complete with soda, a special treat in rural Senegal, and cookies for the students. The mood was ecstatic! The kids had a blast watching what they had recorded—the smiles on their faces were huge. I think that the cameras allowed each student to look at his/her life with a new, more objective eye, and the results are that they're proud of their identities, their villages, and their way of life.