The National Library of Wales
500 digital stories presented to The National Screen and Sound Archive
Tue, 16 Jun 09 10:13:00
A fantastic archive of the voices of the people of Wales will be presented to the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales at 16:15 pm on Wednesday 17 June at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre.
The archive contains 588 short films known as 'digital stories' made by people, from all backgrounds across Wales in workshops run by the BBC Capture Wales / Cipolwg ar Gymru project between 2001 and 2007.
Digital stories are short films about real life, created and edited by people using cameras, computers, scanners and their own photo album. The stories are mainly personal, usually based on the family album, but they are about a huge range of subjects - love, work, hopes, fears, the past even the future. Sometimes poignant, often with humour but nearly always with a stark personal honesty which sets them apart from much of today's media. They have been referred to as 'scrapbook' tv, short, personal and told from the heart.
The handover of the Capture Wales archive to National Screen and Sound
Archive of Wales coincides with the DS4 festival at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. BBC Cymru Wales and the Capture Wales storytellers will be handing over the full archive of these stories to the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales based in The National Library of Wales. There they will be kept for posterity, as a unique, first-person record of life at the beginning of the 21st Century.
The handover will take place at the beginning of the plenary session when digital storytellers, Alan Thomas, Dai Evans and Rhian Cadwaladr, will be joined by Mandy Rose, Executive Producer of Capture Wales, Andrew Green, Librarian, National Library of Wales and Iestyn Hughes, Head of the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales.
Links to BBC Website digital stories
Dai Evans - Brynaman
Dai is an artist, now in his 80s who made a digital story about his 'models' in one of the first ever BBC workshops. Dai's influences and inspirations are Van Gogh, Dylan Thomas, Glen Baxter and digital storytelling.
Alan Thomas - Llanboidy, Carmarthenshire
Alan has Ataxia, a degenerative disease which affects balance and co-ordination. His inspirational digital story about keeping active and not letting the disease ruin his life was broadcast on BBC Wales and Radio Wales to mark International Ataxi Awareness day. After it was broadcast, audience comments came flooding in. Since making his digital story with BBC Capture Wales, he went on to attend the E-Inclusion conference in Austria in 2008 where he was able to highlight Ataxia Awareness to company officials such as Hewlett Packard. Microsoft and politicians through a second digital story he made ‘Stepping Stones'.
Rhian Cadwaladr - Caernarfon, Gwynedd
Rhian is a part-time drama tutor; part-time arts project administrator, sometime actor and a full-time mother of four. Her story is about hope and optimism. She chose this story "Just in case it might give others something new to try when life gets hard". Since making her own digital story, Rhian facilitates stories with people from all ages in the community - the youngest being 7 and the oldest 84! Rhian will be running one of the break-out sessions in the afternoon at this year's festival
Marsha O'Mahony - Welsh Newton Common
Marsha had been a full-time, stay-at-home mum of two young children who struggled to find time for herself. In 2004, when her children were firmly settled into school, Marsha signed up for a BBC digital storytelling workshop in Monmouth. Since then she's gone from story to story as one of BBC Wales' community reporters - volunteers who let listeners know about local life in their area. This year she's at DS4 to launch a new Digital Storytelling group which she's helped to set up.
About Capture Wales
The BBC digital storytelling project, Capture Wales and its community partners have helped over 900 people across Wales to make their own digital story. The stories are published online and over 400 have been broadcast on BBC television, including within BBC Cymru Wales' flagship news programme Wales Today. Between 2004 and 2007 stories were available 24/7 behind the red button on the Your Stories channel on BBCi. Over 150 have also been broadcast on Radio Wales and further stories in Welsh broadcast on Radio Cymru.
Further information
Anwen Jones
Access management and Development Officer
The National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales
01970 632 535
Medi Jones-Jackson
Press Office
01970 632 534
