On March 30th, the first Storyteller’s Circle workshop featured guest speaker Christi Bode of Moxiecran Media. Bode is a documentary film producer as well as a director, writer, and storyteller focusing on water, land, natural resources, and the connections between humans and ecological communities.
Bode spoke about how communications professionals can find and work with a videographer to tell their conservation story, as well as how to make video projects go further.
Major takeaways included:
- The more focused you can be on your idea and what you want to communicate going into a video project, the better.
- Think about the audience for your video to determine the right type of language to use, characters to include, and distribution avenues.
- Think about including interviewees that are great storytellers themselves in order to create a narrative that blends the head and the heart.
- Consider where and how you will share your video from the beginning of the video creation process. Including a call to action can make your video go further, as can making the video easy to find and highly accessible.
- Don’t discount live events like film festivals to share your video.
You can find more detailed notes from Christi’s presentation here, and watch a recording of it here.
The second half of the workshop provided participants with work time to dive into their own communications projects. Some chose to log off of Zoom to dive into their storytelling work, while others took advantage of multiple breakout rooms to workshop communications problems and share advice with other participants.
Mark Your Calendars For the Next Storyteller’s Circle
The Center for Collaborative Conservation and the Intermountain West Joint Venture are excited to host the next Storyteller’s Circle workshop on Thursday, May 25th, from 12:30-2 p.m. MST. The event’s feature topic will be determined soon based on participant’s feedback, with the second half of the workshop dedicated to quiet work time (breakout rooms will be available for small group discussions).
