Question:
If you were in charge of creating storytelling videos, how would you select the interviewees? Would you select them randomly? Would you select them based on the story that they want to share? Or, would you select people based on stories that you think your audience wants to hear?
I ended up asking myself this question as I was watching the videos. How would I do this? Is there a model to follow? I also posted this question on a couple of classmates posts.
I enjoyed this week’s online viewings, although I have too admit that I am starting to feel depressed. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the diverse exposure of peoples stories through digital storytelling, and I want to hear them, it’s just that I feel like there’s too much sadness and injustice in the world, and it can feel overwhelming.
I know that I don’t have to look too far in the past where sites like Mapping Memories, INTERVIEW PROJECT and Center for Digital Story Telling, did not exist.
Reaction to Viewings
Mapping Memories – Keeping Memories Alive
What stood out the most for me in their youth refugee video is the story titled, My Two Families (3:42-5:42). Her story is tragic and uplifting at the same time. I could hear her strength and vulnerability in her voice when she was talking about her experience with MM.
- The most profound statement I heard her say was when she retells her story about MM, and realizing that if she does not tell her story, no one else will. She says, “I wanted to tell other peoples stories, not my own. But then I realized who could tell my story? Who could remember my family?”
INTERVIEW PROJECT was pretty cool, but to be honest I didn’t think it was as interesting as Mapping Memories or Center for Digital Story. What I did enjoy about the project was how much trust there had to have been between the storyteller and videographer. Folks were willing to be vulnerable and that’s always admired.
Center for Digital Storytelling – Digital Backstory
What I found most interesting was how a story about a young girl finding her way in a new country and shaping her independence via public transportation. I always give public transportation a hard rap and this story humbled me. That’s powerful storytelling!
I also liked their Digital Backstory idea: listening to a person’s story while looking at only one photograph. This format made me listen more actively than INTERVIEW PROJECT – I was looking at the background, the person, etc. There was more white noise there, than in Digital Backstory videos.
From a strategic communications stand-point
Since I’m in the StratComm program, I am starting to train my mind into strategic thinking and planning (our team project plays a role into this, too) Part of the strategy of getting stories onto the interwebs is the technology and funding. I looked at INTERVIEW PROJECT’s technical spec-links to learn more about who did their site development, hosting, PR, and sponsors. Having a name like David Lynch probably makes it a little easier to promote and fund. So it’s interesting to wonder about all the other video hosting sites we’ve looked at and wonder how the bills get paid.
It’s the pink elephant in the room that we talked about a couple of Saturday’s ago… who and how does the baton get passed?
These are excellent questions! I have also thought of these same questions before. My first response is always to choose people based on the story they have to tell. There are so many great stories out there! But then I’ve been in situations where it was like, ok, this is a great story, but is anybody else going to care? Will it sell? Or maybe its a great story, but I don’t have anything visual to cover it. But I’m starting to realize a couple of things. First is that if it really is a good story, and its told in the right way, it can be about anything and your audience will probably like it too (well, almost anything 🙂 And second, now that I’m learning about all of these different platforms, I’m realizing that there are many ways to tell a great story, and that it is important to choose the way that’s most suited to the story. To me these two realizations make me feel more free to focus on just finding a good story.
I also really sympathize with your second paragraph about all the sadness in the world! It drives me crazy sometimes, like when I go to my dad’s house and he’s watching T.V. and all the news is so depressing. The world can’t really be only full of sadness can it? I know its not, because I hear great stories all the time. Stories of really amazing people, or people that are overcoming something, or that are doing positive things in negative situations. That is why I have been trying to make it my mission to find all the hidden positive stories in the world to focus on. The thing that bums me out is that I’ve expressed these ideas to colleagues before and they act like I am just young or naive. Well I’m not that young, and I’ve been around and seen a lot of the world. And I still feel the same way. And, I think its naive to not realize that there are a lot of people who want to see something different, or to not realize that all this negative stuff we’re fed all the time is partly a tool that keeps people subdued. Don’t get me wrong, I realize that there are a lot of really messed up things in the world. But are we reinforcing it partly when we choose to focus on it? I don’t know, but I hope to see a wave of other people focusing on positive issues in the future. We’ll see though…
Jamie,
This may be something of a non-answer, but I think ultimately selection depends on the type of story you want to tell. Mapping Memories has very specific subjects in mind, and so must limit their potential interviewees to refugees and communities like Project Refuge or groups like Nomadic Massive that support them. Capriciously selecting pieces from their interview pool might be an interesting experiment, but it wouldn’t be nearly as effective as finding their ”ideal” subject (or someone as close to that person as is possible), and running with them.
Archival projects like CDS or StoryCorps, on the other hand, cast a much wider net. I would think it would behoove them to proceed with something of a Holmesian or Taoist perspective, in that by looking for nothing they see everything. This might result in more work on the backend, as every submission is probably thoroughly vetted, but given the quality and diversity of material they post, it’s obviously worth it.
My biggest question regards, perhaps unsurprisingly, The Interview Project. David Lynch says there was no plan for a selection process (a statement he echoes in his introduction for Interview Project Germany), but there are scattered hints that there was one. Were their choices arbitrary, or were there rough guidelines?