POV Blog: Outside The Frame

It’s easy for me to get wrapped up in creating a slick website that will make people go “wow” and then click on my content, so much so that I lose focus on the actual content that I have to tell. After reading a great post about MediaStorm’s approach on the PBS POV blog “Outside The Frame” (which is a great blog by the way for those interested in the science of documentary storytelling), I was challenged to reassess exactly where the lines of value between interactivity and content are drawn. If creating an interactive “story” experience on your own, it’s hard. There’s tons of things to think about and hats to wear: producer, developer, designer, content gatherer, director, editor, cinematography, and frig restocker.

After reading the article, I found myself compelled to comment. Here’s what I wrote (weird quoting myself):

I work with folks who are driven by this mantra: Inspire, Inform, Entrust. In that order. First you have to inspire people, you have to get their attention. It’s the initial reaction. Having a slick website might tell you that the content is amazing too. Like the Pangea Day website. But then the content quickly takes over and it’s a first-person telling. A singular voice. Moving on, once someone is inspired, you begin to inform them. This can be done through “narrative”, though not exclusively through a first-person telling of a story, but created through many veins of an inter “active” experience. But where I think your side and the side of Storm’s finds tension with each other is in: what do people actually do after they’ve consumed some content? You have to then Entrust your story to the viewer, to let them glean meaning and significance. If it hits home with them, they’ll retell their own version of it in words to a friend (whether oral telling or via twitter), or input their piece of the grand pie like one in hundreds of blog post comments. The Entrust phase is where I think it goes out of the bounds of “story” definition and becomes more of a non-linear narrative. But your post really helps make a strong point, that it’s a constant balancing act between design/interactive and the actual content and story you have to tell. The breadth of thought between these two is usually too far for most to accomplish well, yes. But at the end of the day, I will tell my friends about the midwestern families or the women struggling to raise kids with AIDS. Story and Timelessness go hand in hand, and that can’t be underestimated in the changing tide of the media landscape.

I also read a great blog post by Mindy McAdams, who teaches online journalism, who discussed Andy Dickenson’s blog post, and had some great thoughts on the concept of “what is a story anyway?”

You know, what I think is humorous is the fact that “story” is a word like “love.” Used in a ton of places it shouldn’t be used or doesn’t qualify. Many of us work somewhere in the solar system of online narrative experiences, and so we see the word coming up all over the place. What both of these articles leave me with thinking is: why did a word like “story” ever get as popular and used in such a broad way?

In the age of digital sharing, things are mashed up, narratives intertwine, many people are putting in their voice. And I think it’s overwhelming to many people, even young folks who’s social life can be summed up in a dorky word like “twittering.” What people are always out hunting for is an intimate, quiet, singular voice. They just have to dig for it through clicks of a mouse. If you can make the clicks fun, and optional, along the way, then that makes them want to stick around and listen to the story even more. And if you give them the ability to interject their comment or voice in some cool way, then they feel an affinity with your content. Just like kids learn a little better when they go to a museum where they can actually touch stuff, not just stare behind the glass. It becomes interactive.

But at the end of the day, an intimate voice leaves you influenced. It sticks a lot longer. It’s more timeless, not just in your head, but in it’s truth. And timeless stories hit at truth, hit at reality the way actual things are. It’s not a “well that’s how you experience it and that’s neat”, but a “YES, I’ve experienced that too.” There’s cultural levels of similarity, but beyond that is a layer of human similarity in experience that transcends the cultural layer, the layer where truths stick to us, become part of us, influence us, and instill a sense of affirmation in self-identity (be), or new identity (become).

I’m going off the philosophical deep end at this point, but isn’t it true that good, timeless, well-crafted stories are a philosophical workout to present not just artistically (subjective) but coherently (objective). I love the challenge of moving between all these spectrums in my work… You?