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| Photo by Javardh on Unsplash |
The coronavirus pandemic has emphasised the importance of local experts. As most of the storytellers are either fearing to travel or not getting a go-ahead from their organisations for travelling to field sites, the collection of stories, photos and videos have all fall upon the shoulders of local storytellers.
Accused of not being able to see the bigger picture and lack of skills and creativity, the local experts were never in more demand than in this pandemic. And if you’re a communicator, you might have felt the same. I too, from the start of the pandemic, have been involved in helping the local experts enhance their storytelling skills. So that they can collect the content and send us stories from the project sites.
Locals know the situation and problem much better than any outsider and given a chance, they can churn out authentic stories. Comic Relief, a major charity based in the UK, has decided to employ local filmmakers with a ‘more authentic perspective’ for its fundraising. Sir Lenny Henry, the charity’s co-founder in an interview with the BBC, said: “…it’s time for young black and brown filmmakers to take charge and say, ‘I want to tell you my story’.”
But how to coordinate the process? Let me share with you some simple steps you can follow to get good content from your project sites. Since you'll need to contact local experts online, make sure they are able to connect either through an internet service provider connection or mobile data.
First, find out the skills and equipment the local experts have. This will give you an idea of the type of content you can expect from them. If needed, you can help them improve their storytelling, photography and videography skills. A quick run-through of basic storytelling and photography rules will do wonder. Knowing the equipment – camera or smartphone – will allow to get the best from them. Not most of us use all the features of the smartphone or camera we carry all the time.
Second, orient them on your storytelling framework and content collection template. Since, a story can be told in different ways, It’s always good to stick to a framework that works best for your organisation. For me, ‘Put a man on a tree, throw stones at him, get him out of the tree’ works best. It exactly fits the development narrative – you talk about the background, problems and then finally the solutions. However, I’ve seen organisations starting from the good news – the positive outcomes and then talking about the problems and interventions.
In both the cases, make sure you have a template of content collection ready with you. And don’t forget the essentials of the template – 5W, 1H (What, who, when, where, why and how) along with the name of the interviewer, links to consent forms or audio, photographs and videos. It’s always easier to fill up the templates and be consistent. (I’ll talk about it in the next post.)
Third, set a timeline, follow up and feedback. We all are busy and doing something for someone else needs extra effort. And we all tend to forget. So, it’s always good to agree on a timeline and there’s no harm in following up with the local experts whether they have collected the stories and pictures or not. Once you get the content from them, analyse them and don’t forget to feedback. This will help them get better at content collection and you’ll get the right content. For example, while taking the pictures, they might miss taking different shots (close-up, medium and long shots), orientations (portrait and landscape) and applying general rules (e.g., rule of thirds). As a communicator, you need all varieties of shots for uses in different media and it won’t be good on your part to ask them to visit the same community member again and reshoot the pictures. And you can avoid this by giving them feedback on their initial assignments.
Finally, look for something interesting in the story. All stories are interesting, provided you tell them in an interesting manner. Ask the local experts to tell stories behind names, tradition, culture and even mundane chores and household items that might be of interest for people living in different parts of the world. For instance, while traversing the Chepang Trail, we stopped at a place called Hattibang and were fascinated to learn from a local that the place has been named after a huge boulder. In Chepang language ‘bang’ means a stone and it resembled the head of an elephant. The Nepali word for an elephant is ‘hatti’. Including such small details make the stories interesting. And believe me the readers will remember them for a long time!
Most of the above learning comes from the September - October 2020 content collection trip for Turn the Tables on Climate Change campaign. Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.
