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HOST
Follow Jesse Oxford, Founder and Creative Director of OX Creative
@jesseoxford
@oxcreates
www.oxcreates.com
GUEST
Follow Kenneth Freyer
@kennethfreyer
INTRO:
Jesse Oxford: When it comes to telling a story in the middle of a disaster, Kenneth Freyer is your man. He's been in California towns immediately after wildfires destroyed everything. He was in New York City during the very first days of COVID-19. He's been in war torn regions and in natural disasters immediately after, or during the crisis itself.
QUOTE-ABLES:
Kenneth Freyer: Why I love storytelling so much and why I am pursuing this? Because there's nothing more fulfilling than meeting somebody and letting them pour their heart out to you. And then you having the responsibility, and the privilege to honor them through a really good story.
KF: There's also this pressure, because I think there's a pressure to get the material, get the content, but there's also a pressure to make it good and make it thoughtful, and make it respect the culture, or the people that you're interacting with. And so it's a fine line between, fulfilling your goal or changing your goal and seeing what the reality is when you're there.
KF: For the most part there's this idea that if you can grab the attention before somebody else does, then you're going to do more for your cause or more for your brand than the other person. So I think, what people always turn towards is, how do I grab their heart? How do I grab their attention? I have to tell a compelling story. It has to be this thing that means something. And I think, there's a lot of times, especially with commercial work or more corporate brands, I think it's something that can devalue the story.
JO: So often, we focus our stories on what makes us different, instead of what makes us the same. But the truth is the stories that have the most broad ranging, global appeal, are ones that are told about the things we all share in common. Motherhood, dreams for our future, hard work, providing for your family. These are things that everyone, no matter where you were born, what your education, is or what opportunities have been afforded to you, we can all relate to.
KF: There's a lot of people make excuses, there's a lot of people that are, I just don't have the ability to go tell good stories, but your neighbor has a story. The people that you work with have stories. Everyone has something, some quirk. A lot of times when I'm telling stories or meeting people, I find that one thing that makes them stand out. Maybe it's a record player, or maybe you just tell one really good story, versus trying to pump out 12 stories while you're on the ground for a week. But I do think that there is value, in bridging culture, and bridging gaps, and empathizing and crying with people in tears.
JO: Motive, shapes everything. And for me, what I hope differentiates my work from any other type of story that I could be telling, is that I want to be creating things for good. I really want to bring out good in the world. I know that I could have built a successful career, just helping brands earn money. But I truly believe that often the voices who need to be heard the most, never have their stories told. And that's what I love about Kenneth and the work that he does.
HOST
Follow Jesse Oxford, Founder and Creative Director of OX Creative
@jesseoxford
@oxcreates
www.oxcreates.com
GUEST
Follow Jeremy Courtney
@thejcourt
@preemptivelove
INTRO:
Jesse Oxford: I first met Jeremy while I was doing a documentary project in Northern Iraq in 2017. We were introduced through a mutual friend who told me about the great work his organization Preemptive Love was doing on the front lines, first in heart surgery after the insurgency, and then deterring the refugee crisis due to ISIS. Jeremy and his family have lived in Iraq through it all. One memory that stands out in my mind is driving to drop off his young son at Tae Kwon Do one afternoon, by himself. This runs counter to the narrative that many Westerners have come to imagine when they think of daily life in Iraq.
Preemptive Love is an organization that exists to end war. Jeremy has learned the power of stories to help shape fears and friendships that can be formed between different groups, both overseas, and even here in the US. So I wanted to ask Jeremy if stories are currencies, do all stories carry the same weight and value as we work to create good in the world?
QUOT-ABLES
Jeremy Courtney: I like the notion that stories are the currency of human relationships, because it's how we make meaning of whatever, everything. Everything comes down to quote unquote, "the story we tell ourselves."
JC: How we talk about Muslims in America has a profound impact on how we treat Muslims with our bombs and bullets and troops and aid and policies in a place like Iraq or Syria. But, to go even farther, how we talk about black and brown people in America, how we talk about anyone, has a profound impact on what we do in other parts of the world as well. And so we're in this together, and the question that remains is, are we going to rise together or are we going to drag each other all down to the bottom together?
JC: We're not permanently a jobs organization, though we do those things. We're primarily an organization that exists to end war. And to do that, we're going to have to do some introspection
JO: The word story has become so often used that I think we often forget that a story is not a format. Not all books are stories, and not all films are stories either. Stories can be read, heard, seen, and experienced. And within each of those verticals, there are hundreds of different durations that stories can be told in. You can read a story as a novel, as a short story, an article, a caption, or a tweet. A tweet is a form of story too. And these days I think that one of the most valued formats of stories in the world, for better or worse, is digital storytelling.
JC: How we talk about Muslims in America has a profound impact on how we treat Muslims with our bombs and bullets and troops and aid and policies in a place like Iraq or Syria. But, to go even farther, how we talk about black and brown people in America, how we talk about anyone, has a profound impact on what we do in other parts of the world as well. And so we're in this together, and the question that remains is, are we going to rise together or are we going to drag each other all down to the bottom together?
JO: What stories do you feel like we're over-telling? Or what stories are you sick of hearing about?
Jeremy Courtney: Well, I'll say simple stories.
JO: What would make a story like simple in your mind, as you use the word?
JC : This is the good guy, this is the bad guy. And we fixed it. One of the maxims of marketing is that simplicity sells. And one of the things that a lot of us respect about Apple was the degree to which Steve Jobs could just come in and hit something with a simple stick and knock away the dross and reduce it to an even more basic format, cleaner format. And that truism holds. But I think what we have to ask is, but what are the side effects?
JC: Out with the old lie that we are this great good in the world who doesn't make mistakes and we are singularly and universally better than the governments and better than business and all that. [Instead lets puruse transparency. Lets say] here's where we screwed up. Here's lessons we're learning. Here's what we need to do better." And it's been an effort to, I think, move closer to what you've said here, that many of us are realizing that the world is just more complex than what we were often told it was. And those who refuse to reckon with it are going to get left behind.
HOST
Follow Jesse Oxford, Founder and Creative Director of OX Creative
@jesseoxford
@oxcreates
www.oxcreates.com
GUEST
Follow Bjorn Amundsen
@bjorn_amundsen_dp
INTRO
I have known Bjorn for probably around 15 years. I met him first as a graphic designer. Him and I collaborated on design. Then I knew him as a photographer as he picked up a camera and just started taking beautiful images. After that, I knew him as a cinematographer, and that's what he does today. Over the years, regardless of what art form he decides to pick up and put his skills and energy towards, he is amazing at it. I would describe Bjorn as a gentle challenger. He isn't like a person to always go along with what the latest convention is, but he wants to be on the cutting edge. But in his thinking and his pursuit of that, of creating things that stand out from the norm, is that he really critically thinks about things and wants to challenge the way things are done and the way things are thought about, but he does it in a very uplifting, encouraging way. So when I asked him the first question about what makes stories special, I wasn't surprised that he would respond with this.
QUOT-ABLES:
Jesse Oxford: When Bjorn thinks about storytelling, he thinks in three categories. Story, poetry and spectacle.
Bjorn Amundsen: I think that story is important, but I also think that poetry is important. And I think that some people respond more to poetry than they do to story. And I think poetry tends to be a little more abstract and open to interpretation. Story is usually a bit more linear or concrete. Like it's easier to follow.
BA: If you were to go to a firework show, you kind of set your expectations for, "I'm going to see fireworks." Nobody comes away from fireworks going, "You know, I just didn't think the story was there."
BA: What I personally, and a lot of other people that I know have responded well to, is to highlight the story of a human being who is in a place of struggle, but really making the hero of that story be that individual as opposed to the organization, because it's easier to connect to a person than an organization.
JO: As I reflected more on what Bjorn was talking about, it really has made me think more about the question, where are we choosing to take risks as storytellers? A lot of the times we take risks in the style, like the color choice, a visual effect, the music we use. But I think for most of us, a lot of the times we don't think about risks in terms of how we go about solving the problem. We know that when the world needs something, we're being asked to produce, for example, a three-minute video about it. But what if the best way to capture people's attention isn't a video at all? Or maybe we're telling the wrong side of the story.
BA: I think that all of us have a certain amount of bias. I think it's healthy to try and overcome the bias so that you can have a more well-rounded perspective.
BA: I would say to people who are doing nonprofit storytelling, I think a lot of times new and good things require risk. Finding the right collaborators who are passionate about story and who care about people and who have lots of production experience might challenge the way you've done things in the past. If you're working with artists and people who you trust and you're looking at their work and it's the kind of work that you want to do, I would encourage you to take some of those risky steps with those collaborators.
HOST
Follow Jesse Oxford, Founder and Creative Director of OX Creative
@jesseoxford
@oxcreates
www.oxcreates.com
GUEST
Follow Benjamin Von Wong
@vonwong
INTRO:
JO: I first met Ben at the Story Conference in Nashville. He and I were both presenting there. And later on that year, we had the opportunity to collaborate together on an art installation. And as we spent time in our studio and here in Chicago, in between all the days of fabricating, of just trying to figure out creative challenges and just spending a lot of hard work and trying to build this thing. One thing that stood out to me about Ben was that he didn't just want to create work that he was proud of, but he wanted to make work that really made a difference in the world.
QUOT-ABLES:
BVW: There's a difference between output and outcome. And so when a brand hires a storyteller to tell a story, they're looking for an output. They just want that piece of content that they can spread. But I think when you get into the impact space and you start caring deeply about what that piece of work is going to do, it doesn't become about the output, it becomes about the outcome.
So let's take a company, Patagonia, for example. It's got this amazing brand that has done great things for the environment, they're all about environment first. But besides the people who buy a Patagonia branded jacket, to say, "I care about the environment and my money is going a little bit further, because I know it's being reinvested into something that I love, the outdoors." Why have stronger communities not spawned as a result of that?
JO: Robert McKee, he wrote the book, Story, and he had a quote that says, "Stories are the currency of human relationships." And when I heard that for the first time, I was like, "Wow, stories is a currency." Is it true that there's no poverty when it comes to stories? And if that's a currency that, everybody's on the same page, everybody's equal. What comes to your mind?
BVW: That's interesting. I think, my first reaction was actually the opposite of yours. So your reaction was, "If we all have the power to tell stories, then we're all equal." I went the opposite direction and went, "Well, we all might have the power to tell stories, but not all stories get the same chance to be heard. Not all stories get the same opportunities." And in which case, distribution matters, people with louder voices get heard more, not because they're better storytellers, but just because they're louder or better at using the systems in which they take place.
BVW: I do think there is the common thread, regardless of language, is emotional timber, right? We have all felt love. We have all felt loss. We have all felt grief. And so if you do have the opportunity, let's remove those polarizing elements for a second, there is truly an opportunity to connect. Should we take the time or have the opportunity to, and from there can come a sense of understanding and there is no better way to do that, than story, right?
BVW: There's a difference between output and outcome. And so very much when a brand hires a storyteller, a studio, or otherwise to tell a story, they're looking for an output, they just want that piece of content that they can spread. But I think when you get into the impact space and you start caring deeply about what that piece of work is going to do, it doesn't become about the output. It becomes about the outcome. So what is the outcome of the project that you've created? How has that moved the needle in one direction or another, and why? And I think that question is the one that's missing from the general narrative. People focus very much on the output, companies measure outputs. They're all quantitative, and occasionally qualitative, but very much still driven by output as opposed to the outcome.