Innovation in Storytelling: Ryerson University’s Virtual Studio tests a new model of co-creation, in collaboration with CBC
Innovation is the buzzword of the decade.
It conjures images of new tech — smaller, sleeker devices, smarter chat bots, and more immersive virtual experiences.
But it is a mistake to limit ourselves to only thinking about the tools we use, or create, when we think of innovation.
Innovation should be about thinking outside of the box, tackling new approaches, and pushing the boundaries of a discipline’s terrain.
Given the popularity of the design thinking approach, growing numbers of creators now embrace problem solving as a key element of innovation. And in that way, innovation isn’t just about shiny new tools and tech, but about using those tools to challenge the status quo; that could mean, empowering new voices to get behind a camera, tell their own story, or lead a creative vision, or it could mean reaching beyond the stories that are traditionally told in the mainstream, to bring light to underrepresented populations.
This year, in celebration of Canada 150, Ryerson’s Faculty of Communication and Design and the Transmedia Zone have partnered with White Pine Pictures and CBC on the documentary project, We Are Canada. The series profiles young change-makers from across the country, who are doing incredible things.
And that’s where we step in. The 18 changemakers profiles in the series for CBC represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the amount of truly awe inspiring work being done by millennials across Canada. So we decided to find even more of them. In partnership with CBC, we put our a call to Canadian’s across the country to tell us about the innovative, important work they’re doing. Check out the launch video, here.
As we started thinking about this project, what was so exciting about it was the opportunity for our students to help shape the stories that Canadian’s see, and play a part in deciding whose voices get amplified. In this way, every team member on this project is a change-maker, with the opportunity to help define what stories — and whose stories — get told.
The response to our call for nominees was phenomenal, and now, we have selected over 25 young changemakers from coast to coast.
Maatalii Aneraq Okalik from Nunavut is the President of the National Inuit Youth Council and is increasing awareness of northern issues with a focus towards eradicating suicide by strengthening knowledge of traditional Inuit language and culture.
Lourdes Juan is a first generation Canadian from Calgary who started the Leftovers Foundation as a way to address food insecurity issues by delivering excess food from bakeries, markets and restaurants to people in need. Last year he diverted 164,00lbs of food from the landfill!
Rayanne Frizzell is from rural PEI and is passionate about connecting people to agriculture. She founded the Atlantic Farm Women’s Conference with the goal to empower and encourage more women in agriculture as well as organizing field trips for youth and public to meet farmers and better understand agriculture production.
And that’s where our students step in.
Ryerson New Media, Media Production and Master’s of Digital Media students are working with a Virtual Studio team in the Transmedia Zone, to create videos with the selected changemakers. Yes, with them. That’s part of what’s so unique about this project. We’re not just creating video profiles to put online, we’re actually using the power of the internet for what it does best: to help us connect and collaborate, and in this way, we are very proud of this innovative new format of “virtual production.”
Our students, based in the heart of downtown Toronto, have been trained in the latest software to conduct long distance interviews, and record them with the best possible quality. Then, they’re working with their subjects to fill in the gaps, collaborating across provinces to find photographs, archival images, new clippings, snippets of video, and even creating new video to help visually convey their story.
Of course, anything new, is by definition, a risk.
The success of these videos requires real co-creation, and collaboration between virtual strangers. When the subject of your video profile piece lives hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, shooting original b-roll is an impossibility, in the context of a class project. But the challenge is an exciting one, because it pushes us to create content that is unique to our networked world — remote and collaborative. In a sense, it’s not that different from two people in two cities working on a Wikipedia entry… only in this case, they’re working together to create a video. And while connections speeds and network lags are some of the more obvious, and frustrating hurdles, as an experiment in co-creation, there are also some advantages.
After all, both the student creators and the change makers have a stake in having these pieces turn out well, and tell a compelling, inspiring story.
