The Story of NZ Merino Wool (Remix)

A digital storytelling project by Anne Galloway and Samantha Carew

Our first video presents a brief history of New Zealand’s wool industry, and merino wool’s transition from a commodity to a brand.

You can download the original video file (750×422 pixel Quicktime movie, 3.12GB) and here’s the audio file (mp3, 7.5MB).

The Story of NZ Merino Wool, Pt 2

Our second video tells the story of what makes NZ merino wool an “ethical” product.

You can download the original video file (750×422 pixel Quicktime movie, 5.13GB) and here’s the audio file (mp3, 9.4MB).

As part of the Counting Sheep project, we’ve developed these animated videos to present a brief cultural history of New Zealand merino wool.

They were made for a general audience and from an industry perspective, and we’ve made the original video and audio files publicly available under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand license so that NZ students and teachers can play with them.

Seriously. We’d love to see people get creative with some remixes and mashups of this content!

Just imagine…

How would these stories look or sound if they were told from the sheep’s viewpoint? Or the grower’s outlook? Or the perspective of someone who loves wearing merino clothing?

What if these stories were told with historical photographs or poetry instead?

What if they brought in some government data, statistics, parliamentary, conservation or land information?

Or how about something new made from other NZ digital content that could show people what you think the future of merino might be?

If you have any comments or questions about our videos–or if you make something awesome with them–please let us know!