"Brand storyteller" Michael Margolis of Thirsty-Fish on "Finding Meaning and Authenticity in the Storytelling Brand"
Margolis's content is not groundbreaking.
That you can read it here is.
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
July 08, 2009
March 09, 2009
Storytelling with Twitter? I don't think so.
Question: is Twitter, the social messaging utility, a good platform for storytelling?
Short Answer: No.
Not that I heard anyone say it was. But with Twitter being the "in" tool this year, and storytellers jumping in, I wanted to add my two cents.
Do I use Twitter? Yes. I appreciate its functionality for those times when I need to be connected in real time. I'm impressed that its fans have been able to build online relationships despite the tools built in limitations, namely, the 140 character limit for each message.
I don't see these two primary features (real-time messaging, and limited length) as essential to storytelling.
That there's a tool, ie Twitter, that lets me receive messages in real-time from friends, relations, colleagues, celebrities, politicians, and NASA missions is cool. I like being connected, being reminded on these people-- those that I have a relationship with in real life, well, it helps "grease the wheel" of that relationship during that time when we're not in contact. But Twitter is about the "what I'm doing now" not about "remember when we..." or "once upon a time."
Could you use Twitter to tell a story? Yes, of course. But it's an inelegant tool.
(I'll grant that when it comes to stories for journalism, however, Twitter is useful as a tool for gathering information of stories-as-they-happen, as events in San Diego, Mumbai, and the Hudson River have shown us)
But in terms of spinning narratives: using Twitter is like selecting a toothpick to paint on a canvas that's meant to fill a room.
Partly it's the 140 character limit. Now, Flash fiction is nothing new. Storytellers from Vishnu Sarma to Aesop to Jesus were using the short short form long before the publishing world took a shine to very short tales in the 1990s. Setting limits, even arbitrary ones, can prompt some very creative output, so I can see the appeal of using Twitter to share these mini works of fiction.
Some of my favorites:
Two writers in particular, I've found, who use Twitter to write nanofiction. I would categorize their work as character sketches and platforms --more seeds of stories that could be than actual beginning-middle-end kernels, but sometimes worth a look:
@arjunbasu
@nickwarren (I especially like Nick's use of first person, since it plays within the Twitterverse milieu nicely)
Smith Magazine, home of the six word story, set the bar higher (or tighter, I guess. You can fit a lot more than 6 words on Twitter). It's difficult to pull off a good six-word story, so you have to wade through a lot of dross to find the gems, and then, there's not so much a haiku feeling as a "wish they served dinner instead of hors d'oeuvres"... still, Twitter seems an excellent channel for them to utilize: @smithmag
Portland Story Theater sneaks around the limitations of length and genre with a serial format:
@pdxstorytheater
Do you follow anyone on Twitter that is creating interesting stories? Post them in the comments!
(And just so we're clear: "creating interesting stories" does NOT mean "promoting their business" (story-based or otherwise)
-----
So maybe you're not looking for Twitter to deliver bite-sized stories. Maybe you just think it'd be cool (for this year anyway) to receive real-time messages from working storytellers. In that case, here are some current storytellers with active or semi-active Twitter accounts:
(Yes, I left out a bunch of "organizational narrative" and "corporate storytellers" who are very active on Twitter. That's by design. They've got their own blogs. When the day comes that they tell a story around a campfire, then I'll add them to my list here.)
Short Answer: No.
Not that I heard anyone say it was. But with Twitter being the "in" tool this year, and storytellers jumping in, I wanted to add my two cents.
Do I use Twitter? Yes. I appreciate its functionality for those times when I need to be connected in real time. I'm impressed that its fans have been able to build online relationships despite the tools built in limitations, namely, the 140 character limit for each message.
I don't see these two primary features (real-time messaging, and limited length) as essential to storytelling.
That there's a tool, ie Twitter, that lets me receive messages in real-time from friends, relations, colleagues, celebrities, politicians, and NASA missions is cool. I like being connected, being reminded on these people-- those that I have a relationship with in real life, well, it helps "grease the wheel" of that relationship during that time when we're not in contact. But Twitter is about the "what I'm doing now" not about "remember when we..." or "once upon a time."
Could you use Twitter to tell a story? Yes, of course. But it's an inelegant tool.
(I'll grant that when it comes to stories for journalism, however, Twitter is useful as a tool for gathering information of stories-as-they-happen, as events in San Diego, Mumbai, and the Hudson River have shown us)
But in terms of spinning narratives: using Twitter is like selecting a toothpick to paint on a canvas that's meant to fill a room.
Partly it's the 140 character limit. Now, Flash fiction is nothing new. Storytellers from Vishnu Sarma to Aesop to Jesus were using the short short form long before the publishing world took a shine to very short tales in the 1990s. Setting limits, even arbitrary ones, can prompt some very creative output, so I can see the appeal of using Twitter to share these mini works of fiction.
Some of my favorites:
This bit of magical realism/spy novel and this melodrama from David Vanadia.
This retelling of a fable from Jerrold Connors.
Two writers in particular, I've found, who use Twitter to write nanofiction. I would categorize their work as character sketches and platforms --more seeds of stories that could be than actual beginning-middle-end kernels, but sometimes worth a look:
@arjunbasu
@nickwarren (I especially like Nick's use of first person, since it plays within the Twitterverse milieu nicely)
Smith Magazine, home of the six word story, set the bar higher (or tighter, I guess. You can fit a lot more than 6 words on Twitter). It's difficult to pull off a good six-word story, so you have to wade through a lot of dross to find the gems, and then, there's not so much a haiku feeling as a "wish they served dinner instead of hors d'oeuvres"... still, Twitter seems an excellent channel for them to utilize: @smithmag
Portland Story Theater sneaks around the limitations of length and genre with a serial format:
@pdxstorytheater
Do you follow anyone on Twitter that is creating interesting stories? Post them in the comments!
(And just so we're clear: "creating interesting stories" does NOT mean "promoting their business" (story-based or otherwise)
-----
So maybe you're not looking for Twitter to deliver bite-sized stories. Maybe you just think it'd be cool (for this year anyway) to receive real-time messages from working storytellers. In that case, here are some current storytellers with active or semi-active Twitter accounts:
Baba the Storyteller: @Djeliba
Hope Baugh: @Hope_Baugh
Karol Brown: @Browntones
Buck P Creacy: @BuckPCreacy
Lynn Duddy: @storywoman
EthNohTec: @ethnohtec
Tim Ereneta: @tereneta
Stephen Hollen: @mountainstories
Sean Buvala: @storyteller
Terry Free: @TerryFree
Rachel Hedman: @StorytellingAdv
Priscilla Howe: @priscillahowe
Dale Jarvis: @DaleJarvis
Carol Knarr: @ckanrr
Debra Olson-Tolar: @storytolar
Laura Packer: @storylaura
Ellouise Schoettler: @ellouisestory
Tim Sheppard: @TimSheppard
Dianne de las Casas: @storyconnection
BZ Smith: @bzsmith
Teresa Clark: @teresaclark
Limor Shiponi: @Storyteling
David Vanadia @Vanadia
Eric Wolf: @Ericwolf2
(Yes, I left out a bunch of "organizational narrative" and "corporate storytellers" who are very active on Twitter. That's by design. They've got their own blogs. When the day comes that they tell a story around a campfire, then I'll add them to my list here.)
August 17, 2008
Shout Out: massmouth
(yet another post in which I editorialize on a storytelling project thousands of miles away from me which I have not seen)
Cheers to Nora Dooley, Doria Hughes, and all those Massachusetts tellers involved in massmouth, a new project to produce and promote storytelling events in central Massachusetts.
Keep up with them at their blog, their Ning site, and their YouTube Channel.
My editorial comments: great idea, keep up the good work. Can't wait to see where this leads.
Cheers to Nora Dooley, Doria Hughes, and all those Massachusetts tellers involved in massmouth, a new project to produce and promote storytelling events in central Massachusetts.
Keep up with them at their blog, their Ning site, and their YouTube Channel.
My editorial comments: great idea, keep up the good work. Can't wait to see where this leads.
June 04, 2008
Shout Out: YouTube's Canal Narradores
Congrats to Martha Escudero and her fellow storytellers over in Barcelona. Her YouTube Channel just made the midday news in Barcelona (you can skip ahead to 1:15 in the clip, from Televisió de Catalunya) as a must-see online destination.
Since Canal Narradores (that's "Storyteller Channel" in English) came onto YouTube 9 months ago, it has set the standard for quality production for traditional storytelling on YouTube. Even if you don't speak Catalan or Spanish, check out some of the storytelling videos. Not knowing the words, you'll actually learn a lot about gesture, voice, inflection, and pauses... and what works on the small screen. You can also see how quality sound, lighting, and camerawork enhances the performance.
(Learn more about Spanish and Catalan storytelling at the ANIN, (Associació de Narradores i Narradors) website, which includes a directory, links to storytelling festivals and groups, and articles from their past newsletters.)
February 21, 2008
Is the Met the Future?
(I sent this to the Storytell list, in response to Gregory's post (below), but then thought it was too good to let disappear behind the gate of a closed listserv)
Author and storyteller Gregory Leifel (in his post, here) mentioned the Met (that's the Metropolitan Opera Association of New York City), which now has high definition live performances beamed via satellite to movie theaters in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
The Washington Post also notes that the Met is not content to share its performances in movie theaters:
(Tim Page, "Live Opera to Come to Movie Theaters", Washington Post, September 7, 2006)
More recent articles note that the first year was a success, that the Met is tripling the number of screens, and expects to reach one million viewers for the 2007-2008 season. (Ann Midget, "Met Opera to Expand in Theaters Across Globe," New York Times, August 9, 2007)
Can you imagine? An arts institution, 128 years old, confronts the reality of its marginalization by breaking out of its home, and brings what it does best out into the world. This, despite having multiple unions to deal with, and no doubt demanding donors.
This doesn't mean the Met will stop producing live opera. It can't. All the digital delivery systems in the world won't help you if you're not producing quality content.
Now I will grant you that there are no storytelling festivals with the endowment, the donor base, the general manager, or the history of the Metropolitan Opera.
But think of the storytelling festivals you've attended, or heard about.
Is their audience base shrinking or growing?
Is their audience aging?
Is the Festival locked into a specific venue and place, even if access to that venue limits the audience that can attend? (By capacity, or geographic distance, or obscurity, or lack of accomodations for out of town visitors)
Does it get any media attention (tv, radio)? And if it does, how deep is it? Is it a mention on the community calendar, two minutes on the news, or an hour long profile?
I know there are many logistical and economic hurdles keeping storytelling from being beamed live via satellite to movie theaters. I'm not advocating that, although it's a grand vision.
But how about radio?
How about television?
You can't claim that broadcasting a festival (either live, or after the fact) is technologically unfeasible.
And in this day and age, it is no more onerous to record and make available digitally live recordings from festivals than it is to do radio and television, and, I would submit, it's probably less expensive upfront and revenue generating over time. (Okay, I'll grant you, in many regions doing so would be ahead of the curve of what your audiences are looking for)
Sure, there are logistical hurdles. Working with partners new to the Festival environment (broadcast engineers, lighting and sound technicians).
Paperwork, legal releases. Revenue sharing arrangements.
My prediction: a savvy Festival, with a focused plan and diligent execution, could place itself as the premiere "brand" for storytelling in the mind of the public (even eclipsing those Festivals with longer histories or more clout in the storytelling community).
My further prediction: a startup venue will leap frog past all existing Festivals and do this within ten years. (The planning and technical execution you could do in two years, but it would take a few years to build the reputation... (and overcome the backlash from the existing storytelling community (and possible, some National organizations) that decry the "media"-ization of their beloved art form)). That's not to say this will come out of nowhere. Just that too many existing Festivals now are making the same mistake that the railroads did with the advent of the automobile and highway system: they focused on rails and trains, and not on the transportation business. Look around. You can see some new models of producing popping up. Keep an eye on them.
What are your predictions?
Author and storyteller Gregory Leifel (in his post, here) mentioned the Met (that's the Metropolitan Opera Association of New York City), which now has high definition live performances beamed via satellite to movie theaters in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
The Washington Post also notes that the Met is not content to share its performances in movie theaters:
One hundred additional live performances will be broadcast either over the Internet or on digital radio, with another 1,500 broadcasts from the past 75 years -- the Met's entire recorded history -- to be made available soon through an audio-on-demand service.
"It's only possible because the unions have put their faith in our ability to deliver what we promised them -- a means to build the audience and secure the health of the Met -- and, indeed, the health of opera as an art form," Gelb said in an interview. "Our audience is aging fast, and this technology will help us galvanize a new generation."
These transmissions will be possible because of a just-concluded arrangement with the Met's orchestra, chorus, ballet and stagehands, who voted in favor of a new media agreement after extensive negotiations this summer.
In the past, unions have demanded substantial upfront payments to all parties involved in performances -- making recordings, broadcasts and telecasts prohibitively expensive. Gelb calls the new revenue-sharing arrangement a "shift to a more fluid concept of media, in keeping with the infinite possibilities offered by modern technology."
(Tim Page, "Live Opera to Come to Movie Theaters", Washington Post, September 7, 2006)
More recent articles note that the first year was a success, that the Met is tripling the number of screens, and expects to reach one million viewers for the 2007-2008 season. (Ann Midget, "Met Opera to Expand in Theaters Across Globe," New York Times, August 9, 2007)
Can you imagine? An arts institution, 128 years old, confronts the reality of its marginalization by breaking out of its home, and brings what it does best out into the world. This, despite having multiple unions to deal with, and no doubt demanding donors.
This doesn't mean the Met will stop producing live opera. It can't. All the digital delivery systems in the world won't help you if you're not producing quality content.
Now I will grant you that there are no storytelling festivals with the endowment, the donor base, the general manager, or the history of the Metropolitan Opera.
But think of the storytelling festivals you've attended, or heard about.
Is their audience base shrinking or growing?
Is their audience aging?
Is the Festival locked into a specific venue and place, even if access to that venue limits the audience that can attend? (By capacity, or geographic distance, or obscurity, or lack of accomodations for out of town visitors)
Does it get any media attention (tv, radio)? And if it does, how deep is it? Is it a mention on the community calendar, two minutes on the news, or an hour long profile?
I know there are many logistical and economic hurdles keeping storytelling from being beamed live via satellite to movie theaters. I'm not advocating that, although it's a grand vision.
But how about radio?
How about television?
You can't claim that broadcasting a festival (either live, or after the fact) is technologically unfeasible.
And in this day and age, it is no more onerous to record and make available digitally live recordings from festivals than it is to do radio and television, and, I would submit, it's probably less expensive upfront and revenue generating over time. (Okay, I'll grant you, in many regions doing so would be ahead of the curve of what your audiences are looking for)
Sure, there are logistical hurdles. Working with partners new to the Festival environment (broadcast engineers, lighting and sound technicians).
Paperwork, legal releases. Revenue sharing arrangements.
My prediction: a savvy Festival, with a focused plan and diligent execution, could place itself as the premiere "brand" for storytelling in the mind of the public (even eclipsing those Festivals with longer histories or more clout in the storytelling community).
My further prediction: a startup venue will leap frog past all existing Festivals and do this within ten years. (The planning and technical execution you could do in two years, but it would take a few years to build the reputation... (and overcome the backlash from the existing storytelling community (and possible, some National organizations) that decry the "media"-ization of their beloved art form)). That's not to say this will come out of nowhere. Just that too many existing Festivals now are making the same mistake that the railroads did with the advent of the automobile and highway system: they focused on rails and trains, and not on the transportation business. Look around. You can see some new models of producing popping up. Keep an eye on them.
What are your predictions?
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