In search of inspiration

The Challenge

If there is a quest to be a better person and professional there must be some goal, one of those  can be to seek better leadership or to want to be better leaders. There are techniques or  processes that can help us in those processes.    I work in advertising and animation. I work with many people who are looking for ways to present  new content. Older people who want to upgrade or brands who are looking for a new  presentation. Many of them want to express a lot they don't know what they want to explain or  express, this process is complicated because everyone has a right to be noticed and see  themselves as they want to. That's why they need my help. I use The Storytelling a lot when I want  to mention or give a clear message in an advertising campaign or when I want to present an  animation for a commercial. The sequence and presentation of events always help the clients. It is  an excellent exercise or means by which they can understand in a simple way what my team and I  want to express.

I have always thought that knowing the target audience or who it is aimed at, is a good way to  start any project, but it should not only apply to one channel. In one of the videos shared in the  course, there is a very good section offered by Lucio Alvarez in the video of Narrative. The  director of development of Mars Inc, mentions that it is important to understand with whom we  are sharing and hopefully in the best case to create a good story with which one can feel identified  and to whom it is directed, to give a cause. I couldn't agree more. Knowing our environment is  vital to carry out any work.

I think it's not surprising that we all like to know the background of a company, how it was born or  the story behind it and when we listen to their stories we can understand even more, that's why I  think storytelling is very important. It's an effective way to create a connection between people.  Sometimes it can happen that one does not understand some things about the target audience or  also about content at first, but it is important to recognize this in order to create a clear message.

Like any idea, it is important to create or implement something different that will captivate the  listeners. Let them think and have a moment of reflection. Whenever I use the storytelling or a  similar technique, there is a trial period that intrigues me or two questions that I ask myself... How  will the message be received? Will it be clear enough?

I've always thought that a great story makes us wonder about things and also shows us things that  we never thought about. It answers us doubts and even leaves us with an idea implanted. That's  why storytelling is a strong creative process. It's creating a reason why people want to get  involved, what motivates them and what they want more than anything else. It is important to  emphasize the importance of companionship and the help that others can give us by expressing  their opinions and also by showing us a different perspective than our own.

Finally, I think that in any great project it is important to receive feedback, to give the opportunity  to those involved to tell their experiences. Free or give space to them to be free and give a sincere  disposition within the company or project made.

Application

There was a campaign in which it was necessary to sell an idea to a sector about a Law that could  help the audiovisual process in my country, Costa Rica. My team and I began to think of some  creative way in which we could show people in general the benefits of funding film and television  and hopefully also support it with a law, but the complicated part was that a large sector of the  union, were not sure if it was necessary to give money to create audiovisual content or there were  also comments or ideas that these funds would not help in anything to the producers. I must  clarify that, in my country, the niche or the audiovisual sector is very limited. So for some of us  who want to show the world with new ideas and enriching audiovisual projects, we think it is  important to develop such a law and to create funds. Now, my team and I decided to create some  short films or clips. We used The Storytelling as a way to create these short films. Creating stories  from scratch. They were short and concise and we had actors who would give news or montages  about the benefits of the Act. This helped us a lot to show the idea, people started to imagine how  everything would be if the Law existed and well, it turned out very well. This created a large sector  of the media that began to move and comment on the benefits. This also helped us to understand  more about the people involved and also to know more about what they aspire and desire. I must  say that the storytelling and the process itself helped me to be able to elaborate better projects  than just making a presentation and trying to capture the audience.

Perspective and Focus

After testing, surveys. Seeing the attitude of people when watching the clips, the animations and  also the video montages, I must say that we had different responses. A large sector felt identified,  this motivated us a lot to create more material. But it also made us wrong to think that we were  taking all the necessary. We had not thought about some sectors or areas where there are not  even didactic resources to teach about animation, advertising or cinema. These are areas that  barely subsist on what is necessary or are not interested at all in audiovisual media. This opened  my perspective and made me understand that sometimes it is a luxury to create content for some  topics and that there are certainly people who are not interested. And that's not bad, they are  simply situations, but what we were able to rescue is that, by meeting these people, we were able  to understand that other things did interest them and likewise, the use of storytelling as a way to  project themselves in these groups, even though they had a different focus, they were interested  in the way of telling the stories. At that moment I realized that the idea of knowing who you are  addressing, knowing your environment, applies. They weren't interested in the Film Law, but they  were interested in the advertising medium to give messages in their respective towns.

