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Digital Storytelling: Sept. 12, 1999

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On the way to Crested Butte in the shuttle, I met Joe Lambert and Nina Mullen, heads of the Center for Digital Storytelling and the instructors for the bootcamp. Before we go our separate ways, they pointed out where the bootcamp would be held, where Dana and Denise Atchley, founders of the festival live, and other key landmarks.

First I stopped by the Old Town Hall, where I saw a different kind of digital storyteller, a leftover community theater prop that now pointed upstairs, where all the action is.

I also met Kathleen, who's helping Denise produce the bootcamp and festival -- and who showed me around the space, the community's theater, pointing out where the stage and dressing rooms used to be and other notable features. The Old Town Hall has a rich history. It was converted in to a community theater in the early '70s. Not long after, it was condemned. The theater group did some small repairs, and then Crested Butte got a civic grant to preserve the historic building. Today -- or at least for the next three days -- it'll be the home to about a dozen fledgling digital storytellers? and 12 iMacs.

Dana and Denise live just down the street in a converted barn with four cats. Their workspace is behind the house, between the street and a stream. I hung out for a while waiting for Dana and Denise to wrap up some last minute details before we met up with other volunteers, speakers, and friends for dinner.

After a family-style dinner with amazing mashed potatoes and creamed corn, we headed back to the house Joe and Nina rented for the week. Massimo, their son, just turned 4 -- it was his birthday -- so we gathered for chocolate cake and coffee, digital camera comparisons, and a Lego construction session.