Less is more for the Storyteller

The more I teach the more I believe you can do a lot more with a lot less.

To be a successful photographer you do need camera gear, but I believe this is something you acquire over time and not something even if you had unlimited funds to buy everything you think you will ever need.

If you are wanting to join me on my multimedia workshop to Honduras this is the basic kit I recommend:

1. DSLR or Mirrorless camera and lens
1. Microphone input
2. Headphone output
2. Lavalier microphone
3. Headphones rather than earbuds
4. Tripod
5. LCD Viewfinder
6. Laptop
1. Adobe Premier or Final Cut
2. Photo editing software [Adobe Lightroom]

While keeping your gear basic can help you concentrate more on capturing than figuring out how to use all that gear you will be surprised that as a teacher I am focusing on getting you walking rather than running.

Why?

We need to really remember why you are learning how to do multimedia storytelling. You have a person/organization that is wanting to get their message out to an audience to get them involved.

In pure journalism the reporter is keeping their audience informed so that they can choose how they want to get involved. Most of the time this is through their voting, volunteering or even advocacy work they may choose to do.

Audience

Unless you are independently wealthy you cannot be creating stories just for yourself because it is fun. While the subjects that you will cover may want people to get involved, it is really the audience that will determine if they think it is compelling enough to warrant their attention.

An audience is more motivated to take action when something is going to impact them. Again this is why journalist keep the impact of the story on the audience paramount. 

Once you understand who your audience is and what concerns them finding those stories that they might be interested in is far more effective than just finding interesting stories to you. 

The Story

You must really dig deep and know far more about the subject than you will ever tell in a story. We have heard the analogy used over and over, but the telling just the tip of the iceberg story is so important to make it an engaging story.

While facts are super important in a story it is the emotions that will connect and pull the audience into the story much more than facts.

I would say that the facts are the Queen of the story, but it is the emotions that are the King of the story.

There are basically two effective ways to capture the emotions: 1) Visuals & 2) Words.

I believe the most impactful visual is the still photo, because people need to pause on the image to absorb a truly emotional moment. Just as importantly I think it is the audio recording of the human voice that is the most powerful way to communicate emotions as well. In combination you can deliver that one-two-punch.

“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
― Mark Twain

The most powerful stories are well crafted and keep you on the edge of your seat. To do so takes a lot of time. Time to understand the audience, the subject and the skills of storytelling to craft a captivating story.

Come with Gary S. Chapman and myself to Honduras. We have great stories that need to be told and there are many audiences who want to hear those stories.

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