Storytelling Why people matter
[Music]
there is a narrative
all around us but the most engaging and
effective stories
i’ve come across in my 13-year career in
media
have had character around eight years
ago my husband and i were traveling
between london and bristol quite
regularly
as we were on fiancee and in the throes
of wedding planning
on one particular journey i noticed a
small spider had taken it upon himself
to get comfortable in the wing mirror of
our fiat punto
as we left london and thought nothing
more of it
until having been in bristol for a few
days making our way
from the church to the florist and i
noticed the same
small spider was still with us
fast forward five years and i’m heading
back to work after maternity leave with
a
whole load of mom guilt and the memory
strikes me again
and i decide to start writing the story
of towny spider
for my daughter florence towny spider
was an arachnid out of water
or his web in this instance at the time
i was working at the telegraph newspaper
heading up the video team and we were
optimistically trying to monetize our
content
we’d adopted a strategy that was all
about quantity
15 series of eight episodes to be
delivered
every two months working in media i’m
clearly no mathematician
but i was more than aware at the time
that this equated to a whopping 120
episodes
every eight weeks we were embracing a
heavily social media optimized approach
for a time-poor society
top-down filming instructional in 60
seconds
six quick steps etc etc
and it didn’t work we’d forgotten three
fundamental points consider the style
and tone
storytelling techniques and the element
of escapism
puts your audience people and characters
first a spider thrown to the four winds
and completely out of his comfort zone
is one thing
but much like towney for me this hasn’t
always been the case
having started out as a researcher and
producer in the commercially focused
world of interactive tv
i worked on some of the biggest programs
in the country the x factor
britain’s got talent who wants to be a
millionaire dancing on ice
to name but a few even then faced with
armchair critics who would tell us
whether we liked it or not how they
thought our programs
should be made we knew how to get it
right
the most successful competitions we ran
featured past winners
proved to the audience that they weren’t
indeed fixed or we had presenters
directly related to the prizes vicki
butler henderson and quentin wilson
giving away
cars subsidiary sponsors of programs
like the x factor and dancing on ice
were offering experiential tickets and
exclusive access
to immerse yourself and have a front row
ticket
to what everyone else in the country was
talking about that week
we developed mobile apps that allowed
you to purchase the clothes contestants
were wearing on love island
as you watch the program all the time
focused on those three key points
the style and tone storytelling
techniques and the element of escapism
put your audience people and characters
first
so our story continues some years later
not too dissimilar to our main
protagonist towny spider establishing
himself in his new homestead farmyard
environment
at the telegraph we had shifted tack we
were getting comfortable in our new
surroundings
i became the editorial driving force
behind telegraph films
and we started collaborating with the
bill and melinda gates health foundation
on issues such as antibiotic resistance
and the provision of snakebite antivenom
in africa
my own digital world started to evolve
too
i became the executive producer of
bryony gordon’s mental health podcasts
mad world
and if i can do it where we endeavor to
portray to the audience
that it’s perfectly normal to feel weird
we were keeping these three key points
at the heart of the matter
the style and tone storytelling
techniques and the element of escapism
put your audience people and characters
first
and it was working the prince harry
episode of madworld where he spoke about
the death of his mother when he was just
a child
made global headlines with the podcast
downloaded
millions of times around the world
and the digital world keeps evolving
today
the broadcasters publishers and
independent production companies of this
world
are faced with a newer bigger
brighter competitor the esports
or subscription video on demand service
if you will
the likes of amazon prime now tv
apple tv and the mighty netflix latest
stats from the broadcasters audience
research board
tell us that broadcast tv still accounts
for
68 of our video day
and with the average video viewing time
just under
five hours a day for all individuals
is there still space for s-fods and the
smaller fish in the video pond
to co-exist i now commissioned digital
documentaries for the bbc
and in doing a little research
discovered that
taking netflix as an example they’re
looking to spend
17.3 billion dollars
on original content this year alone
compare this to around 4 billion pounds
the bbc has to spend
which is used to fund all their tv
radio and online services
it makes you wonder whether these three
areas
i keep mentioning are going to suffer
the style and tone
storytelling techniques and the element
of escapism
puts your audience people and characters
first
much as the car company’s skoda
volkswagen
say and audi all use many of the same
parts
but we all have a preference over which
one we want to drive
in my opinion the s ford impact
conundrum
can only promote healthy competition and
creativity
in the video landscape yes netflix
has the money they can afford to engage
high-profile celebrities such as prince
harry and megan
spend a fortune on sports rights footage
and having the best basketball players
in the game
as contributors when it comes to
documentaries such as the last dance
engaged the hollywood elite as talent on
films such as the irishman and birdbox
with the latter receiving upwards of 89
million views and counting
yet the top viewed licensed tv shows on
netflix
in the us include the likes of friends
the office and grey’s anatomy so they’re
clearly still
mindful of giving the audience what they
want
particularly if it’s nostalgic
binge-worthy
and watchable in our pajamas much like
my beloved towny spider i’m now settled
into my current day-to-day environment
and find myself leading a team of very
talented young people
making content for young people and our
kpis have proven to be both flexible
and effective we’ve achieved audience
impact with the programme false hope
alternative cancer cures
which as well as coverage across
multiple bbc platforms
including bbc breakfast the today
program
radio 5 live and bbc three iplayer
saw the cancer act debated in parliament
as a direct result of the documentary
we got the style and tone completely
right
with you match the description stop and
search
a documentary that took a closer look at
controversial police regulations
and has since been shortlisted for a
broadcast digital award
we flexed our storytelling braun in go
back to where you came from
exploring themes of race identity and
white privilege in today’s society
we keep people and characters at the
heart
of everything we do
we might not have the sweeping drone
shot openers that most
netflix documentaries indulge in but if
you’re following a family stranded in
the middle of a syrian bombing
the roof caving in over them the walls
falling down
you can see the blood does it
matter if it’s filmed on a shaky
hand-held smartphone
or a state-of-the-art drone positioned
somewhere over the mediterranean sea
i wanted to conclude with a lesson that
towney learnt
and as his creator is at the heart of
everything i do
put people and characters first
i wouldn’t get anywhere in the work that
i do without a brilliant team of people
around me
friends colleagues and my family
my work in the mental health arena in
particular gained me a woman of the
future
award in 2018 and saw me named on the
financial times’s
kindness and leadership 50 leading
lights list in 2019
in september this year i was named a
yahoo finances heroes role model
for women future leaders making a
significant contribution
to gender diversity at work
and even towney spider got a look in and
was named in the top books for
children’s mental health
by modern magazine so
one last time to keep your narrative
effective
and engaging consider the style and tone
storytelling techniques and the elements
of escapism put your
audience people and characters first
we rise by lifting others
you