In today’s age of Story Development, there is a combination of still imagery, moving imagery, sound and text. This enhances the experience of target audiences and provides a platform for further interaction and feedback. Digital Story Development has entered a new era supported by new media devices such as computers, digital cameras, recorders and software. Further, the stories created are shared through the internet, podcasts and other electronic media platforms. Various technical tools are used for story-telling and Story Development for creative expression. These include features such as edit video, add music, create title screens and various other transitions. Therefore, the features of Story Development are combined in a creative manner to give great emphasis to story, images, videos, narratives, sound effects and music. There are no set rules about a digital Story Development. As in any other story, it is important to keep the target audience in mind and make sure to convey across a profound, dramatic and interesting story.
The art of traditional story-telling is no more followed and the idea of merging traditional story telling with various modern digital tools is becoming very popular. Today, anybody who possesses a computer can develop a digital story with a specific topic and a particular point of view. Various topics can be selected for content development of stories such as personal tales, historical events, search of life on other planets in the universe and exploring lifestyle in various communities and much more. Today, the art of Story Development is used for primary and secondary education by teachers, for higher education, for social services, healthcare, religious training, museums, libraries, businesses and much more.
The most important lesson to be learnt from the art of Story Development is to consider the target audience as the main hero. The story could create real life connections and needs physical element to make people feel enthusiastic about the subject and develop further interest in it. It is also important to engage visitors on a daily basis to tell them great stories on a digital platform.
It is essential to consider the narrative, creative and imaginative concepts of Story Development as and when required. When Story Development is used in education, students dissect films and content via digital as well as non-digital media platforms and learn the art of story-telling and the method of critical analysis of these forms. Through various multimedia assignments and group discussions, students learn the art of digital media production and prepare portfolio media projects. These include Story Development in the form of various podcasts, experimental films, narrative films and interactive games.
With the above discussion, we can say that digital Story Development empowers individuals to communicate confidently along with gaining new insights into technologies of editing and sharing stories. It becomes important to merge the concepts of content development with digital skills to make the most of the digital age of Story Development. Through digital Story Development, various skill sets are practiced by the story developers. These include the following (Saponaro, 2014):
a) Research: Story developers do extensive research on the selected topics of interest so as to reach the target audience.
b) Resource Selection: Story developers select the most appropriate content, images, video-clips and the best media for presentation.
c) Script-Writing: Story developers work on the script writing skill sets to improve them drastically.
d) Voice-overs: Story developers select the best voice-over for narration of the script which in turn adds authenticity to the videos.
e) Technical Skill Development: Story developers work much on their technical skills by spending many hours on editing videos, selecting the best image, adding voice-overs and much more. This in turn helps them to create the best videos that develop the interest of the target audience.
f) Collaboration: Story Development is a gradual learning process for all developers wherein they get the opportunity to practice various social skills. Various other skills also include content management and organization of new ideas from time to time.
g) Presentation: Story developers present their stories to the real target audience in various forms such as podcasts, films, e-portfolios and much more. All the aspects and parameters related to Story Development are exercised to the best of potential and capabilities.
h) Creativity Expression: As mentioned before, creative use of digital media is the most interesting aspect of Story Development in this era of advanced technology.
Through Story Development, it becomes possible to connect with people across generations as the interesting and enthusiastic presentations of stories are capable of driving attention of the target audience. The advertising and media industry is programmed in such a manner that they can present compelling stories. The main purpose of Story Development is to influence the target audience for a specific purpose. Therefore, brands and publishers have now mastered the art of Story Development rather than creating simple advertisements. In other words, the role of brand and marketing team is changing with changing nature of Story Development. We can therefore say that the use of technology has modified the way we interact with others in the form of storytelling. Technology and digital media has truly contributed to the creation of motion pictures, photography, social media and other influential forms of communication (Yilmaz, and Cigerci, 2018). People are also resorting to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to express their thoughts in the form of stories. These platforms allow posting of statues, photos and videos depicting personal stories. Social media gives the power to story developers to express their personal opinions freely in the form of content and visual representations (Mendoza, 2015).
The American popular culture has entered a renaissance in storytelling with the popularity of radio-shows and podcasts such as ‘This American Life’ and ‘Serial’ – capturing the everyday stories of Americans. In the world of digital storytelling, there are organizations such as StoryCorps and StoryCenter who work towards capturing any stories in a digital format. The founder of StoryCenter, Joe Lambert says that 21st century precisely refers to digital storytelling. Also, in the 21st century, one of the ways of creating stories is ‘remixing’ which involves connecting different forms of media to narrate a story (Huff, 2017). As mentioned before, today, storytelling in America is being carried forth on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Youtube. The stories produced via the channel of digital Story Development have good editing and pacing, good voice-overs, a compelling theme and visual artistry. Many story developers also use a software called iMovie to create media libraries on their devices (Huff, 2017). These include images, voiceovers and various sound tracks. In other words, digital Story Development allows developers who have difficulty with writing to communicate their stories in a very different manner. Being familiar with the related technical software is the biggest challenge faced by story developers today. Digital storytelling is being adapted for a variety of purposes in the United States as a way of communication in the digital world. It is looked upon as a great channel to listen to story of others, understand one another, learn about ourselves and also understand the world in which we live (Huff, 2017).
Changing nature of Editing
Traditionally, in the U.S., copy editing mostly referred to working on simple grammar, spelling and punctuations. However, today, the concept of technical editing has changed the nature of editing industry. This involve working on grammar, poorly structured sentences, working on headings/subheadings, content, index, technical disambiguation, inconsistency in tables and figures and much more. Through these concepts, the editor gains a competitive edge over others for a particular product, service or technology. Different services are given by editors which include proofreading, copy-editing, online editing, search-engine-optimization (SEO) and much more. With regards to film-making, the technical part of the post-production process is termed as film editing. In other words, the action of selecting different scenes and then arranging them together to form a movie is termed as editing (Kendall, 2018). In this process, editors create various sequences of different shots to complete a motion picture. Today, this process involves the use of digital technology which is much more advanced as compared to the traditional process used in olden days (Kendall, 2018). The film editor works on raw footage and sequences and by using specific tools and techniques converts them into motion pictures. This field (film editing) is also referred to as the invisible art. In today’s modern world of editing, the film maker works on layers of images, story, music, dialogue and performances of actors to craft them into a series of sequential events arranged together in the form of a film. The elements that together constitute a film are replaced with final elements of sound, music and visual effects to complete the picture.
In the early times, films were short films that were long and static. Motion was the most important element used to amuse the target audience. The concept of storytelling and editing did not exist at that time as there generally was not any story. Simple movement such as recording people walking across a street was enough to amaze the audience with the technology. In the late 1890’s, a device combining camera and projector was introduced which was termed as the ‘Cinematographe’. It was a compact device and light in weight. Later, the concept of ‘Continuity Editing’ was developed which was a style followed in the early European and American movie business (Kendall, 2018). This form of editing style constructed a continuous or advanced flow of action and emotions in film-making. Thereafter, the concept of ‘Montage Editing’ came into picture which involved many short shots edited together to form a narrative sequence. Various technical concepts were drawn in this form of editing such as Invisible Editing, the 180 Degree Rule, Short Reverse Shot, Cuts on action and much more (Kendall, 2018). This was followed on by technical processes of sound editing. All these processes relate to the times when the concept of editing was done by physically cutting and pasting together pieces of the film together. This process was however time consuming and involved much expenditure. Later, the flatbed editing machines were discovered. These became the standard equipment for film editing and production. Today, most films are edited digitally on systems such as Avid, Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro.
The post-production editing in film making has three phases: editor’s cut, director’s cut and the final cut, which constitute complete presentation. Moreover, these involve the use of expensive machines such as video editors and the use of video editing software. Film editing includes trimming/cutting segments, sequencing of clips and adding transitions and special effects. In the digital age, film editing could also be categorized further into linear video editing, non-linear video editing, offline editing, online editing and vision mixing, with each of them explained below:
Linear Video Editing: is the term used when editing is done in a very linear way. Various video clips are recorded in a single tape in precise order of their sequential appearance.
Non-Linear Video Editing (NLE): This type of editing is done using specialized software and various programs such as Avid, Final Cut Pro and others.
Offline Editing: Here, the raw footage is copied from a particular source. Once the editing is done, original content is then re-assembled.
Online Editing: Here, the re-assembling of an offline video is done up-to the final stage of a video production.
Vision Mixing: This is mostly done within the environment of live television and real-time media.
To summarize, with the invention of computers, digital editing and real-time editing became much more prevalent (Aigrain and Joly, 1994). Digital editing is much faster and efficient than the traditional methods of editing. Digital clips are attached to a computer software which can be manipulated, cut and arranged in a sequence with additional visual and sound effects. Earlier, editing software was capable only of the basic sound and video editing. In the modern times, such software are capable of accomplishing amazing tasks such as footage enhancing effects, motion-tracking, CGI, Chroma keying and plenty more (Ross, 2018). Therefore, film editing has progressed from cutting and sticking pieces of negatives to the digital era of film editing technology. Today, the production of a film cannot be completed without editing. Editing has further been branched into storyline editing, visual animation, sound editing and many more categories (Ross, 2018).
