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News from BDSJS and Facing Climate Change
Deep Hanging Out at Collaborations for Cause
I’m happy to report that Collaborations for Cause, Blue Earth’s first annual storytelling retreat for photographers, nonprofits and communications professionals, was a huge success! Over a hundred people from places like Seattle, British Columbia, South Carolina and New Mexico joined us on Whidbey Island for two days of “deep hanging out” (see Scott Macklin’s four Rs of storytelling below).
Benj and I shared six case studies from recent projects. Benj also moderated a fantastic panel on publishing, partnerships and environmental advocacy, featuring Hellen Cherullo from Mountaineers Books, Dan Ritzman from the Sierra Club and Gary Hawkey from ioColor. The group discussed To the Arctic, an inspiring new photography book by our friend Florian Schulz. Florian himself gave a powerful keynote later that evening.
There were too many other amazing speakers and topics to list in this post, but here are five bits of storytelling wisdom that I came home with:
“Engagement first, stories second… Don’t just tell stories, give them something to do.”
— Dan Green, Gates Foundation
“Vision is more than a collection of opinions. It’s what ought to be.”
— Milenko Matanovic, Pomegranate Center
“Don’t dumb it down, break it up.”
— Suzie Katz, PhotoWings
“Hope is not a strategy, but it’s core to our work.”
— Helen Cherullo, Mountaineers Books
And here are the four Rs of storytelling according to Scott Macklin, Associate Director of the Master of Communications in Digital Media program at the UW:
- Relationship: Don’t just create stories about people. Make stories with them.
- Relevance: Ensure your story is relevant through “deep hanging out.”
- Rigor: Practice your craft.
- Result: It’s not all about getting an “A” on the first draft.
Finally, Cathy Britt (@CathyABritt) from the Burke Museum put together a comprehensive summary of key points, tweets and case studies:
storify.com/CathyABritt/collaborations-for-cause
A big thanks to everyone who came out. Get ready for an even bigger and better retreat next year!
All photos © Tim Matsui.
An update on Facing Climate Change
We’ve been working with a lot of great clients recently, which hasn’t left us with much time for our personal project, Facing Climate Change. However, we have some exciting news to share!
Over the summer and fall we received two generous contributions that allow us to focus exclusively on finishing a new series of stories, based in the Pacific Northwest, through this spring. One of the grants came from the Kongsgaard-Goldman Foundation for $8,000 and the other is from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for $12,000.
The other good news is that we have a new project partner, the Washington State Department of Ecology. They helped us connect with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and we plan to work with them to distribute the stories through a series of community events next summer. It turns out that our series fits perfectly with a community outreach mandate they have for their upcoming Climate Change Response Strategy.
You can learn more about Facing Climate Change on our website, and follow our progress over the coming months on this blog.
Multimedia workshop: The High Ridge
Our friends at North Cascades Institute have been connecting people, nature and community for 25 years. This fall, we helped them to celebrate this milestone by leading a hands-on multimedia workshop. They just launched a brand-new website with the video we created at that workshop, The High Ridge: Celebrating 25 years in the North Cascades.
When the Institute first approached us about creating a story for their 25th anniversary, they didn’t necessarily have a workshop in mind. But the more we discussed the project – along with the organization’s expanding needs, staff interest and new website – building in-house capacity to produce videos and multimedia made the most sense.
The workshop took place over five days on Canoe Island in the San Juans. In the months leading up to our week together, three Institute staff members – Amy, Christian and Jessica – purchased a video camera and learned how to use it, conducted a dozen interviews, transcribed them into more than 60,000 words, and sorted through archival footage.
We spent Monday setting up workstations, reviewing transcripts, identifying major themes and a story outline, and sharing relevant examples. The next morning we got out our highlighters and scissors, identified relevant quotes from the transcripts and sorted them by theme: in this case, where did we come from and why does our work matter? We chose passages that most efficiently communicated this message and sequenced them into a rough paper edit. This took most of the day.
We decided to use this cut-and-sort approach because of the large amount of source material, and because it allowed multiple people to work on the transcript at one time. This is the same process that I use at home, except that rather than physically cut apart my transcripts, I usually copy and paste them into a document. We always create a paper edit before we begin to work in Final Cut.
With the paper edit complete, piecing the audio together moved relatively quickly. I should mention that this was our first time using Final Cut X, and Benj and I have since decided to integrate the program into our own workflow. Once we had what I refer to as a “radio edit,” the group gave it a listen and made a list of changes.
On Thursday, I worked with Amy to finalize the radio edit, while Christian and Benj began placing video and sequencing visuals that Jessica provided from the Institute’s extensive archive. This work continued late into the night. Friday, we watched a draft of the video and made a list of changes. We quit just in time to paddle a kayak around the island.
Amy, Christian and Jessica returned to the Institute and finished sequencing visuals and filling holes. We spent one more day together, learning about color correction, titles, compression and putting on the final touches.
We hope you’ll watch The High Ridge, and join North Cascades Institute in celebrating their next 25 years in the North Cascades.
The Natural Histories Project
In June the Natural History Initiative held a fourth and final synthesis workshop at North Cascades Environmental Learning Center. Throughout this year we documented the first three of these workshops (focused on natural history and society, education and research), recording conversations between pairs of participants and combining them with intimate portraits. The results are featured as a series of broadsides and an interactive website.
After the last workshop we added more than 30 new conversations to the website, bringing the grand total up to 99. But that’s not all that’s new. Originally called From Decline to Rebirth, the project has a brand-new name: The Natural Histories Project. And there is now a short video to introduce it.
With all of this new stuff, the Natural History Network decided it was time for a website that would help the organization to maximize the impact of the workshops and this project. So we worked with our good friend and frequent collaborator Darin Reid to build them one.
“It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a naturalist,” says the Network’s vice-president Josh Tewksbury, “perhaps the most exciting time to be a naturalist that has ever existed on this planet.” We hope you will watch our new video to find out why, join the Network and (most importantly) get out to practice your own natural histories!
Tanzania x 2: Coming soon!
We recently got back from our second trip to Tanzania with Conservation International’s Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring Network (TEAM). The goal of this trip was to create a portfolio of images that illustrate ecosystem services and the Network’s biodiversity monitoring initiatives. We’ll share these images, along with a brand-new magazine that we produced from our first trip in the coming weeks.
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