Digital Storytelling Steps, Checks and Preparation

1. Point of View
What is the main point of the story?
What is the perspective of the author?

2. A Dramatic Question
What is the key question that keeps the viewer's

attention?
How will it be answered by the end of the story.

3. Emotional Content
What issue will make a person come alive?
How will you connect the audience to the story

4. The Gift of Your Voice
How would you use your voice help audience understand

the context.

5. The Power of Music and Sounds
Which music and sounds will you use tosupport and

embellish the storyline.

6. Economy of content
How would you use enough content to tell the story

without overloading the viewer.

7. Pacing The rhythm
How slowly or quickly does the story progresses.


The requirements of a digital story some times varies
Unversity of Houstan developped following 10 steps

1. The Overall Purpose of the Story

2. The creaters Point of View

3. A Dramatic Question or Questions

4. The Choice of Content

5. Clarity of Voice

6. Pacing of the Narrative

7. Use of a Meaningful Audio Soundtrack
8. Quality of the Images, Video

9. Economy of the Story Detail

10. Good Grammar and Language Usage



IDEA-GENERATING EXERCISES
1. Describe an event or occasion where you went from being a passive observer to an active participant.

How did this shift affect the way you experienced the event?

Your example could be something as simple as
going from being a passenger in a car to actually driving the vehicle,or it could involve a more complex situation, like an accident

2. If you are working on a project for a specific interactive medium or platform, make a list of the types of interactivity the medium or platform lends to you to make good use of the platform’s strengths and avoiding its weaknesses?

3. Take a very simple, familiar story and work out different ways it would be changed.

Take examples from child’s nursery rhyme, or a little human-interest pieces from a newspapers or magazines.

4. Using a simple story, redesign
it as two different experiences

5. Based on what you know create a satisfactory story


Some of the questions need addressing

1. What is the goal of the project?
increase awareness of air pollution, especially
pollution produced by motor vehicles.

2. Who would be our target audience?

3. What is the project’s objective?

raise awareness
educate people
inform simple steps could be taken
to reduce air polution

4. What format would we use to get the message across?

5. How would be be structured?

The Checks of a creation

1. PREMISE:
What is the the core idea in a nutshell?
What is the primary challenge?
How will make it engaging?
What are the essential qualities in a single sentence.

2. PURPOSE:
What is the purpose of the project:
To entertain? To teach or inform?
To make people laugh? To sell?

What information will you need to meet this purpose? How will you obtain this information?

3. MODE OF PRESENTATION:
What medium will be used for this project?

What type of platform?

What special technology will you use?

What genre does it fall into?

What are the special strengths and limitations of the medium, platform, and technology?

How will the project take advantage of these strengths and minimize these limitations?

What are the key characteristics the genre?

What competing products in this genre are already out?

4. AUDIENCE:
Who is this project intended for?

What kinds of things are important to people in this group? What type of entertainment do they enjoy?

What are their needs, hopes, and fears?
How technically sophisticated are they?

5. SETTING, WORLDS, AND CHARACTERS: What is the central fictional setting or world of your project?

What kinds of smaller worlds can it be divided?

What kinds of actions or events might take place in
these worlds?

What kinds of characters might inhabit them?

Who would the main character and other good guys be, and who would be the bad guys?

What challenges or dangers are inherent to these
worlds?

What kinds of special talents or abilities are required to operate successfully within these settings?

6. USER’S ROLE: What role will the audience play?

What will he or she do after viewing ?
What is the nature of the user’s involvement expected?
How will the viewer effect the project outcome?
How do the characters, connect with the user? How

7. GOAL: What is the overarching goal of the fictional construct?

What mission are characters given in terms of trying to achieve this goal?

What kinds of things can the charactor do to enable the goal to be fulfilled?

What kinds of intermediate and smaller goals will the charactor be given along the way?

What will hook the user?


8. OPPOSITION AND TENSION:
What is the nature of the oppositional forces that the charactor will encounter?

What kinds of obstacles or challenges will need to be dealt with?

What will add tension to the experience?

Will some kind of ticking clock be built into the
movie? like a bomb explosion time, end of world

9. REWARDS AND CONSEQUENCES :
How will the charactor be rewarded when he or she succeeds at a task?

10. STRUCTURE:
How will the project be structured?
What will the general organizing principle be?
Over how long a time is the fictional experience supposed to last?
How will the passing of time be indicated?

How will users be made aware of the structure?




Source (Digital Stroy Telling

Video Editing Cuts

Techniques for Engaging the Target Audience

Understanding of the needs and interests of your target audience comes first. Who are they? What they want ?
How can we make them react emotionally to the content.




Interest in other people is common among us. We like to "experience the experiences" of other people,
Example. Romantic, Dangerous, Wretched, or spiritual acts.

Make them gain new insights and exposure to new points of view. Which means learning new things.

Viewers like to reinforce their existing attitudes and, right or wrong.

Viewers react to against ideas that disturb their beliefs.

Be careful when challenging widely held beliefs.

Dont make messenger to be blamed for the message.

Audiences also like to hear about things that are new and exciting.

Check out similar productions from the past.

Determine the overall value of the production.

Put it down on paper. Write a proposal not script.

Write the script acceptable to your Team.

Create the storyboard consisting key scenes with dialogue, sound effects, and music.

Develop a Production Schedule

Draw up a production schedule.

Select Key Production Personnel
Producer, writer, production manager, director, creative team, assistants, technical staff and extras

Decide On Key Locations

Decide On Talent, Wardrobe and Sets

Arrange transportation, catering and accommodations

Obtain Permits, Insurance, and Clearances

Select Video Inserts,

Still Photos, and Graphics

Arrange to shoot video and inserts, still photos

Start rehearsing and shooting.

Recorded one scene at a time.

Do Postproduction Follow-Up

Begin Editing Phase
Cuts, Joining, Inserts, Music, Naration, Transitions, Effets

Review and Fine tune

Public Exhibition

Unsung Poem Of Youth - Adobe Youth Voices (AYV)

This media peice was created during Adobe Youth Voices Training conducted by Thinking IT Global 2011. This experimenta; video involved writing a poem, creating a story board, photography, photo editing snf video editing using a nikon camera, photo shop elements 9 and premiere elements 9.

What is a screenplay ? and How to plan a good one?

A screenplay tells a story using characters and actions. It is not a one-dimensional approach. Stories that focus on too much on action are shallow, while those focus too much on character are dull. Finest stories are a good mix of both. They provide clearly defined action as well as realistic characters.

The format of screenplays has been quite standard from ancient times, only a few differs.  When you write a screenplay, you are taking the reader on a journey,  Your audience should know where they would be going, but don't know how or what barriers and challanges they will encounter or who would they meet during the journey.


Protagonist

A protagonist (from the Greek protagonists, is the "one who plays the first part, chief actor") is the main character of the story, around whom the events the plot revolves. In simple hero of the story. When the story contain subplots, there may have different protagonists from the main plot.


Ex. Othello in Othello or Romeo and Juliet in the Romeo and Juliet.


In some stories, the protagonists may be impossible to identify, because multiple plots that do not permit clear identification of one as the main plot, such as Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, depicting 15 major characters involved in or affected by a war.


Protagonist involves in the story in two aspects or story lines. One story line deals with character’s inner motivation. The other story line deals with his or her inner motivations. The inner and outer stories blend through the conflict and theme of the story.

Outer Motivation

The outer motivation is about the protagonist's outward goal. What he or she trying achieve? Outer Motivation as the specific, visible goal a character wants to achieve by the end of a story. This goal must be realistic with physical action. The action need not be high energy and be clear to the audience. The outer motivation is resolved when the protagonist succeeds or fails at achieving his goal.

The outer motivation is revolves around physical action, providing good entertainment value in the script. It helps moving the story forward by keeping the audience attached to the story and be interested in the outcome. The script could be quite boring to the audience without a strong outer motivation and there will be less momentum in the story.

In movie “Brave Heart”, Young William Wallace witness the murder of his father at the opening of Braveheart, his passion for freedom from England starts.
In “Best of the Best” Hero’s outer motivation is to win the championship fight.

Inner Motivation

The inner motivation is about the protagonist's inner needs like how people care about him. The inner motivation also can be ambition to become a hero. It becomes resolved when the hero recognizes and overcomes it.

In Brave Heart, Williams inner motivation is caused by experiences of the past, where his father was killed and his wife was merdered. The inner motivation is ultimately revolve around personal relationships

Antagonist

The principal opponent of the protagonist is the antagonist, who creates obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. There may be more than one antagonist in a story. The antagonist may be the story's hero, where the protagonist is a terrorist - for example, the antagonist could be a police officer, or vice versa. It’s up to the screen writer to define the roles in the story.

Conflict

Conflicts are presented as disputes, challenges, a threat, or an obstacle to concur. Conflicts create tension in the audience and continue curiosity about the outcome of the story. Conflict occurs between characters, wh where the protagonist takes action against the opposition party. As the story progresses, the hero must develop a action plan to succeed. Conflicts takes place both the inner and outer story.

When the opponent prevents protagonist from achieving his goal, an ally, a friend or a lover helps the protagonist. The inner story deals with realism of protagonist’s struggle to achieve his goal. The he hero’s lover is in custody of the opponent which delays his quest to destroy opponent. The most important element of a story is to keep the audience involved. Then you have a really good drama that is quick moving and interesting story. Hence conflict is the most effective story element.

Motiff
Motiff is a recurring element that have a symboloic significance, a color, sound, animal or a camera angle. In matrix trench coats and sun glasses, black and green marix code, gureen hues and Artificial Intelligence



Watch Movies
Make a Schedule to Write
Have a Conflict
Nearly Impossible Goal
Develop a Theme
Build Chractors,
Create Plots and Sub Plots
Logical Sequence into a Resolution

Think like an ArcheologistWho, Why, What, How, When, Where?

Synopsys
Snap shot of Genere, Tone, setting, Mood, main chractors and
Conflicts and dont give away the ending. Its your marketing tool.
Story is a process, take one step at a time

Break the story into meaningfull scenes called beats- one sentence per scence.

Think screenplay writing as building of a house.

Call for adventure - a phone call can chage the life of the hero
Refusal of the call - Hero refuses due to Fear or Insecurity but eventually take the challange

Super Natural Aid - The guide and help appear

Crossing the turning point
Hero crosses the field of adventure, no turning back on the unknown world

Belly of the whale
Hero is seperated from his known world, faces conflicts and challanges
Roads of Trials
Series of Challanges , First is the smallest
Master of the two worlds
Hero knows new world, confident and competing fully
Freedom to Live
Hero has no fear, master of two worlds

Hero
A self-sacrifcing, hardship taking for someone else, his jouney is full of obstacles, gains wisdom as he moves

Mentor
Mentor is a wise old man or a women

Threshold gurdian
Tests the hero as he enters the new world and become an ally

Herald
Makes hero shaken and awaken to pursue his goal. The death of Willams wife in Brave Heart

Shape Shifter
Makes Hero off guard, in 300 the mutant spartan betrays King

Shadow
The Negative of the hero, a villan
Trickster
The comic relief

Common Themes
The great journey
Loss of innocence
Love conquers all
Greed corrupts
Nobel Sacrifice
Truth Wins
Revenge of the fallen
Life is a mistery
Betrayal,Fate,  War, Courage, Beauty, Freedom, Jealousy, Lonliness, Loyalty, Suffering, Fear, Glory ..
Pick a theme you are passionate not someting that others will be fasionate about

Ticking Clock
Applied to create pressure and timeline. If A doesnt happen by B then resulting C will happen. A time bomb. If father dont pay the ransom, boy would be killed, RANSOM
Work with minimal charactors who are strong

Subplots are sub stories run along main story, they atlso have begining, middle and end and get linked to the main story

Explosion
Information revealed in the story, trustworthy by audience, use more dialogs when possible

Pay off
Placing information play off later in the story. A scar on face linked to a merdered DNA testing, blood samples

Rule of threes - Human tend to think threes, Begining, Middle and End in plots, sceanes and charactors. Create, Progress and release.

Three is a charm, Seven is anonther Charm (7 nights in Japan, Three Thousand Miles, Three Pigs)

Pay attention to good jokes

Scripts - Keep it Simple
so anyone can understand it

Reading Scripts are meant to read by actors, keep white space for notes

Seduce the reader with your style

Shooting Script
Has scene numbers , shot numbers for cordination and production

Understanding Video effects in Premiere Elements 9

You can use effects to add a creative impact to your movie, as well as to fix exposure or color problems, edit sound, or manipulate images. You can use preset effects easily to apply a preconfigured effect to footage.

You can animate the effects that you add to clips with keyframes you create with custom values.

How To Use Transitions and Rendering in Adobe Premiere Elements 9

Transitions helps you phase out one clip while phasing in the next clip. You can use cross dissolving, page turn or spinning effects for transitions. The transitions need to be placed between two clips. You also can apply transitions at the beginning or end of a clip.

Animation as creative media for youth

and sequencing ideas, using words and pictures.

Animation works because of a trick of the human eye called the persistence of vision. When light is used or controlled in the proper way, the eye “remembers” an image it has seen for a split second. If the image is replaced quickly enough with one that is only slightly different, a two-dimensional graphic can appear to be moving.

Adobe Youth Voices Essentials: Animation Curriculum

Visit the Adobe Youth Voices Essentials website to access an array of curricula to help get you started with youth media making.

http://essentials.youthvoices.adobe.com/curriculum/animation-curriculum.aspx

AnimAction

Promoting ‘Awareness through Animation,’ this organization provides professional development and

curriculum for animation projects. Their gallery of media works is a great source of youth-produced PSAs, and, moreover, Adobe Youth Voices is one of the featured projects.

http://www.animaction.com/

Animation: Creating Movement Frame by Frame

This comprehensive resource, created by Young Minds Inspired and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, offers a study guide on animation terminology and techniques.

http://www.oscars.org/education-outreach/teachersguide/animation/index.html

Teaching Simple Animation: Fun with Thaumatropes and Other Big Words

An orientation to teaching young people about animation. Instructions for facilitating two simple hands-on animation projects—thaumatropes and flipbooks—are provided, and many more resources such as lesson

http://www.youthlearn.org/activities/teaching-simple-animation-fun-thaumatropes-and-other-big-words

plans and a flipbook gallery are linked from this page: Animation is an engaging and fun and a great way help youth better understand storytelling

Characteristics of the best Web sites

Good web sites have five characteristics, regardless of their subject matter:

1. They are purposeful.

That is, they have clear goals and objectives. Hence caters for a specific community.

2. They are interactive.

A web site doesn’t have to use all the most sophisticated technologies; it just has to spur users to do something. Rather than including a “mailto” (a special kind of link for sending an email message when a visitor clicks on it, it uses a contact form which visitors can use to contact the youth with comments, or features something as simple as a button users can click on to get a pop-up definition.

Think action.

3. They support assessment.

Great websites provide a way to measure learning, skills development, or other aspects of effectiveness. Think about this aspect as you build sites, for them to serve as a way of users skills development.

4. They tell a story.
Stories are the essence of both learning and entertainment and are a way of sneaking knowledge past a young person’s defenses. Website stories don’t have to be novels or even narratives. A collection of neighborhood slang terms can tell a story about language, and the right photograph can tell a story of an adventure.

5. They are systematic.

Our brain searches for patterns, and great websites all have a logical structure that reveals their stories in a way that youth can understand. Don’t mistake “logical” or “systematic” to mean linear. One of the great things about hyperlinking and the web is that visitors can find their own way to the heart of a story according to their individual interests and via multiple paths.

Look for these characteristics in the sites you use to learn, and build them into the sites you create. The learning value in building a web page is not so much in using the software but in learning to be better communicators.

Source : AYV

If the web passes above five characteristics check following areas for its technical perfection.

The most effective websites reflect best practices across all of above elements.

Guidelines for good Appearence

Use good web safe colors: Most good websites use color scheme that contain 2 or 3 primary colors that blend well to create a right mood for your site. Over doing colors can distract users from the prime content.

Use easy to read Text format:

The most best sites use black text on a white background. However many other combinations can be used as long as the contrast is eye friendly. White on black is fine, but green on blue is questionable,

Use simple fonts that are easy to read Use common fonts that and in  most of today's computer systems. Arial in this connection is a good font. Keep the font sizes to suit your audience. Now a days most peopel prefer larger font sizes like 11-12 pts.

Use graphics meaningfully Graphics are very important to create the visual mood and tempo. But dont over use them or use them to take attention from Text. Don’t overload your web page with lots of images.

Quality of graphics and photography: Its important that you maintain higher quality of your images and photography. If you are presenting a product, high quality images will help users to be attracted.

Keeping it Simple Do not over do your web pages. Allow lots of empty spaces and use simple layouts to allow users to focus on your message. Using overly complex designs, animation, or other effects will impress your viewers, but they will not get the message.

Content is the King

The purpose of your site is content, which means serving of informatio to your users for a purpose of making a decision or learning something. The content should be consize as well as be informative and relevant to the subject. Good content will increase the visitor confidence in your site, your knowledge and competence.

Content Guidelines - Make it short and organized copy of text:

- Clearly seperate topics and break the text into small paragraphs.

- Do you know, its only less than 10 seconds you have to retain your visitor

- Grab the attention by being clear, concise and compelling.

- Update your site regularly

- Static content will not bring visitors back to your site!

- Use words that speaks to your visitors

- More you, your, and less I, we, us and our

- Use a professional assistance to improve your copy

- Flashy graphics and animation help create very positive impact on user experiences.

- Use multimedia to entertain and enlighten your users

- Make available downloadble content, something original and valueble

- Search Engines like Text and good phrases

Functionality - Make sure your web is well functional with no broken links

- Test, Test, Test your web for all possible errors

- Double check your content and

Usability Your site must be easy to read, navigate, and understand. Some key usability elements include:

• Simplicity, Fast-loading pages, Minimal scroll, Consistent
• layout, logical navigation, Descriptive link text, Cross-
• platform/browser compatibility, Screen Resolution
• Search Engine Optimized (SEO)
• Include plenty of written content in HTML format.
• Use your important keywords frequently and appropriately.
• Minimize the use of tables and use CSS
• Make your links descriptive and use your keywords in the link text

More

 http://www.w3schools.com/site/default.asp

This white paper by Anuja Dhakar and Kirsti Aho, published by Macromedia in 2002, features curriculumfor multimedia, including Flash, and web design projects.

http://techatedu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/18_Building%20Digital%20Skills.PDF

Creating a Blog: A Workshop for Teens

A lesson plan that helps educators walk youth participants through the process of developing their own Blog. This detailed workshop plan includes discussion questions and links to examples.

http://www.childrenspartnership.org/AM/Template.cfmSection=Home&section=Technology1&template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentFileID=1237

Building Digital Skills: Helping Students Learn and Communicate with Technology

Digital Photography Techniques for Youth and Kids

Following is a step wise approach to teach Youth and Kids digital photography.

Step 1: Using a camera
How to hold camera right ?
How to pass the camera ?
How ro turn it on and off ?
How to insert and eject memory disks ?
How to work the shutter button ?
How to use the viewfinder and focus it to users eye ?
How to care for the camera ?
How moisture can damage camera?|

Step 2 : Angles and FramesWhat is a camera angle?
How to tilt the camera while shooting a picture?
What is up angle, down angle and straight shot?
How to get higher and down angles?
How to compose a shot?
How to work with light?
How to keep distances?
What is the  idea of level? eye level, high or low.
What is the focus: sharp or soft?
What is framing?
 Step 3 : Taking a better photoWhat is shutter speed?
What is apperture?
What is ISO?
What is image quality ?
How to take photos from three angles of the same object?
What is Exporsure?
What is Good Composition?
What is the idea of distance: close, middle or far ?
What is Zooming ?
What are shadows?
When to use Tripods?
How to photogrph moving objects?
How to photogrph night ?
How to photogrph sunlight  ? How to protect eyes?Step 4 : EditingHow to transfer photos from camera to the computer?
How to select good photos ?
What are good photos?
How to delete and name files?
How to resize photos?
How to edit levels?
How to edit lightness and contrast?
How to edit color balances?
How to blur unwanter areas
How to cut photos?
How to edit photos? Layers ? Marques? Paths?
How to adjust tones?
How to add effects?
How to title photos?
How to save in different formats?

Step 5: Rights
What is Privacy?
What are Copyrights ?
What is creative commons?
What not to photograph?
How to share photographs?
Where to publish photos?

Step 6 : Advanced photography
What are accessories for digital cameras?
How to exploit various sources of light?
How to be effective with low-light photography.
How to capture expressive portraits of adults, children ?
How to photograph objects in motion?
How ro shoot panoramas, architecture, landscapes, products, food, cars, and pets?

More :

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cameras-photography/digital/digital-photography.htm

What You Should Learn to produce a short Vedio Film

Screenwriting
To begin, have the youth develop a story idea. The screenplay is a blueprint for the movie. Explore character development and teach them how to write dialogue. This also teaches them literacy and writing skills. You can also teach the industry standard screenplay format.

Directing
Teach the youth directing skills, which also build communication skills, by showing them how to work with actors and crew. Teach camera blocking and coverage, and set up rehearsals for the camera. Use theater games to establish trust and loosen up and play.

Production
Production falls into three phases: Pre-production, production, and post-production.

Pre-production should include teaching youth about camera functions, graphic elements, and dramatic elements.

Production should include developing a shot list and storyboards. The youth should scout for a location to shoot their video. They can demonstrate their understanding of cinematography by shooting under a variety of light conditions.

In post-production, the view raw footage and start to develop a rough-cut. Then work on their footage, with constant feedback and assistance, until you develop a fine-cut. The editing process need patience and persistence. learn how to craft a story visually and take risks by experimenting to see what works.

Distribution
Discuss how you can get the film out to the public, be it through film festivals, community screenings, or Web video streaming.

What you need to learn

1. Camera Functions.
Shot Size. Camera Movement.
Reference Book: "Shot by Shot" by Cantine, Howard, Lewis

2: Graphic Elements.
Develop Story Idea.
Reference Book: "Story" by Robert McKee

3: Dramatic Elements.
Lighting and Sound.
Reference Book:"Cinematography" by Kris Malkiewicz

4: Script and Treatment.
Storyboard and Shot List.
Reference Book: "Film Production Technique" by Bruce Mamer

5: Create a Scene.
Direct Actors. Crew Positions. Theater Games.
Reference Book: "Directing" by Michael Rabiger

6: Pictorial Continuity.
Shoot Final Project.
Reference Book: "Directing" by Michael Rabiger

7: Editing
Credits, Titles, and Visual Effects. Shoot Final Project.
Reference Book: "Film Editing and Sound Editing" by Film Guy

8: Editing
Voice-overs, Music, and Sound Effects. Shoot Final Project.
Reference Book: "Film Editing and Sound Editing" by Film Guy

9: Rough Cut
Screen and Feedback.

10: Fine Cut
Screen and Feedback. Distribution.

More Books to Read

Screenwriting:"Story" by Robert McKee
Cinematography:"Cinematography" by Kris Malkiewicz
Acting:"Theater Games" by Viola Spolin

Directing:"Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics" by Michael Rabiger

Production:"Film Production Technique" by Bruce Mamer

Production:"Shot by Shot" by John Cantine, Susan Howard, Brady Lewis

Editing:"Film Editing & Sound Editing: Nutz & Boltz" by Film Guy

Media Resources Guide
http://www.reeldirectory.com/


Screenwriting Web
http://www.wordplayer.com/


Improvisational Acting Web
http://www.spolin.com/


Witness
http://www.witness.org/


More Links & Resources – Video Production

Adobe Youth Voices Essentials: Video Curriculum
Visit the Adobe Youth Voices Essentials website to access an array of curricula to help get you started with youth media making. Download video curricula that guides youth through multiple media projects including creating documentaries and music videos.

http://essentials.youthvoices.adobe.com/curriculum/video-curriculum.aspx


KQED Digital Storytelling Guide
This manual contains KQED’s approach to digital storytelling plus tips and techniques to help storytellersachieve impressive results in their visual productions.

http://dsi.kqed.org/index.php/workshops/about/C66/


Designing Video Programs for Youth: Creative expression and achieving goals
This concise how-to guide, written by Madeleine Lim, an award-winning filmmaker, identifies the essential elements of a strong youth media program and how to go about designing one.

http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/ctc/archives/page10042.cfm


Source : Madeleine Lim , AYV

Where can you get copyright free images?

Where can you get copyright free images?

The best place: Creative Commons - http://creativecommons.org/

http://www.wikipedia.org/


Many Flickr albums have Creative Commons licensing – browse and check image details for an explicit description

For wildlife, plants, space, and the environment: http://gimp-savvy.com/PHOTO-ARCHIVE/

The Library of Congress’ Flickr account are all royalty and copyright free:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/

For a small fee, you can check “microstock libraries” such as

iPhotoStock - http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php

ShutterStock - http://www.shutterstock.com/

Fotalia - http://us.fotolia.com/

A website with a listing of other free sites for not only images, but some audio and video can be found
here - http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/cfimages.html

http://india.shilpasayura.org/ Over 5000 India Art, Archetecture and Sculpture Photographs

Beginers to Advanced Audio Production

The world of audio production is full of exciting tools and techniques can be overwhelming. Learn many ways of working with beginning and advanced audio tools for your video, animation or media project.

What is "Audio"?

Audio means "of sound" range of 20Hz to 20kHz frequencies detectable by the human ear.

Audio work involves the production, recording, editing and mixing for reproduction of sound waves.

How Sound Waves Workhttp://www.mediacollege.com/audio/01/sound-waves.html

Sound Wave Properties
http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/01/wave-properties.html

How Sound Waves Interact with Each Other
http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/01/wave-interaction.html

Waves with Various Different Properties http://www.mediacollege.com/misc/wave-theory/example-waves-01.html