DOCUMENTARY STYLE IMPACT FILM: Malawi is on the verge of a cultural tipping point. The next decade will determine how it will develop. After living with families over the course of an amazing two week mini-ethnographic study we started to get a sense of how their culture was experiencing some severe growing pains. The issue is riddled with complexities like gender inequality, population growth and the lack of reproductive health. The film attempts to distill these issues into one message: the future of Malawi is dependent upon universal access to family planning.

SOLUTION: We developed a film for the Aspen Institue in collaboration with the Global Leaders Council to aid the Joyce Banda regime in communicating their vision for Malawi. Our approach was to tell the story of an individual family who is at the epicenter of a cultural shift. The story of Alfred, Marda and their two children is one of hope through education and empowerment. At the core is their decision to only have two children; a decision that is having a profound ripple effect on their family and community. Alfred is leading the way for his country with his understanding of and response to this issue. He summarized it well when he said, “it’s simple, we chose to have a family that emphasized quality over quantity.” As a teacher and a mother Marda is setting an example that stresses the importance of the need for future parents of Malawi to solicit the help of Family Planning. The result is a story that touches upon education, parenting, sustainability, economic prosperity and a variety of other complexities that are facing the people of Malawi.

RESULT: First and foremost, we listened. We listened to organizations, we listened to clinics, we listened to the government and we listened to individuals. What we heard is that Malawi is ready for a change; but creating change within a culture that has centuries of history, rituals and beliefs takes time. Our goal was to tell a story that raises awareness, debunks myth and inspires hope. The film targets key influencers like tribal chiefs who have the power and ability to shape reproductive health in Malawi.

All shooting, directing, editing and story development was a collaborative effort between Truth Be Told Creative and Stoutfilm and is intellectual property of The Aspen Institute.

The medium of video can be tricky. A video can be a bit like a poem; a less direct and more artistic approach is often more powerful. Most people like to discover things, audiences like being invited on a journey, they like a challenge that poses a question, the thrill of an unknown outcome and the adventure required to arrive at a resolution — they like a good video because it’s rooted in a good story.

1. Plan your story with research.

Start digging, be an anthropologist, play ethnographer, interview your subjects, listen to their stories; spend time in your subjects’ environment and you’ll be on your way to discovering the real people that have been profoundly impacted by your organization. These are the stories filled with conflict, tension, joy and inspiration that turn viewers into advocates.

2. Express A Universal Truth

Think big picture. The goal is for your film to make an emotional connection. Resonate with your audiences by telling a story that reveals a truth about humanity and the way people think, act and feel.

Your audience cares about the work you’re doing, not who you are. Show what you’re doing through the experiences of the people who have been impacted. During your research phase focus on a single charismatic character who can articulate an exciting, funny or inspiring experience that illustrates how your organization changed their life for the better.

Avoid the temptation to use the video to create an autobiography of your organization. Avoid spinning your wheels on a series of self-congratulating quotes from your executive team and interviews with your employees. Seeing is believing, donors are captivated by these success stories because they are a result of your work. For this reason it’s a much better idea to show your impact then try to explain your organization.

3. Use the video to pose a question that invites audiences to respond.

Seek to engage your audience instead of talking at them. Think about the conversation your video will start. It doesn’t have to antagonize or create controversy; but think about the response you want to elicit. How will people react? Are you inspiring them? Are you motivating them? If they don’t want to leave a comment, call you up, send you an email or tell their friend when they’re done watching then re-think your story.

4. Choose one person.

Employ a documentary-style approach to capture the success of your organization through the story of an individual who has been positively impacted by the work you are doing. Select a single compelling character.

You only have 3 minutes to tell your story and audiences get confused when you introduce multiple characters. You might think, “I can’t tell the complete story of my organization if I don’t include all the great things we do;” resist this temptation and choose quality over quantity. A powerful story trumps an all encompassing story, especially when you have three minutes or less.

5. Use story guides to craft a narrative arc.

During the “ethnography day” begin to develop “story guides” that will help support the story your character has to tell. Focus on positive outcomes that were preceded by challenges or struggles and are eventually overcome by your character through the help of your organization. We don’t recommend pre-scripting the story, but using story guides is a good technique to stay focused while you’re capturing your story. What kind of challenges did your character face? How did they overcome them? How has it had a profound effect on their life? Think cinematically and as you’re developing the story guides ask yourself what are the activities that your character will do that will be most suited to beautiful cinematography?

6. Use breathing time to set the pace and tone of your film to tell a story that packs a punch.

One powerful technique that we’ve had tremendous success with is creating a video with the right proportion of breathing time. Similar to the way a good photographer pays attention to composition and negative space; a good filmmaker pays attention to breathing time. Very simply put, breathing time is the part of the video that doesn’t have any voice over or talking head. Don’t overload your story with words. Creating the right balance of talking, music and visuals allows your audience to digest and absorb the message. Even good podcasts use breathing time to create mood and environment within their story.

7. Develop a media strategy for releasing your content.

There are a variety of approaches for disseminating your content once it’s created; approaching blogs and social media players who reach key influencers and target audiences is popular and effective. However, there are a few other reasons that creating a documentary style short works extra hard for you.

1. It can live on it’s own. If it’s created well, it provides entertainment value and tells a universal story. This approach gives your story much better odds of getting picked up by outside media channels like Independent Lens, Vimeo Staff Picks and other content providers who are looking for interesting stories and great content.

2. It lends itself to creating a series, which helps your organization begin the journey of assembling a library of content. This is the best way to engage the people you want to participate in your organization’s story on an ongoing basis. It keeps them coming back to your site and lets donors see the results of their donations. It’s a nice compliment to the impact story and a tool for building loyalty.

3. Make your organization more transparent; besides earned media, the documentary film medium also works hard at  transparency, which is emerging as one of the most valued ways to build trust and loyalty with your audiences!

Ken Fisher is a creative director & founder at Truth Be Told creative, a documentary film and storytelling shop that focuses on nonprofits and socially responsible businesses. His work has been featured on PBS and a few of their clients include Aspen Institute, Marine Mammal Center & ClimateWorks.

DOCUMENTARY FILM: We focused on showcasing two of the Marine Mammal Centers core competencies: education and animal health care.

SOLUTION: We developed this creative concept to highlight Fish School with the seals and the Whale Bus in action at local elementary schools.

RESULT: The film was the feature presentation at the MMC 2013 Gala which raised over $100k for continued educational and rehabilitation efforts

DOCUMENTARY STYLE IMPACT FILM: Catching a behavioral condition early can have a profound affect on how a child develops. Advances in psychology are allowing parents to diagnose and treat conditions that are giving families new found hope

“You’re Looking At Me Like I Live Here, And I Don’t” is a collaborative effort we helped create which recently premiered on PBS as the first documentary filmed entirely within an Alzheimer’s unit, told from the perspective of someone suffering from the disease. Creating the film on location gave us the opportunity to develop a relationship, and film extremely personal moments with Lee Gorewitz and how Alzheimer’s has changed and influenced her life.

CHALLENGE:

Alzheimer’s Disease has a profound effect that leads to extreme mental deterioration and death. It affects 1 in 85 people globally and does not have any known cures. Our goal is simple – promote understanding and research. Our hope is that seeing the effects will help prepare family members of the afflicted and make it easier to cope with effects of losing a love one to this disease.

COMMUNICATIONS SOLUTION:

“You’re Looking At Me” is a documentary film that is shot entirely from the perspective of a patient with Alzheimer’s disease. We filmed Lee over a three month period to capture a raw, up-close and personal look at how Alzheimer’s has affected her personality and behavior. We raised awareness and understanding in an effort to help people cope with affected family members. The idea was to raise some important questions like how to most effectively deal with family members who are afflicted with Alzheimer’s and where is the line between full consciousness and complete mental deterioration? We were heavily involved with producing,editing and filming up at the Traditions Alzheimer’s Care Unit.

RESULT:

The film aired multiple days on PBS’ Independent Lens reaching millions through public broadcast and web streaming.

This film was a collaborative effort between a collective of filmmakers.

SOLUTION: Over the course of several months we spent a day in the life with 5 different individuals to explain the work they are doing and show the impact they are having. From volunteers, to artists, to veterinarians, to ocean scientists, we captured it all to tell the story of the Marine Mammal Center.

RESULT: Our hope is to inspire individuals by the work being done at the Marine Mammal Center, with the intention of encouraging people to think about ocean health and how it ultimately effects us. This ethnographic style approach allowed us to capture what TMMC has to teach us about making our planet a healthier place to live. The intention of these films is to share those learnings. Besides being used to create awareness on TMMC the videos are also being shown on Virgin America inflight entertainment.

The first three videos of the series feature Jean-Michel Cousteau of Oceans Futures Society, Raya, a volunteer at the center and the Lang’s, found ocean trash artists.

THE GHOST BELOW

BEACH COMBER: RAYA

THE FUTURE OF OCEANS: JEAN-MICHEL COUSTEAU

FARALLONS RELEASE

]]> http://truthbetoldcreative.com/2013/02/marine-mammal-center-documentary-series/feed/ 0 http://truthbetoldcreative.com/2013/02/scrap-re-use-and-creative-education/ http://truthbetoldcreative.com/2013/02/scrap-re-use-and-creative-education/#comments Tue, 05 Feb 2013 16:04:59 +0000 kenhfisher http://truthbetoldcreative.com/?p=2747
SCRAP is the Bay Area’s first re-use material supply for creative education

Documentary: At the heart of SCRAP is a philosophy of sustainability and creativity. SCRAP isn’t only on a mission to make use of materials that normally get thrown out. We took an ethnographic approach to understand how SCRAP is influencing the education of creativity.

Solution: We documented the teachers and educators who are using SCRAP materials to teach inspire creativity. Besides a lesson in art, these teachers are also able to teach the idea that we live in a world of finite resources and have an opportunity to shift behavior and live more responsibly.

Result: An impact film that highlights how local teachers are utilizing SCRAP materials to teach Bay Area students about re-use and recycling. The film is being used to pitch local schools on adding these lessons to the curriculum to develop creative thinking and encourage sustainability behavior.

This was created in collaboration with ListenIn Pictures

DOCUMENTARY STYLE INSPIRATION FILM: Engine2 Diet along with a team of Doctors and researchers are leading a movement to educate the American public about health and nutrition. We spent two days with them at an immersion event to capture the essence of this movement and provide a look at how they hope to heal an obese and sick America with a new way to think about how we eat.

SOLUTION: Changing the way you eat is not something you can be told to do, it has to be a decision you want to make. The insight was to connect this learning about reluctance to change with the psychology of encouraging change through education. We presented the facts to educate participants and encouraged them to learn more through an immersion event.

RESULT: Immersion attendance is up! We crafted a video to inspire audiences with a new way of thinking about eating. We highlighted the benefits of eating Plant Strong by allowing Dr. Esselstyn, Jeff Novick, Doug Lisle, Rich Roll and Rip to express their points of view and experiences. This showed how an immersion event doesn’t just explain how to think differently about nutrition but actually provides the tools necessary for changing your behavior.

Learn more about the cause through IDEO’s Human Design Center initiative:

First off, the medium of video can be tricky; it requires careful planning to strategically reveal the truths of an organization in a genuine and authentic manner. One reason it can be tricky is because the management team may feel like the video must literally meet their communications objectives. In the worst form the CEO uses the video to list the benefits of their organization; we’ve heard this referred to as the program trap.

Another reason creating video can be tricky is because what your audience wants (a funny, interesting, enlightening story they can share) appears to be at odds with what the CMO wants (the direct communication of key product/ service messaging and brand positioning. ) Crafting a great story means always putting the audience first and resisting the temptation to list product/service benefits; the result will be a meaningful story instead of a piece that seems like marketing fluff. We’ve interviewed several established SF artists over the past few months and they’ve all mentioned their desire to use their art to pose a question that invites audiences to respond. Creating a good video should do the same; otherwise you risk the video becoming just another sales pitch that gets tuned out.

We’ve had great success with Impact stories because they accomplish both of these goals: 1. They make an emotional connection with the audience with the help of a single, focused captivating story; and 2. They employ a documentary style approach to communicate messaging themes, benefits and positioning by capturing the success of an organization through the story of an individual who has been positively impacted by the work they are doing.

So, you ask; how does one go about developing creative strategy for telling your organization’s story?

One simple recipe is: choose one person per video who has been positively impacted by your organization; tell their story. Doing this in practice, however, is more complicated than it sounds. Using video means telling your story in three minutes or less. Doing this effectively requires that you don’t spread yourself thin by jamming multiple characters into a single video. Making an emotional connection means creating a connection between your audience and a person you’ve selected. If done well, they will show the impact your organization through their story.

Creating a video that tells a story takes planning.

There are a lot of businesses that have templates for quickly banging out corporate films. We recommend a more creative approach that is rooted in ethnography and is research based. You don’t make videos by showing up one day, conducting an interview and then shooting some b-roll to lay over it.

We are firm believers in the pre-interview and scheduling what we call an “ethnography day.” We recommend spending time in your subjects environment to meet the people whose lives you’ve affected. In the process you’ll uncover individual stories that you can focus on as you begin to plan the film.

Focusing on an individual’s story is what helps you make an emotional connection with your audiences.

From a filmmaking perspective, discovering these specific stories before the shoot and pre-planning certain elements of how this video will unfold allows us to craft a story that has a beginning, middle and end, develops a character, deploys a narrative structure, and allows for the opportunity to set up a conflict and resolution. These are the things that make your story rememberable and more importantly shareable. This captures your audience by humanizing what your organization does.

No one wants to share a story that falls for the program trap (a strung together series of self-congratulating quotes from the executive team who explain how great they think the work they’re doing is,) which is why we seek to find compelling singular stories that reveal the truths of your organization. We don’t pre-script any of the stories, however, we have used story guides to maintain strategic direction and stay focused with our approach for capturing your story.

Our goal in creating documentary style brand films is to create a product that is 100% genuine and authentic to your organization. If your organization has many different stories to tell we recommend creating a series of documentary shorts each highlighting a key individual. We understand the value of communications strategy but we seek to incorporate key messages that reach target audiences as a sub layer that drives branding instead of the outwardly facing story. There is great value in developing a creative overlay that brings these messages to life. Our approach is to develop existing individual stories that enable you to make an emotional connection while at the same time representing the greater mission and vision of your organization.

Embrace specific, individual stories that bring the greater story of your organization to life. This is a strategy for creating compelling videos that people want to share. The antithesis of this approach would be a PSA video where the organization’s executive team cite facts that describe how great their company is.

We’ve successfully done this for The Marine Mammal Center and eBay Motors. We had success with these stories because our clients were willing to let others (volunteers, vets & dealers) tell their story for them. Another technique we’ve observed for developing a good story is showing your willingness to learn, adapt and grow. A businesses who can learn and evolve has a true story of innovation to tell.

Another technique that we’ve had tremendous success with is creating a video with the right proportion of breathing time. Similar to the way a good photographer pays attention to compostion; a good filmmaker pays attention to breathing time. Very simply put, breathing time is the part of the video that doesn’t have any voice over. A common mistake in a short 3 minute video is to jam as many words into the story as possible. Resisting this temptation exponentially improves the quality of your film. It makes every sentence that is used have more meaning and also gives the audience time to digest and reflect on what has been said. Successfully employing this technique is the difference between a good film and a great film.

The other reason the documentary style brand short is an extremely effective mode of communication is because it allows your brand to begin the journey of assembling branded content. In an age of transparency and connectedness using the documentary style approach to tell your story is a powerful way to inspire your audiences!