Hurrican Films

Introduction
Over the next few weeks we will be having presentations from 3 different organisations, each one presenting us with a question to answer over the next couple of months. Their presentations will give us not only some insight to what they do but also some source of information regarding the question they are setting us. It is up to us then to conduct our own research methods in groups and answer these questions, with the end result being a presentation for the representatives of each organisation. Each group will only be answering one of the three questions given, but at this time it is uncertain which question people will be given so it's good to have a starting point for each question.

Presentation 1

6/10/11

How can you engage an online audience in storytelling? - How do you encourage users, especially those from an older generation to participate?

Question posed by Sol Papadopoulos from Hurrican Films.

www.hurricanefilms.net

We were given a presentation by a group about a project that Hurrican Films has developed which is called Peoples Stories.

www.peoples-stories.com

Peoples Stories is a website which is all based around Liverpool post World War II. It is a place were members of the public can go and share their stories, upload photographs, videos etc and generally talk about the evolution of Liverpool over the period of time.
It is a great place not only for older generations to remonice but also for the younger generation to learn/see what it was like all those years ago. It has a great sense of community and is a lovely way to etch historical moments down for everyone to share rather than them being lost in someones attic or just shared amongst a few people. It brings people together in so many ways. I find the concept itself a great idea and it's something that interests me loads. I love the whole fact that someones personal memories can be stored forever online and shared between the world. Learning history and hearing peoples personal experiences of how they grew up and how they have seen the surroundings that we know to day change over a period of time. That sense of change and the storys that can be told from various perspectives is a nice thing to be involved with.

The question itself doesn't really interest me at all, i find it some what boring and not very broad. It feels like there isn't much you can do with this questions.
In my personal opinion i think it's a stereotypical thing that people thing the older generation are not encouraged to participate in the interaction with the internet or that they don't actually do it. I think there of a lot of old people out there who get involved and use the internet for their personal convenience, i just think they don't know about such websites as peoples stories and what it offers. Either that or they just don't want to tell their stories, which i think is a shame.

It would be nice to see more websites like this one, but for all different places around the world. There may already be a lot of them out there but seeing as it's something i've never researched before then i wouldn't know.
Story telling is a huge part of our civilization. It's apart of our nature, apart of who we are. We always have a story to tell no matter how big or small it may be. Each experience stimulates/provokes a story to be told, and a story can do so much more.