TECHNOS

July 27, 2008

TECHNOS QUARTERLY Fall 2000 Vol. 9 No. 3

All Aboard the Story Engine!

by Thom Gillespie, Maitre d'Igital

“Human beings are naturally predisposed to hear, to remember, and to tell stories. The problem—for teachers, parents, government leaders, friends, and computers—is to have more interesting stories to tell.”
• from Tell Me A Story: Narrative and Intelligence (Rethinking Theory), by Roger Schank et al. (Northwestern University Press, 1995, p. 243)

Last year I did a story in Café TECHNOS about the Museum of the Person in Brazil, which is a group creating a webbed historical archive of the lives of both the common and uncommon all over Brazil [see TQ 8:2, pages 34–36]. At the same time I was meeting with the people in Brazil, I heard of a new project just forming in Canada, the Great Canadian Story Engine. Then, they had a little money and were scrambling to see if they could find additional money to build the Story Engine in cyberspace and to outfit a Story Mobile to gather narratives from all across Canada. This summer I was in Toronto and found the Story Engine gassed up and rolling—so I decided to take a peak at a few of the folks and organizations who came together to create it.

In a nutshell: The Canadian Film Centre's Great Canadian Story Engine (GCSE) is a bilingual Web site where Canadians are telling their uncensored collective histories that have shaped Canada over the past 100 years. The project grew out of the Bell h@bitat, a new-media incubator, housed within the Canadian Film Centre.

The Story Engine is a little like the oriental parable of the elephant surrounded by five blind men, each trying to describe the animal based upon what they can touch: the trunk, the tail, the legs, etc. All the descriptions are true but limited. The Story Engine is a big idea, so I decided to interview two of the main participants in its development: Kate Halpenny and Kato Wake. •

The Interviews

Kate Halpenny, Producer

How did the Great Canadian Story Engine (GCSE) make the leap from just one of many development projects at Bell h@bitat to a project with a couple of million dollars in funding and international exposure?

The timing was right, in terms of public interest in the Internet and because Canada was planning a Year 2000 celebration, which would include a “time capsule” of stories from this century.

Three years ago, this was a very forward-thinking project, but even now it is still difficult to explain the idea to the public. The project by itself stood out as an exceptional idea, not just as a project but in terms of the time we are in right now with the development of the Internet and people's interests in the Internet. It also fit in with the mandate of the Canadian Film Centre to help Canadian storytellers tell their stories by providing them with the tools, training, and nurturing environments with which to hone their art and craft. The Film Centre has always tried to concentrate not on technology but on the content and the stories being told. Story is the driving element in what the Film Centre does, and it is obviously the driving force behind the Story Engine. The emphasis on this project was to say to people: Forget about the technology and gadgets. Let's just look at the Internet as an incredible medium for personal expression and community building, and let's give ourselves a chance to tell our stories in a public forum—to provide a more personal view of Canadian history beyond that already communicated by journalists or historians.

How was the project funded?

We first approached the federal government, which through its Millennium Bureau had set aside funds for millennium projects. There were few Internet-related projects being proposed, and the folks in the government saw the Story Engine as a wonderful national-level project to support. They gave us a small amount of funding—and that started the wheels rolling, so to speak. That was June 1999, when Ana Serrano, the director of Bell h@bitat at the Canadian Film Centre, and I started working very aggressively searching for additional funding. It took us about six months to raise the two million dollars. Half of that money is cash; the other half is donations of goods and services. We are lucky in that we have tremendous support from a variety of industry sponsors in both the private and public sector, such as Immersant and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Immersant provided technical development for building and maintaining the Web site. The CBC is similar to National Public Radio in the United States. It has a mandate to help Canadians tell their stories, and they have been doing a lot of exploration into how to use the Internet as their third medium, along with television and radio. CBC saw this as a great project to move their radio listeners into the Internet, and they are housing the site for free.

On the road with the Story Mobile: Ana Serrano, Tessa Sproule, Kate Halpenny, and Kato Wake.

How long will the site be housed?

Indefinitely. The Canadian Film Centre will look after the project until the end of the year 2000; then, the CBC will maintain the site. Another partner of ours is the Historica Foundation of Canada, a foundation that has been recently created to facilitate the learning of Canadian history. Its mandate is to assure that Canadians know what it means to be Canadian. Historica supports historical education programs, and it also develops its own programs. Historica will probably be taking the Story Engine in some capacity into schools. It currently has a program called Youth Links for shared learning between Canada and students in other countries.

Has anyone started to develop educational material with the Story Engine?

Not yet. We are still educating the general public about what the Story Engine is and how they can be involved. Historica is trying to develop some relevant educational models, but I think what needs to be done first is to look at the body of stories we gather. We really won't have a complete picture until the Story Engine reaches the West Coast. The other thing is that there are so many ways to view the Story Engine. You can use the Story Engine as an educational tool to teach people how to tell stories, pure and simple. You can use the Story Engine as a tool to teach people how to create interesting work on the Internet using multiple media. Many folks we work with have never used the Internet before, so we are doing workshops all over Canada just to introduce the Story Engine and the Internet to people. The Story Engine is a perfect tool to demystify the Internet and see it as their friend. Finally, once the story body has been established, there is a whole other aspect that comes into play for education, and that is teaching Canadian history through the personal voice. Students will be able to learn what it was like to live in an era like the 1940s, when many families sent sons to war. Students will also be able to learn what it was like to live in a particular region of Canada, such as growing up as a native person in Newfoundland. We will have many viable educational options for using the Story Engine once the stories have been gathered.

What is the target audience for the Story Engine?

The target audience for the Story Engine is not the young urban hipster, because they are not the folks with the best stories in our society, and they haven't the time or inclination to make a contribution, as other market target segments do. A main goal of the project was to take the Story Engine out of cyberspace down to the grassroots level. To do this, the Story Mobile was created—it is a 30-foot Airstream trailer that has been converted into a digital training environment with five iMacs from Apple hooked up to the Internet.

A main goal of the project was to take the Story Engine out of cyberspace down to the grassroots level.

Does the CBC broadcast any of the stories?

CBC has a radio producer on board the Story Mobile for the entire three months of the tour, and his job is to look for great stories. He turns the best ones into segments for This Morning, which is CBC's flagship show. There is a really nice give and take happening, where people go to the Web site and hear about the radio segment and then tune in to This Morning—or people listen to the radio show and decide they want to make their own contribution, so they then go to the Web site.

So, the stories get edited?

We have tried to be as faithful as we can to the storyteller, so the stories that have been submitted so far have not been heavily edited, either for the Web or for the radio. We are also restricted in our use of the stories, so we cannot turn stories into fictional movies or anything like that. But there is the potential to incorporate them into a documentary, if there are really interesting stories, but only within the context of the Story Engine. The people who submit the stories sign a release form that says they are the owners of their stories. They are in essence giving us the right to use their stories on our site and in any corollary educational development. While we don't edit the stories, we do crop pictures. There is also the issue of our liability. We ask people to sign a statement saying that they know who the photographer is, or if it is a photo they have taken themselves, and that the story they are writing is true. People are restricted to writing about someone they know, so they can't just make up a story. We have to be careful not to accept anything that is defamatory or heavily pornographic. The warning is mild, but essentially we are taking every story we can possibly take. It doesn't matter if a story is not beautifully crafted—that is just the way someone wants to tell their story, and that is as relevant a story as a story by a professional writer.

Do you have any folks who come to tell stories who can't read or write?

I don't know. But we certainly have had people who cannot type and are much more used to the oral storytelling tradition. Some people submit stories in audio. For instance, if we are doing a workshop for senior citizens, they can ask one of our trainers to tape them, and we'll transcribe the tape later. People can submit text, audio, and photos in any combination. It is a very simple format that makes it as easy as possible for folks to submit.

What types of folks show up to tell stories?

We have all kinds of folks coming out, all ages. The least represented age is the 20- to 30-something heavy Internet user, possibly because they don't have a lot of story yet. We get a lot of families interested in telling their family history and telling others about something important to them that has not been recognized. We all have a history of sitting around the kitchen table and telling our stories. Usually someone says: “I wish we could get Grandma's voice telling her story.” There has always been the need to make our voices heard and keep some sort of memory of the people who have come before us. The Story Engine is just an obvious way to meet this very human need.

Where did the tour begin?

The tour started June 21, 2000, in a small town in Newfoundland called Placentia. When we did the first workshop there, they brought out their town crier to announce to all present that the tour had officially started. After Placentia, we went to St. John's, the capitol of Newfoundland and the most easterly point in Canada. We opened a new city park in St. John's and then slowly moved westward across the country, ending September 16 back in Toronto. This is a three-month tour, and more than a third of those days were travel days. It takes a long time to get across the country, and we stop on average for 10 days in 10 provinces. We'll do about 25 workshops, which are geared toward community organizations that represent people who might not have been on the Internet before. We also try to reach out to as many different types of Canadians as possible, to get a really representative portrait of Canada. We are trying to tie in to community event days, which get a lot of traffic. We just drive up and park the Story Mobile in the middle of the action. We are sticking to the Trans-Canada Highway, because the costs of moving north are prohibitive. We are trying to build relationships with the north through the radio and via online activities.

There has always been the need to make our voices heard and keep some sort of memory of the people who have come before us. The Story Engine is just an obvious way to meet this very human need.

If people can't get to the Story Engine, can they just go to the Web site and submit a story?

All they have to do is go to the Web site, and right on the main page there is a link called “Tell Your Story.” They just type in their story and upload audio and/or graphics. We have a lot of helpful hints, such as an entire section devoted to how to tell a story. There are technical tips, which our partner Adobe has helped us with. If a writer wants to try out some new technology like PhotoShop, the tech tips will take them through a step-by-step guide. You can learn a lot by just going to the site without even going to a workshop.

How many stories do you have so far?

I think we have around 350 stories, and by the end of the year, we will have more than a thousand stories—which is a pretty good number. Telling a story is not an easy thing; people have to make a commitment and an effort.

What happens after the three months are finished?

The tour team comes back exhausted, and we'll have our final event in Toronto, where we are teaming up with TV Ontario, another broadcaster. We will continue our promotions through CBC and our other partners through the end of the year, and then begin working on educational development. After that, CBC will take over.

Do you have a favorite story?

There are a lot of great stories, but there is this one story I was just amazed at. This guy tells his story of being a British soldier in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp and planning an escape. They spent months tunneling in the middle of the night, and two weeks before the tunnel would be finished, they received notice that they would be moved to a German camp. Not only were they devastated that the tunnel would never be finished, but they also knew that once they were in the German camp, it would be almost impossible to escape. Anyway, there was nothing they could do, so they were moved to the German camp. Now this guy was hell-bent on escaping, and he and his friend devised a crazy scheme where they would dress up as German officers. They learned just enough German to pass if they met anyone. The day finally arrived to attempt an escape. They put on their outfits and marched out of the camp as Germans. As soon as they rounded the corner, they started to run for their lives. They rounded the next corner and ran smack into two senior officers, who apprehended them and marched them back to camp to the firing squad and execution. As they were walking to the wall and certain death, this guy says to his buddy that he refused to die. He said, “When we get to the wall, turn around and start laughing.” And that was what they did. It so confused the Germans that the Germans just stared at them for a couple of minutes, and then they burst out laughing. This Canadian guy goes up to the Germans and offered them cigarettes, and the Germans said, “Thirty days in isolation without food or water.” And this guy lived to tell his story, a story unlike anything we normally see in movies. There are a lot of neat stories like that.

It is a big leap for many to accept the stories of the common person as significant. We are used to the stories of the famous but not the ordinary.

Any final thoughts on the Story Engine?

The Story Engine is a testament to the openness of Canadian culture to open immigration. The big challenge is to tell everyone's story, all the stories that make up Canada. It is so diverse that not even federal statistics can explain where the Canadian people have come from and who they are anymore, because family histories are so interwoven with families from other countries. It is a big leap for many to accept the stories of the common person as significant. We are used to the stories of the famous but not the ordinary. I think it would be wonderful if the Story Engine carried on and developed into an unsurpassed Canadian history. It has the potential, but only time will tell. •

Kato Wake, Creative Director

Where did the Story Engine idea come from?

The Story Engine story was developed in about six weeks by five of us, all students in the first class of the Canadian Film Centre's newMedia h@bitat in Toronto. Initially, the group was Rand Ardell, Jason Cliff, Rena Dempsey, Tessa Sproule, and myself. One of us was a programmer, one a marketing/designer type, one a journalist, one a creative visual person/technical type, and I am a designer. Tessa was absolutely essential to the project's success, and her vision and overall understanding of all the areas of production really glued it together. Rand was involved indirectly through his work, MacLaren McCann, and Jason helped with some of the initial visioning but continued to work at CBC on the infoculture site. Our goal was a project that reached out to people rather than a pure entertainment project. We wanted the focus to be on content rather than on technology, and we wanted content that was grassroots driven. The five of us came together to create a project that was communication-based storytelling and far reaching—not elitist, not art for art's sake. The idea was to form the skeleton structure, and the real magic would happen when people outside our group added the meat, the stories.

Did you give any thought to how the project could be funded?

We thought that maybe CBC would be interested in our project, because Tessa had worked as a producer there before coming to Bell h@bitat. We also thought the project was strong as an educational platform for inter-school exchanges. But really it was Ana Serrano, the director of h@bitat, who got the project funding off the ground, along with the producer, Kate Halpenny, and others from the Canadian Film Centre. Kate and Ana really took charge of the funding. CBC seemed to be a natural partner because they reflect a big perspective of the Canadian “sensibility” and storytelling in general. Also, Historica was interested in Canadian storytelling from a historical reference point. The Millennium Bureau funding came first, with $500,000—but we had to match it, twice over. The funding was finalized in mid-December 1999.

What roles were filled when the project had full funding and was ready to go into production?

I was creative director, and Tessa was the content director. Kate was project manager, and Ana acted as our client. We were incorporated with Immersant, which provided the back engine support with a couple of programmers. They also helped with usability evaluation. The team grew to about 12 before the tour.

How did the design evolve?

We tossed around a few ideas: one was to show Canadian humor (“who the heck do you think we are?”), and another that backfired was to do a kids' storytelling site with a deejay. Then, with six weeks left to produce, we finally conceived the Great Canadian Story Engine, which was the prototype of the existing site. The train metaphor suited Canada historically, and had a lot of good word associations with it too—such as “hop on board,” “get on track” . . . that sort of thing.

How did you start the visual design of the site and the bus?

The site design came first. As a group, we did a lot of visioning prior to production, to really understand our target audience, and to get to know one another. Then I came up with a creative brief, and tossed around a few ideas for a few weeks: a tree, a train, a scrapbook idea, and an inventor idea a la Rube Goldberg. The two ideas that were presented were based on the train and the tree, and the train idea won. The final design is quite reserved, but I would say fairly optimistic. Because the site was so text driven, the design had to take a quiet position. I needed to create some sort of intimacy for people to take the time to submit and to read. I started out with a very earthy palette, lots of Photoshop stuff, which was very impractical in terms of the Web and download times. The palette was also a little too dark. I wanted something more joyful, celebrating Canadian lives. I also wanted it in Flash because I like vector-based art online. The train was also to be in high contrast, coming on screen animated and shaking. The original colors were very racy, very urban with a strong black, which I think scared a lot of people. The train tracks in the final design were scanned from real toy train tracks that Tessa had given me for Christmas that year. The final design was a train going right to left, because it was zippier. Keep in mind that the design process was a group design, which is different than individual design. To me, the final design feels quite reserved from a design point of view—but I think that is a sign of confidence, and ultimately the site is about the people who write the stories. The design has to be secondary.

I understand you designed the look and feel of everything from the posters to the Web site to the insides and the outsides of a 30-foot Airstream trailer.

Yup, I designed the outside and the inside of the Story Mobile, an Airstream trailer, 1978 model. The design of the outside of the bus was cut in vinyl, so I had to make the drawing inch by inch so it would fit exactly when applied. It was also logo hell because of all the text for the name, the names of the partners in both French and English. But, it was fun. For the interior, I wanted to juxtapose the high-tech nature of the project with campy comfort. It was important to make the entrance into the trailer non-intimidating. And I was aware that the Canadian Film Centre is often seen as somewhat elitist, so it was necessary to show the public that they were very approachable. I hung photos of friends, a clothing hook, hockey sticks, a plaid jacket, ice skates and a snow shoe; and used flags and decals inside. The tour team of six people has added more kitchy souvenirs of their trip, which is fine by me. As long as it remains clean and friendly!

Who are your audiences for the Story Engine?

We had three target audiences for the project in mind: storytellers; kin keepers who keep track of their family histories, both across Canada and around the world; and the connected, people who embrace the new technologies and cyber communities but are itching for more content-driven media. We were thinking of traditional CBC listeners in this last grouping.

What do you hope happens to the Story Engine?

I hope it is kept alive through the CBC. I think right now, Historica and CBC are trying to work out the details. I would like to see Canadians continue to use it to tell stories via the CBC Web site. If Historica takes it over, I would like to see them use it as an educational tool for children to rework history through the oral tradition, connecting with and through older folks. It is interesting that anything you give out takes on its own life. I don't have a lot of emotional investment. I tried my best, and I'm proud of it. •

Final Thoughts

Projects such as the Great Canadian Story Engine and Brazil's Museum of the Person go a long way toward providing interesting stories to tell. Both projects are testaments to the openness of Canadian and Brazilian culture. Both projects deal well with the challenge of providing a means to tell all the possible stories of the famous and the ordinary who make up Canada and Brazil. Both projects will become exceptional historical resources, valuable to the serious researcher, your local K–12 teacher, and the eight-year-old child next door wondering what it was like back then so they can prepare for what it will be like in the future. W. H. Auden is credited with saying, “I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you a story.” I would love to hear your stories. Send me e-mail, and tell me a story of other online story projects such as the Great Canadian Story Engine or the Museum of the Person in Brazil. Maybe together we can create a worldwide archive of open stories.

Access the long version of this article online at www.technos.net/cafe_technos.htm or http://www.indiana.edu/~slizzard/gcse.

Photos by Thom Gillespie.

Resources

Bell h@bitat at the Canadian Film Centre: http://www.cdnfilmcentre.com

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: http://cbc.ca

The Canadian Film Centre's Great Canadian Story Engine: http://www.storyengine.ca/

Kate Halpenny, producer of the Great Canadian Story Engine: khalpenny@cdnfilmcentre.com

Historica Foundation of Canada: http://www.histori.ca/

Masters of Immersive Mediated Environments (MIME) program at Indiana University: http://www.mime.indiana.edu/

Ana Serrano, director of Bell h@bitat: aserrano@ cdnfilmcentre.com

Kato Wake, creative director of the Great Canadian Story Engine: katowake@sympatico.ca

When Thom Gillespie isn't serving as Maitre d'Igital of the Café TECHNOS, he is the director of the Masters in Immersive Mediated Environments (MIME) program at Indiana University. Now in its fourth year, MIME recruits for “artists, musicians, storytellers, programmers, and other wildly creative folks,” according to Gillespie. The MIME program was named one of the top 10 new-media programs in the United States and Canada in the April 2000 issue of Shift magazine.