Sunday, June 10, 2007

Ira Glass on video-storytelling

Via Beth Kanter, we got in touch with Steve Bridger who did a presentation on online fundraising. I missed it, but I'll definitely go through his presentation! It was nice to meet up, but even more surprising is that I only found out back home that he is the blogger of the npf2 blog, which I already followed via my bloglines. I realise it's more fun to read a blog when you know something about the blogger. And realize I had never shown any interest in the writers of some of the blogs I read.

On his blog I read the blogpost Bring the love back which links to a microsoft video with a short scene in a restaurant between a guy with 'the advertiser' on his t-shirt and a woman with 'the consumer' on her t-shirt. It funny and a sort of metaphore story. I'm thinking this should be a next step for my vlogging process. I've experimented a lot with interviews, which are straightforward, but I would like to experiment with new forms too. Via the yahoo-group on videoblogging I found this - longish- video with Ira Glass (There's one with Dave Eggers too!). He explains that a good story is composed of three building blocks:
1. an anecdote (with a sequence of events)
2. the bait (constantly raised question)
3. the point of the story (the moment of reflection, should not be predictable)

He also stresses that you have to record a lot of crap before getting to high quality work. (heard that before with regard to painting!).

2 comments:

Bill Williams said...

Went looking for the David Eggers video you mention but couldn't locate it (think it might just be "coming soon").
Indeed Eggers is not completely unrelated to your themes, Joitske, as his latest book is a sort of faction based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng, originally from Southern Sudan who survived many of the traumatic experiences young people of that region have been going through.
LRB article here:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/jone01_.html

Joitske said...

Hi Bill, that's the book I'm about the finish :). It's a great book indeed.