Marketing Worskhop: Video Endorsement

Our next marketing workshop is on May 15, 2010 in Vista (San Diego), California. Registration deadline is May 1. See the website at http://www.outsideinstorytelling.com.My thanks to Mark Goldman for this video.


The official blog for K. Sean Buvala, storyteller and storytelling coach.

New DaddyTeller Intro Video: Let Me Be Your Coach

We updated the new intro video over at the main DaddyTeller.com site. Here's the latest incarnation as we work harder to help dads learn how to telll a story to children. Learn more family storytelling techniques in all the free videos at daddyteller.com/vids.






The official blog for K. Sean Buvala, storyteller and storytelling coach.

DaddyTeller Free Training Video #5

(from my www.daddyteller.com site)
Dads: Should you get close to your kids? Yes! The father role in bedtime kids' stories is get close and snuggly. You can't do that with a book in your hands! Here's more information in this free "how to tell a story" video. See all our videos of storytelling techniques at http://www.daddyteller.com/vids .

Get the DaddyTeller Paperback at Amazon.com via this link here.

If Amazon is sold out, order a paperback copy of this book direct from the printer. Please click on this link now.
All the free vids are listed on this page here.

Video: How to Use Gestures in Storytelling and Public Speaking

Here's a brand new, eight-minute video on using gestures in storytelling and public speaking skills. We are thinking about making a series of storytelling techniques videos. Storytelling for teens? Storytelling for business? This is a prototype we assembled here in the office. (I said "we" like I have a monkey in shirt pocket.)YouTube of course botches the quality of these things but you can see a High-Quality version at YouTube or I can get you the 1.7 Gig version if you want it. Don't watch it in full-screen. Eww.

Have fun watching. It was fun to make. Any of you video production people want to joint venture with me on a project? Ahem.




The official blog for K. Sean Buvala, storyteller and storytelling coach.

Are Videos Really Storytelling?

Over at Kathy Hansen's excellent blog, A Storied Career, she posted a very popular video that's floating around the Internet. It's a visual explanation of the financial crisis. I truly enjoy Kathy's blog and think she's one of the few quality and consistent bloggers for storytelling out there.

I disagreed, in this case, that the video was storytelling. Regarding the video and digital storytelling, my casual comments I left were:

It's informative.
It's useful.
It's fun to watch.
It's a great video experience.
It's educational.
It's a way to understand a complex subject.
It should be seen by many people.
It's something that I am glad that I watched.
It's something that deserves attention.

It doesn't need to tagged as storytelling to make it valuable. It stands well on it's own as a powerful video that serves a good purpose. It has value as art in its use of video.

If everything is storytelling, then nothing is storytelling.

It's not storytelling.

A hammer is no less a valuable tool just because it's not a screwdriver.

This video doesn't have to be storytelling in order to still be excellent.

And it is excellent.

Kathy, you have illustrated the a real issue: Just what is storytelling?

For me, storytelling takes people. I have videos on YouTube of me doing storytelling, but the videos are *not* storytelling. They are video records of my storytelling and they pale by compare to the video quality and technique of the above video you posted.

We do a disservice to both storytelling expertise and video expertise by not treating each to its own unique charism and definition.

I can talk about the financial crisis by retelling (speaking) the stories of others or using world tales to illustrate the meaning. A program of these stories, used to frame the video above, would be a powerful evening of conveying an idea through the dual communication methods of storytelling and video.

If I had to attach a shelf to a wall, I would have different tools to choose from based on how I wanted the shelf attached. I could use a hammer, screwdriver or glue gun, for example. Each is a different way of getting to the same goal.

If I had to talk about the financial crisis, I could choose different tools based on how I wanted the audience to understand the issue. I could use oral storytelling, writing, video or dance. Each is a different way of getting to the same goal.

I shall stop rambling now.

Let's stop calling all communication storytelling. Let's recognize that there are many ways to get a message out and storytelling, the one-to-one even-in-a-crowd oral technique (or ASL), is one very exciting way. Let's not dilute everything into one single pool called storytelling. Let's value the many ways to express story.

Having practiced and taught the art of storytelling for many years, I think it's the most effective and cost effective way to communicate. However, I know that all art forms (video included) are equally important contributors to the conversation.

By the way, add Kathy's blog to your regular reading. It's that good.

The official blog for K. Sean Buvala, storyteller and storytelling coach.

The Storyteller and the Security Camera

The official blog for K. Sean Buvala, storyteller and storytelling coach.

More Pics from the February Marketing Camp

Register for the next camp at this link.

The official blog for K. Sean Buvala, storyteller and storytelling coach.

Something's Cooking with Storytelling on Video and New Media

::facetious on::

Silly Tim. You can’t put storytelling on video and new media. “Everybody” knows that.

You know how I know? I look at the miserable failure of COOOKING on TV and the new media. Just like storytelling, audiences must be right there in the kitchenwhen cooking is happening. Just like audiences must be sitting in the tents when storytelling is happening.

Who in their right mind would put something like cooking on TV? For one thing, the audience can’t get the nuances. You can’t smell cooking on video. You can’t even TASTE the food on television. No one would be interested in that: pictures of cooking?

Oh sure, you could see and hear the cooking of great chefs, but you can’t really tell the exact way the cook holds the handles of the utensils or the fancy way they wiggle their eyebrows as they turn the stove fires higher. And, if the camera, moves away at the wrong moment, then you miss things. Cooking is all about spontaneity! If cooks planned when to look at the camera or to which camera they would be looking at, then it wouldn’t be real cooking any more, it would be some type of empty pie-shell of what real cooking is. Video would ruin cooking forever.

Besides, my grandmother used to cook like an angel. You didn’t see her doing cooking on television. Heck, she didn’t even own a TV and her cooking was just fine, thank you. Although, sometimes I wish I had her recipe for making polish sausages. You know, it was the kind made from scratch, ground right there in the kitchen, that only she could do? But she never documented how she did it. Nobody has the recipe.

And your foolish dreams continue- storytelling on video? Let’s think more about FOOD. NETWORK people don’t want to do cooking on TV, there is no money in it. Like a whole TV channel could be about food? The network would have videos and DVD’s for sale? Maybe the authors and cooks would have their own shows? What are you smoking..a turkey? Do you expect that maybe they’d sell more books or get more live appearances, maybe even sponsors? Would more people would start cooking and taking classes just because they saw it on this newfangled new media? Of course not!

Crazy talk, lad. Crazy talk.

I bet you think they should let just anybody watch their TV cooking programs, (where you can’t even smell or taste the food) and maybe even make copies of the shows they didn’t pay for? Downloading their recipes? Tim, stop this silliness. Those chefs would be so broke if they gave it all away.

And even if they were successful, they would tarnish their cooking with all that filthy money they made. And tarnish with with success...and with being able to make a living...and with being able to have a car that works...And with being able to do something about hunger.

If you put storytelling on TV and video, you’d have all kinds of problems. First off, you’d lose all the nuances and the spontaneity of storytelling.

And on this video and new media, how do we know they’d actually be doing Real Storytelling(tm) as officially sanctioned by the Dragon Tellers(tm) of America (tm)? Have you seen what skateboarders do with video? What would happen if kids could just record storytelling and start posting it? It would be like The Moth to the flame, I tell you!Dangerous.

And then, if people could see storytelling on video, they’d download all the stories in the world and then no one would come to any live storytelling events, let alone pay for any live storytelling. There would be no interest in live storytelling because they saw it all on TV. Just like cooking shows would be the end of cooking, storytelling shows would be the end of storytelling. And the end of making any living at storytelling.

But that is okay, because we are artistes! Money is dirty and marketing is only for the
selfish, crazy used-car-sales-like storytellers who use Email (and BLOGS!) to promote themselves. 30 years ago no storytellers even had Email or Blogs. All they had was hay! It is important that folks who like storytelling go back and touch that original hay ‘cuz that is where real storytelling started.

Please, Tim, stop all this dreaming. Cooking and Storytelling just aren’t meant for video and all this new media.

::/facetious off::

Image courtesy of Jacci Howard Bear http://desktoppub.about.com/
::The official blog of Storyteller K. Sean Buvala::

New Video: The Demon Cat

Just added a new video over on the YouTube Oral Storytelling Group. Recorded live at the 2007 TalkStory festival mainstage. Come enjoy. YouTube usually just shreds videos but the quality on this one is pretty good. Go here now.

The official blog for K. Sean Buvala, storyteller and storytelling coach.

New Video: Rapunzel

Courtesy of the good folks of the Talk Story Festival in Hawaii, I've got a WHOLE bunch of new videos to share with you. So, bandwidth be damned, here is the first of several I can offer you. DON'T repost this, but feel free to have others come here to see it. My take on Rapunzel is here for you now in a video that is compatible with Ipods, Itunes and QuickTime, which is probably on your computer at this very moment. Get the video by clicking on this link right now. WAIT for it, it's a huge file. Patience.

More about TalkStory in a future blog.