Hi, I’m Shelly Telly (Michelle Savage). I’m a freelance community filmmaker and trainer. I’m also one of the founders of Norwich Pride.  I came up with the idea for OUT140 after the first Norwich Pride in 2009. We were offered the opportunity to have a show on the 60 foot Fusion screen in the Forum – the largest public access screen in Europe. I wanted  a project that would be relatively easy to organise and would also have maximum impact on the people who visited it. Research has shown that people on average spend two minutes watching public access screens so I wanted something that could capture the diversity of  LGBT experiences as quickly as possible.

I had just discovered the joys of Twitter so came up with the idea of a micro-storytelling project. My plan was to  find 140 Pride people to tell me their coming out story in 140 characters or less. I also invited Fusion visitors to tell me their stories too and these were tweeted live. The stories were projected as text on the screen and I used my filmmaking skills to help people make 12 second movies. In this way, even if people only stayed for a minute or so, they’d see at least five very different  stories.

I’ve enjoyed working with a wonderful bunch of creative people to develop OUT140 in various forms. For me:

“OUT140 is a constantly evolving project.  It continues to delight and inspire people in whatever form it takes. Why? Because at the heart of it are tiny stories from real people. You can’t help but be moved by the honesty, the humour, the sadness and the joy.”

You can find out more about my work on my website www.shellytelly.co.uk

Photo of Shell at Norwich Pride 2011 by Sonalle.