“The Lion’s Storyteller” Audio Tour Awarded Top Prize From National Association for Interpretation
Q Media Productions is proud to announce that “The Lion’s Storyteller: Kingsley Plantation Audio Tour,” a Q Media-produced (in association with Somerset Group) multi-media audio tour, has been award first place in the 2013 Digital Media category by National Association for Interpretation (NAI). The mission of NAI is to inspire leadership and excellence to advance heritage interpretation as a profession. The award will be presented to Q Media Productions at the annual conference of NAI, November 6 – 9, 2013, in Reno, Nevada.
The 66-minute audio tour of Kingsley Plantation—a part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, a unit of the National Park Service—provides visitors an opportunity to hear the whole story of life on the 1820s Jacksonville, Florida, plantation: the perspectives of the plantation owners and the enslaved population, drawing on first-hand accounts, documents from the time, and stories from the historic record. Dynamic voices represent real men and women who had been silenced by enslavement. The tour reveals the emotional narrative in an immersive, multi-media experience, enhanced by photos, videos, and historical content—shining light on many formerly untold stories. As one of the characters states in the tour, “Until the lion has its own storyteller, the hunter will always have the best part.”
Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve Chief of Resource Education Brian Loadholtz describes a difficult challenge faced in telling the story: “The story of Kingsley Plantation is a story of perseverance, the human spirit surviving the most dehumanizing conditions of slavery. However, the present day setting of this national park site is idyllic and very peaceful, which provides interpretation with the difficult challenge of telling a horrible story in a place of most amazing beauty.” The audio tour, as evidenced by this award and visitor acclaim, more than met the challenge of the site and its powerful story. Loadholtz praises Q Media for leading a “fearless, fact-based yet humanistic approach” to writing the tour and for its production output: “realism and accuracy of [the audio] tracks truly immerses the visitor into the story.” Listen to an excerpt of “The Lion’s Storyteller.”
