When most of us first start to dabble in storytelling, we fall into the trap of what I’ll call “and then” storytelling.

How many copywriters write corporate scripts that are nothing more than a list of talking points, brand promises and market-researched language? “We value the customer, AND we always respect your budget, AND we have on-time delivery, AND…”

We’ve all seen way too much of this.

That kind of writing is not storytelling because there is no causality. There is no cause and effect, no action-reaction. To quote Badass Digest blogger and “Screenwriting 101” author Film Crit Hulk:

“Stories are defined by cause and effect. Perpetually. Constantly. Vividly. Stories are built on that simplest of mechanisms. This causes that and that causes this and so on and so forth. It’s about setups and payoffs. It’s about action and reaction. It’s about information followed by dramatic consequence. Cause and effect lend meaning to events. They link scenes together. They give wholeness to seemingly separate ideas. Cause and effect are the linking of your chain. They make a story a story.”

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have developed a simple rule to help you avoid the trap of “and then” storytelling. Watch them in the video below.

Trey Parker also explained this rule in the Comedy Central documentary “Six Days to Air,” about the making of an episode of South Park:

“[I call it] the rule of replacing “ands” with either “buts” or “therefores.” And so it’s always like: This happens and then this happens and then this happens. Whenever I can go back in the writing and change that to: This happens, therefore this happens, butthis happened; whenever you can replace your “ands” with “buts” or “therefores,” it makes for better writing.”

Take a look at something we produced to see how this works in practice:

Von was living a happy life playing pool and raising a family, BUT one day he got laid off his job. He felt he couldn’t continue to live the life he wanted to lead without going back to school, THEREFORE he found Herzing University. He quickly found that the instructors at the law program of Herzing University were currently employed legal professionals, THEREFORE he feels more confident going into his own career than if he was taught by teachers with no law experience. Von’s son watched him go through this whole adult education experience, THEREFORE his son now wants to graduate from college.

You’ll notice that I only have one “but” compared to three “therefores” in my above synopsis of the video, and this will be a common tendency in a lot of brand storytelling. But never tell a story devoid of “buts” because then you will be telling a story without any obstacle to overcome.

Traditional corporate video producers’ refusal to respect what causality brings to a brand message is a large part of the reason why you’ve never really seen a “corporate video” that you liked so much you’d bring home to show your family or share with friends on Facebook.

Trey Parker’s principle of “buts” and “therefores” is a safety net. It is something you should always apply to any story you’re writing, whether for entertainment or business. It will ensure that your story adheres to causality, which will lend your message meaning. If you fall into the trap of “and then” storytelling, as Trey said in the video, “you’ve got something pretty boring.”

The post Storytelling Tip: The Principle of “Buts” and “Therefores” appeared first on StoryFirst Media Website.

StoryFirst Media was founded in Wisconsin, and as such, we are Green Bay Packers fans (another clue would be our 2012 award-winning documentary Last Day at Lambeau).

This past Sunday, the Packers completed the biggest comeback for a win in their illustrious 94 year history.

The game was against the Dallas Cowboys, and the Packers’ season was on the line. In all likelihood, the team would have to win all of their remaining games in order to make the playoffs.

The problems: their all pro quarterback was out with an injury, their defense was a sieve, and the Cowboys had their playoff future to play for as well.

At halftime, the Cowboys led 26-3.

The stakes were incredibly high. In the locker room, head coach Mike McCarthy told the team that they were facing “the biggest adversity situation that we’ve been in in our time together” and that “our season’s on the line.”

To keep a long story short, the Packers came back out in the second half and rallied to a magical 37-36 victory.

Needless to say, my dad and I were jumping up and down and high-fiving like mad. It was an incredible amount of emotion, and despite all the problems we saw in our favorite team in the first half, some small part of us actually started to believe they could go on a playoff run.

Why was this game so emotional for us? Because we knew how hard/unlikely it was for the team to come back and win!

So where is the brand storytelling lesson? Here it is:

In the story of your brand/product/service, showing how you went down 26-3 in the first half is every bit as important as showing how you rallied for the second half comeback.

The amount of positive emotion we feel is directly proportional to the amount of negative emotion we feel. To face overwhelming adversity and succeed in the end inspires us to believe that any hardship can be overcome.

In football, when your favorite team destroys opposing teams without much of a struggle, it can actually be kind of boring. There’s no jumping up and down, there’s no sitting on the edge of your seat, and there’s no yelling at the top of your lungs. Those games have no stakes, no suspense, and they go down easy by the fourth quarter.

If you’re selling a product, your amazing new feature means nothing until you show me the problem the world faces without that feature (even better – show me the hardships your R&D department faced while developing the feature. If you struggled and had to invest a lot of time and resources into the project, it means it must be pretty important).

Showing your audience how hard it was for you to accomplish your goal, build your product or develop your service teaches them that you have the drive and ability to overcome any challenge. Dramatically speaking, the steeper you can make that mountain you had to climb, the better.

All stories are metaphors. Stories say “life is like this.” Stories live in our hearts forever because they allow us to make sense of our challenges, to feel we are not alone, and to believe that anything is possible.

But you’re only telling a story when you invite your audience to traverse your challenges with you and feel a part of the struggle to bring your product/service to the world.

Because after all, if it wasn’t hard to achieve, it must not be worth much. Show us how hard it was to achieve your goals and you will become a better storyteller for your brand and your life.

The post A Brand Storytelling Lesson from the NFL appeared first on StoryFirst Media Website.

In 1994, astrophysicist Kip Thorne wrote the book “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy”.

The title of the book sounds daunting. One would assume it to be filled with scientific theories and language that would surely alienate any readers without a degree in astronomy or cosmology. So Mr. Thorne opened his first chapter with a story.

The story put the reader in the role of captain of a spacecraft commissioned with exploring the black hole called “Hades”. Your mission: study the black hole and radio back your findings.

As your spacecraft approaches the black hole, your sensors detect evidence of the hole’s presence. “The atoms of gas that sparsely populate interstellar space, approximately one in each cubic centimeter, are being pulled by the hole’s gravity. If something isn’t done, your starship too will be sucked in.”

Kip Thorne didn’t decide to open his book with a story just because it’s fun (though it is!). There is very deliberate purpose behind this. By opening with a story where the “reader as spaceship captain” is teetering on the brink of a black hole, he has put the audience in the position of needing to know how the story ends – how the captain maneuvers around the black hole. In essence, the reader is now asking for the science of black holes.

This is the essence of purposeful storytelling. By telling stories, we create a gap – a void – that the audience desperately wants to fill in, and the answer to their call – the thing that will satiate their desperation – is your data, features, messaging, facts, etc.

In Thorne’s book, the power of drama compels the audience to seek out how black holes work in order to find out how the story ends. Without the story, many readers would have a hard time just dryly learning the facts. The story gives the facts meaning – a place of momentary priority in their lives.

As brand storytellers, we spend a lot of time talking about the differences between traditional advertising and storytelling. Sometimes it’s easier to articulate what storytelling is not.

Storytelling is not:

–       a list of features and benefits

–       product specs

–       data

–       a mood

–       a style

–       a sequence of events

–       a slice of life

–       your brand messaging

In business, storytelling is the art of making your data, features, benefits and messaging vital to the lives of your audience. This is not a foofy, soft, or intangible thing. It’s grounded in a series of straightforward, practical principles and human psychology.

You want your audience to care about your message, your product specs, or your data. Fair enough. Ask yourself, “When in my day-to-day life do I crave information?”

Human beings seek out information when there is a gap of understanding, resources, or knowledge that they need to fill. So as storytellers, our job is to create that need – a carefully crafted absence of information that begs a solution.

In storytelling, you craft a narrative with a turning point that causes the audience to subconsciously ask for your information. So what is a turning point?

World-renowned storytelling guru Robert McKee believes there are four components to a turning point:

–       Surprise (“Wow! I didn’t expect that to happen!”)

–       Curiosity (“Wait… why did that happen?”)

–       Insight (“Ahh… that is why it happened. And here is how I can avoid this obstacle in the future.”)

–       New Direction (“With this new information, I will take this new action moving forward to make sure I avoid this obstacle in the future.”)

If we revisit Kip Thorne’s short story, what if in the next moment, the starship is sucked into the black hole and everybody on board dies? The reader would first experience surprise. “Whoa! I didn’t expect that to happen!” The very next thought would be, “Why did that happen?”

And with that question the reader is right where Mr. Thorne wanted them. They are now asking for his scientific theory.

This is the major boon of brand storytelling, for how else do you get your audience to consciously ask for your data?

The post How Storytelling Creates a Need for Your Data appeared first on StoryFirst Media Website.

Back in 2011 when I was deep in editing for my documentary Last Day at Lambeau, I realized the movie didn’t work and I was mere weeks away from film festival submission deadlines.

The movie was about the relationship between sports fans and their heroes through the prism of Brett Favre’s separation from the Green Bay Packers. Through the telling of that story, I was hoping to reveal something about the human condition and what it means to devote yourself to an activity that you have zero control over.

At that time, the movie opened with a 5-minute or so history of Brett Favre’s time in Green Bay and establishing why he meant so much to the state of Wisconsin. But when I screened the film to trusted colleagues and friends, it just didn’t feel like the opening was strong enough.

To a certain extent, who cares why Favre meant what he meant to Wisconsin? All that mattered (from a storytelling perspective) was that Wisconsin loved him. That’s it. Every member of the audience had had an idol at some time in their lives and they could easily recognize themselves in that concept. The facts that he threw so many touchdowns or started so many consecutive games weren’t as compelling as the relationship itself.

But my movie was still missing a human touch. A soul. A voice the audience could connect with.

I had not wanted to include myself in the film. Not because I was shy (I’m not) or because I’m not good enough (I am), but because I felt it would be distracting. I thought it would come across as me forcing my way into a story I wasn’t a part of. This was about fans and their team, not about me making the movie.

But what I was failing to see in that moment was that I was the fan. By attaching my own personal experiences growing up in a Packers fan household, going to Packers training camp and idolizing my heroes, that was a more specific and more human way to approach the film’s soul than any list of dates on a timeline.

So I read my own voiceover and I spoke in the first person. I made sure the audience knew that I was a fan, and as such, I was a part of this story, and by extension so were all of them. Whether you were a fan of the Packers, Yankees, Longhorns, Muhammad Ali or Barack Obama, you could identify to the concept of being passionate about something.

And that opened my film to a much wider audience than it ever would’ve had.

Don’t be afraid to be a central figure in your story. It is your story, after all.

The post You Are Your Story’s Hero appeared first on StoryFirst Media Website.

The human brain is hardwired to receive information in narrative form.

If you wake up looking forward to wearing your new outfit to work and spill coffee on it, this thought might cross your mind: “My day just got off to a bad start.” This thought in itself is your brain taking the inherently meaningless event of coffee falling on your shirt and placing it in the larger temporal context of “your day.”

When you’re watching a football game, you see the running back take the ball two yards before being tackled. But that is not what your brain sees. Your brain interprets this single, inherently meaningless event as but one point in a larger sequence: the drive.

Three years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, many people were irritated by Hollywood’s desire to produce two 9/11 films. There is an ethical argument to be made there, but the impetus for the storytellers was to bring meaning and context to what appeared on its face to be meaningless death and destruction.

Emma Kafalenos defines narrative in her book Narrative Causalities as “a sequential representation of sequential events.” Narrative provides context and perspective for meaningless facts.

This is why it is actually not a good idea for brands to lead their marketing efforts with facts, figures, features and benefits. Each feature is important and places your brand in a good light, but only when received by your audience in the context of the narrative you have constructed. To hang naked, dry facts out there is the riskiest choice of all.

For example, Google has on its website the following quote describing ideal prospective employees: “Other companies screen for intelligence and experience in potential recruits. But Google also looks for “‘Googliness’ – a mashup of passion and drive that’s hard to define but easy to spot.”

This naked statement is dangerous because it could either be interpreted as an invitation to the ultimate go-getter career or as an ominous indication that Google will expect you to work excessively long hours. Google has ceded the ground of narrative and is allowing its audience to interpret its statements however they will.

Clothe your naked statements in the robe of story and your audience will receive your facts, features and benefits in exactly the way you want them to.

The post Humans Interpret the World Through Narrative appeared first on StoryFirst Media Website.

When was the last time you actually enjoyed watching a traditional corporate video? If you’re like me, it’s been a damn long time (if ever). So why do we keep making them?

I’ll define what I mean by ‘corporate video’. A corporate video (in the traditional sense) is a piece of video that forgoes an authentic, emotional connection with the audience so that a company can squeeze in as many message statements, facts and data as they can.

Brands have messages that need communicating. There’s no doubt about that. The thought of communicating these messages through video sounds like a fun alternative to a white paper or memo – and it is! When you make a video for your company, you’re thinking your audience will enjoy receiving your message this way because it’s like a little movie — and who doesn’t love movies?

But people love movies when the filmmakers’ goal is to connect with and move the audience. The goal of traditional corporate videos is to dress up and stylize a brand message. See the difference?

Video alone won’t do the trick. As we all know, there are plenty of booooring videos out there. Video is not inherently “fun.”

Boring corporate videos are typically made when brands take their white paper copy and dryly put the words into the mouths of on-screen faces. For example, if your brand message is “We Value Our Clients,” it is a boring decision to put your company’s president in front of a camera and have him utter the words, “we value our clients.”

Instead, show your audience that your company values its clients. Make me care about what you do.

Anything you can capture visually through action will speak a thousand times louder than the words “we value our clients.” Did you have your clients to the office holiday party? Did you join hands with your clients at a recent charity event? Even better – is there a specific problem you solved for your client that reflects the core values of your brand?

Now, if you stopped here you would be fine. You will have taken your brand messaging out of the black abyss that is traditional corporate video. But if you want to add that little extra sauce to make your communication even more authentic and impactful, resist the urge to say “we value our clients” after showing that you do.

I know it’s hard. You want to make it explicitly clear how awesome your company is. But it’s good to let the actions on the screen speak for themselves. Your audience will appreciate it. Why?

What if every time your friend did something nice for you he then said, “I value my friends”? It’s like patting yourself on the back, and nobody likes someone who only does things for the recognition.

This is all about respecting your audience. While every brand has something to communicate, the method of communication must start with listening to your audience. How can your video actively contribute to your audience’s lives? How can you show them you understand them? How can you overcome the natural human resistance to “being sold” so that your audience will listen to your message?

Take a cue from Hollywood and make the goal of your video connecting with and moving your audience.

If you truly listen to your audience with an open heart and mind (don’t just wait for your turn to deliver ‘the message’), finding the best way to connect with them in a relevant way becomes clear. Traditional corporate video will never be the most effective approach.

And then we can all live in a world without traditional corporate videos. I’ll drink to that.

The post Stop Making Corporate Videos! appeared first on StoryFirst Media Website.