Storytelling Basics:

• Ira Glass, of NPR's "This American Life" on the art of storytelling; this is required watching for all storytellers
  • Part 1 - "On the Basics"
  • Part 2 - "On Finding Great Stories"
  • Part 3 - "On Good Taste"
  • Part 4 - "On Two Common Pitfalls

• What's the Deal with Storytelling? - A great write-up and video about storytelling from the Permission to Suck site
• Vimeo Video School - Somewhat more oriented towards videography than still photography, this is a great resource
• Multimedia Shooter - A weblog about still photographers who are using multimedia
• Center for Digital Storytelling - Information about digital storytelling from an excellent source
• Electronic Portfolios - A good resource
• Producing Multimedia That Supports the Still Image - Some thoughts on producing an audio slideshow
• Elements of Digital Storytelling - From the University of Minnesota School of Journalism
• Digital Storytelling from the University of Houston - a great site with a ton of info
• Panning & Zooming in Photoshop - using Photoshop's animation tools

Storyboarding Resources:

• How to Storyboard - A nice short intro to the art of storyboarding
• Storyboard PDF #1 - A premade storyboard in PDF format for you to download
• Storyboard PDF #2 - If you don't like the layout of the first PDF, try this one
• Storyboard Generator - And if you want something completely different, make your own storyboard layout with this neat online tool
• Tell an story in 5 pictures - OK, this isn't really a "storyboarding" resource, but there is a Flickr group that is called "Tell a Story with 5 Pictures" that does a great job of exploring how to do series and sequence images.
• Tell a story in pictures podcast - worth exploring

Software for Recording and Mixing Audio:

• GarageBand - Apple's really easy to use software with which you can record your voice, create your own audio using "loops" and mix the two of them together. You could also take existing audio and mix in "voice-over" with that audio. All Macs have GarageBand installed.
• Recording Audio with GarageBand - Just the basics on how to get sound into GB

• Audacity -
  A free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. (Mac & Win)
  • Audacity Tutorial list - From the Audacity folks, a list of several good Audacity tutorials.
  • Audacity Tutorial for Podcasters - Or really anyone. Just the basics, complete with some video sections. Nice.

Tips for Audio Recording :

• Mastering the Craft - A great set of tutorial pages about audio from the Association of Independents in Radio. They also have some great links that can be found here
• PCRecording - A nice tutorial site about how to record any audio to your computer.
• Sound in the Story - A really fine long-ish (21 pages) PDF on the art of location recording, mostly from the creative standpoint (what to do as opposed to how to do it)
• Dave Schroeder on Lynda.com - Dave Schroder's online "course" on digital audio. The first few lesson bits are free (and quite good) you've got to pay for the rest.
• The Pen is Mightier than the Mic - A nice piece by an author who is making his transition to the spoken word.
• Guide to Recording Voice - Nicely done tips about how to sound your best
• The Voice Recipe - What's your voice like? This is a very, very cool and fun site about how we speak
• Record Audio on your iPhone - The ultimate gizmo records sound!
• Wistia's Guide to Recording Audio - A very nice overview of recording sound, including a section on DSLRs
• Tips for voiceover recordings- Great set of videos on placing microphones and on technique.
• Microphone primer - Basic mic advice - want more? Go to the Microphone University

Great Audio (As Inspiration):

• SoundPortraits.org - Amazingly good audio documentaries by an independent production company dedicated to telling stories that bring neglected American voices to a national audience
• American RadioWorks - ARW is public radio's largest documentary production unit; it creates documentaries, series projects, and investigative reports for the public radio system and the Internet.

Resources for Music for your Story:

• Friendly Music - This may be your best choice... great music, no copyright issues and low price
• BenSound - Nice royalty-free music
• JewelBeat - Some free music and sound effects on this website
• DanoSongs.com - Some good RF music
• Freeplay Music - Royalty-free music that you can use in your presentations
• Music Alley - Music created specifically for use in Podcasts or other shared media
• Incompetech - Nice interface for sorting options for this site's RF music
• Triple Scoop Music - Great royalty free music, for a fee
• Project SMaRT - A great list of places to get cheap or free music legally
• MobyGratis - Contemporary musical artist Moby has a way you can use some of his music for free in non-profit presentations.
• Copyrights, Digital Files and your Slideshow - A nice copyright primer from the Photo to Movie folks
• More about Copyright and the Public Domain

Software for Authoring Your Story (Primary Options):

• iMovie - Comes with every Mac and is easy to use for both images and audio. Allows panning and zooming of images. Easy to use yet fairly powerful. Makes QuickTime movies that can be played on computers, or uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
  • Izzy's iMovie Tutorial - A full set of tutorial videos for iMovie
  • Exporting Your iMovie - Some great tips on getting smaller file sizes and higher quality
  • Zooms and Freeze-Frames in iMovie
  • Editingto the Beat in iMovie - Boom chacka!

• PhotoToMovie - Sort of like iMovie, but without the video capabilities. A very powerful, yet easy-to use tool for making motion (with audio) out of still photographs (Mac & Win).

Other (Secondary) Story Authoring Options:

• Soundslides - This inexpensive ($40) software (Mac & Win) has become a defacto standard for multimedia presentations for online newspapers.
  • Soundslides Manual - Official documentation
  • A Soudslides Tutorial
  • Convert your Soundslides to QuickTime - Just follow the instructions

• ProShow Gold - A Windows only software package that's sort of like iMovie, but doesn't do video, just animated still images
• The 2.5D Effect - Add motion to still images

Examples of Digital Storytelling Movies & Slideshows:

• Stories by Dana Atchley - The guy who first showed me the power of sound and images was Dana Atchley. You'll need to click on the movie screen to play the movies. Use the links at the bottom of the page to select a few of his other stories.
• Center For The Story Example Stories - some of the best stories from the Center for the Story
• Ted Kooser - A great video about creativity by Straw Hat Media
• Gardyn - This uses video, not still images, but it could easily have been done with stills and the incredible sounds that the creator has recorded and mixed together.
• The Fallen - A moving and interesting piece about Robert Kennedy's funeral from the New York Times
• The Photography Channel - Photographic Storytelling for Electronic Media... these are very strong examples of what's possible
• Magnum Photographers In Motion - A nice set of Magnum photographers' photographs. Also available as a Podcast here.
• Couple Lacks Sight, Not Vision - A Soundslides example with voice over
• Wrestling - Pro wresting mixing music and on-site recorded sound
• Dulcimer Festival - Nice mix of images and sound
• Punk in Drublic - Check out all the different formats that this presentation is available in. Note the very cool use of a stationary camera and moving subjects
• Life Through Time - Franz Lantig's and engaging work in a beautifully told story format
• Media Storm - Brian Storm's Media Storm website is one of the best storytelling sites around
• Soul of Athens - Great stories about Athens, OH
• 16:Moments - Though not a "photo" story, take a look at how well this piece works with sound and image
• Bastardo Dot Biz - One of the best projects a student has ever done - by Courtney Penzato