Note from Nick: We’ll be running content from our friends over at the International Academy of Film and Television in Los Angeles on CHUD, hopefully sharing some new voices and opinions and eventually creating a conduit from the Sewer there and back again. If you’re in Los Angeles and pondering films school, find them at IAFT.net.

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TELLING STORIES

by Michael Chasin

Going home.

It’s a moving sentiment—which everyone can relate to.

Add in the underdog elements of crying and bleeding and the selfless goal of achieving something magical for your people and you have—an emotional story.

LeBron James recently told that story—as a way to announce his changing teams and cities.

By telling it as a story, the information became personal and relatable and helped to make his action something that could be understood, identified with—and accepted.

Storytelling is a powerful tool.

Motivational speakers don’t preach so much about the prize—as tell stories about stumbling on the climb.

Politicians make their messages resonate—by telling stories about individuals.

Astute business leaders know that pie charts and PowerPoints glaze eyes—but it is the story weaved into the metrics that moves the audience to the intended action.

It has been theorized in Carl Jung’s collective unconscious—and Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey—that the need to hear stories is part of our very being.

All that matters is that information is more compelling when presented as—a story.

So, if you are a filmmaker who also makes commercials or games or training videos—remember to tell a story.

Tell a story about a hero we can identify with, as a victim of undeserved misfortune, who overcomes increasing obstacles, and who prevails—for the good of his/her people.

That commercial or game or training video—told as a story—will be transformed—into something moving.