Digitale: One (2016) - director, creator, editor
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My digitale focuses on my experience of growing up as an only child. My concept was influenced by my family archival photos and home videos, and my own experience as being an only child further encouraged the idea. I studied the photos and videos closely and came up with a few stimulus questions to influence my story. I questioned myself with: what does it mean to be an only child? As an only child, do you compare your family make up to that of other families? What is your experience as an only child? It was from these questions that I wanted to explore my own experience as an only child, predominantly focusing on the first 3-4 years of my life. This is also because our family archive is very much focused on me as a young child, thus giving me many photos to choose from.
Before writing my script, I had already decided that I wanted to present my story as a poem. Storytelling through the use of rhyme, pace and tempo is ideal when reading or telling stories to children. Additionally, I prefer to communicate stories in a sort of detached, metaphorical way, and for this form of storytelling, I thought that a poem would do both those things. Poems also encourage the mind to think; and with the visual aid of the images presented, the poem tells my story as a whole, while not explicitly referring to very specific moments. I intended for these moments to be imagined by the audience so they could relate to their own experiences.
I made an effort to only include photos of my parents or myself, to further enhance the concept of an ‘only’ child. I also took the audio from some of our home archival videos so as to transport the audience back to the late 1990s when I was young and my parents were just getting used to being parents to a needy child. I have taken my favourite audio clips from the videos, and inserted them throughout my narration where I thought appropriate. They include snippets of me singing, laughing or talking as a toddler, as well as a group of children (me included) singing. I placed these audio clips in between each of my six narrated paragraphs for a sense of continuity, but also because I didn’t want to have too many moments of silence in my digitale. I felt as though this would correctly demonstrate a family household – the house never quiet while the child is inside, even if there is only one...