I love this video…I love the email they just sent. I agree with the video above…and I agree with their thought process.
Here is the quote from the email:
Your seeds of creativity Craft is the root of our artistic passion and surgical attention to detail. It’s the beat of our creative drum. Watch and rediscover how our love of craft got us all into this creative racket to begin with.
Well…once again, I agree!
And one last time…I agree with this image in the email:
I am getting back to my roots. More to come!
Thanks iStock.com for confirming my direction and intuition!
You never know when it is going to happen. You never know when that creative inspiration will hit us like a ton of bricks. We spend so much time crafting a story, but we must feel it with our bare skin…our breathe…our inner creative being.
Crafting a story is like the best type of “dance” with the audience…we must see the story through their eyes in-order to communicate the final prose.
So many times I find myself looking for the final way to put a piece together. I spend so much creative time thinking about the storyline…especially as it is developing. I craft initial storylines, what I think the interview will say, how the story will evolve…but we always must be prepared for those moments in time that provide us the epiphany.
We can have the best cameras, the best edit suites, the best lighting, the most innovative approaches to capture the story…but it all comes down to execution. Can you pull all the elements together in a way that gives the audience something, that one thing, that when they walk away…they see it through your eyes. They get goose bumps at the right moments!
Then you wonder…do they (the audience) see those tiny moments exposed.
The craft of storytelling is more than a craft…it is a calling.
Craft versus Service has been a debate and conversation internally I have been exploring during the growth of my business. This is a big distinction in my mind as I think forward. In the service industry, we find ourselves trapped in a scaling cycle of trading time for money…how much work can we (ourselves and our organizations) spend working for billable hours. There are just only so much time in a day, week, month, and year.
So what is the distinction between a “craft” or “service” and how can we find distinction in our businesses. When I think of a service, I think of billable hours. Providing a service that brings value to another organization that warrants billing for that time. I love this definition on desonance.wordpress.com:
“A service is the seeking and receipt of a specific outcome of a customer across a range of interactions and touchpoints over time.”
This article and definition above is exploring the pathways of services when it relates to the customer and the touchpoints/interactions along the way. I look at those toughpoints/interactions as billable time that the customer and the service provider share in an agreement.
So I think through ways to create greater revenue opportunities for service organizations:
1) Increase the billable rate for the touchpoint/interaction
2) Increase the different touchpoints/interactions
3) Increase the size of the organization
This is a time vs. money equation. This is where we can only spend our constrained time trying to squeeze in more hours to churn out more work. So, does this increased work load for small/entrepreneurial service organizations properly provide a service to our customers that is exceptional.
So let’s look at the craft concept.
A craft is a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work.
I see “craft” as the happy place between “practitioner” of a skill and and the execution of a “technician. These individuals have mastered a skill as technician, can interpret the skill as a practitioner, and have created a crafted approach to delivering a service. This craft, this “art” has only tangible, marketable value via expertise, credibility, and valued results. These practitioners of a “craft” are artisans and have experienced an apprenticeship model perfecting their craft over time.
The craft approach to communication is one that has the ability to create culture and shift thinking. They are leaders in their discipline and take leadership roles in the projects they create. Their craft is not one of billable hours but of final product. Their business model is one of intellectual equity…one that brings expertise to the table.
So where do you find yourself or your organization in this intersection of the “craft” vs. “service” equation?
I was talking with a close colleague and friend tonight as we were working on a project, and we were trying to articulate the craft of visual storytelling. I was telling him that I have a friend here in Anderson, SC who is constantly introducing me to new people, and he uses my tag line, “This is my friend Bobby Rettew and he is a storyteller.” Then he follows-up with the phrase, “I am still trying to figure out how a storyteller makes money.” Well, Cordes Seabrook…this post is for you.
The craft of visual storytelling is tough to define…it is years and years of experience telling rich stories for broadcast television outlets across the country. It is years and years of judging and critiquing products for the National Academy of Television, Arts, and Sciences; Associated Press, National Press Photographers Association; and other local, regional, and national organizations. It is years and years of producing and leading teams of storytellers to produce shows, long format production, and numerous commercial spots for television and online distribution. But most of all…it is all about letting our stories tell themselves.
Telling compelling stories is not only understanding the mission of the project, but completely understanding the audiences you hope the message will compel to make action. It is understanding that the beginning, middle, and end is just the frame work for connecting the message to the audience; but weaving layers or messages tied together with a single red string.
The search for the red string is one of the hardest parts of the process…but once found, it makes the production to create the final product move increasingly faster. I was having dinner with Bob Dotson of NBC one night in Charlotte, and he explained to me that anyone can tell a story. But those who tell compelling, rich stories tell ones with layers and layers of messages…each connected with a single red string that crescendo at the right time, allowing the audience to full see the message through the subject(s) eyes and ears.
The approach I use aims to stay away from writing voice-over or track for someone to speak. Voice-over that connects all the sound-bites. The craft starts from the very beginning, with the interviews. The construction starts and continues during the shooting and interview process. This is the time to collect sound, great interviews. These interviews are collected in a way that tell the whole story from beginning to end. Each person interviewed has their own story to tell, adding to the the bigger picture of the final product. So it is the burden of the storyteller to guide each subject through an interview, so each person tells each piece of the puzzle. During this process, finding that one theme, idea, moral, ethic…the red string that connects all the pieces is crucial. Then while writing, we connect all the pieces using the red-string…to connect all the dots.
The red-string can be a person’s story, a subject each person reveals, an event that takes place…whatever is chosen, it has to make sense for the audience to grasp. Then using all the other elements, interviews, broll, natural sound, and music to fill in the gaps…guiding the audience through this visual timeline.
Visual storytelling is a craft…it is one that is hard to teach, articulate, and reproduce. This craft is also fraternal, you know when you meet another person that shares this same passion. We believe in the ethics of this moral enterprise, protecting the voice of the subjects that we so carefully provide as a platform to deliver a message. We are advocates for the people(s) voice…the voice of those who know the story the best. It is our ethic to properly represent that voice and bridge the gap between message, audience, and the subjects’ voice. If we are not careful, our writing sometimes de-humanizes the words they speak.
The business of this craft…to find those who believe in the craft and final value in advocating for the subjects voice. This visual storytelling enterprise closely represents that mission of word-of-mouth marketing, but we just provide a visual medium to communicate their message. We advocate for their message…because deep down inside, the audience wants to hear a story from those they relate. The audience relates to people that they can identify with, those whom they could see themselves replaced in the monitor or television screen. If that is achieved, and we can make the audience see themselves in the screen saying the powerful words…then we have achieved the goal of the craft. Visual storytelling is a craft…it is my passion.
