storytelling it's everywhere movies books music news religion you name it stories are all around us every day stories can be short  ernest hemingway once wrote a novel in six words goes like this for sale baby shoes never worn stories can be long the seventeenth century novel do unfortunately we ran out of cox but the reservation keeps the car here that's why you have the reservation i know why we have reservations i don't think you know they can make us cry tomorrow though ok because tomorrow is going to be your first day if you'd like to work would you like that chris yourself could we couldn't be happier so welcom called happiness now no one really knows where storytelling began but it's safe to say was a long time ago what we do know is that good storytellers have been repaired throughout the ages before man even learned to write he had to remember things when those things were interesting and compelling stories they were a lot easier to remember so the storyteller had an important place in society he ensured that the stories of individual cultures and he finding events could be passed down through generations stories are tools all of us can use to reach people to touch their hearts their minds were both why are they so powerful maya angelo once said using them as north stars for instance now we can ourselves try and find our own answers to questions that plague us and find information to make informed decisions but instead of finding clear answers we often find noise we're living in a world where we have too much information and because of that we're even more susceptible to great story it's what six decide what to believe in stories are important because they're meaningful and they're meaningful because they're memorable and powerful and they personally connect first let's talk about memorability eugene o'kelly was a c e o of a consulting company he started having headaches he was referred to a top neurosurgeon in new york where he was diagnosed a late stage brain cancer and he was given three months to live he start talking to his wife how does he want to spend those hundred days he was purposeful about who he spent time with and what stories to share with them he also thought hard about what would be remembered in those last one hundred days wife would live each day with a focus on finding perfect moments where time expands and when noises separated from cinema all that exists is that simple moment and he found in those perfect moments those were the most memorable stories that defined his life sheet of paper and write down every single idea they remember only five percent remember any statistic sixty three percent of students remember the story stories are memorable and sticks are now let me talk about impact research shows that individuals are more likely to buy from a person or an organization whose story they believe in and which resonates in one study at the university of pennsylvania and her colleagues wanted to determine how to best raise money for save the children story and when a story is well told they're able to feel connected not just to the story but to the storyteller when most of us think of advocating for ideas we go to statistics we go to committing arguments facts and figures but studies show that if we share a story people are more likely to remember the message he persuaded by i feel personally connected to and when data and stories are used to gather audiences or move both intellectually and emotionally for a lasting effect you need to persuade the rational brain but also resonate with emotional brain recent behavioral research on why stories are so powerful it's because they're meaningful those who tell the best stories will become the best leaders if we is nothing but noise between those two unfathomable silences but there is signal and there is no noise and how do we reduce the noise story stories can move us in ways that almost nothing else can they can make us feel think laugh learn you probably remember countless stories from your childhood that you absolutely know you will never forget anyone remember anything about how a bill becomes a law and just of paper it's a little guy named bill classic story telling me that i will but i am still just to this technique can also be used very effectively to get us to buy things you've just seen some pictures of macintosh now i'd like to show you macintosh in person all of the images you're about to see on the large screen will be generated by what's in that bag great to get out of that so we've told you why we tell stories now onto the matter of how we tell that it will start with a story you may have seen before now we can probably all agree this is a pretty effective story how does it work here's a breakdown of how this story gets to us the story begins with a wide shot a scene setter it gives the viewer a sense of place and time but the scene is  unremarkable it's not set in a picturesque mountain range and you don't notice the trees or grass you focus on the sign and the setting because that's what good opens do they give you a sense of place the pen movement of the camera is left to right a nice idea because you're reading the sign left to right it would've been next to impossible to read if the sign had been on the other side of the shot had moved in the opposite direction one the scene again scene two may seem like a throwaway but it's not it's a quick tip of the hat to diversity it's also an action and reaction do you notice how even on the second scene you start hearing the puppy barks in the background this sound is a foreshadowing for the last sound that you'll hear in the spot scene three is a tension building it's the puppy breaking bad stories need tension in fact the more tension you build the more the resolution will mean at the end and notice the devious nature of the bad behavior he doesn't just run away he runs and crawls under the fence that's foreshadowing because the caretaker will catch him doing that later and notice how in this commercial the puppy faces three challenges he runs away twice and then gets carried away three is an old story telling tool there are three musketeers three stooges and so on the magic of three plays out here to scene four is really a sequence of five shots he breaks away crawls under the fence there's a match cut from the other side of the thing as you runs across the field then peers into the barn knows how he clears one frame before entering the next the directions of movement are logical and even struggles to get underneath the wire of the fence the barn doors barely cracked which adds to the moment of let's take a second to talk about story focus notice how humans have only been a secondary part of the story up until now we've not gotten to know the human only the puppy why because the story is about the puppy loving the horse the poppy is the main character not the horse and not the humans so the piece will start with puppies and with puppies and every key emotion in the piece will be about the puppy the next shot is technically a jump cut because there's no transition from scene to scene but the full length of the shots from a medium wide to an extreme wide is so different that it's not jarring now the puppy meets the horse the horse is barely hanging out of the stall when the puppy gets there and the shot moves from a wide shot to a matched close up good move then the horse is on a close up this is an action reaction sequence notice little puppy sound that's like the puppy saying hello to you i mean we're fifteen seconds into the story when we meet one of the human characters the first image of him is a hazy distant shot he's doing  something it really doesn't matter what we don't want the story to get distracted by that the human reacts to a ruckus and the puppy is dancing in front of the horse once again it's a foreshadowing to the closing shot and notice that we get a few frames a glimpse of the human who moves through the screen and grabs the pup the horse's nose is still and the image that knows we're already connected to the next shot is brilliant the camera moves back from the horse it's a movement not zoom the viewer is looking through the puppy's eyes as it were being carried away in the horse reacts by raising his head then one of the biggest moments in the video maximum tension the puppy looks back at his new friend and he's heartbroken there's a lot of cinema going on here there's a deep shadow in the puppies face in the barn is mostly dark so you're not distracted by anything you just focus on those eyes meaning the second human shows up she's been foreshadowed early in the spot and the handoff is a four shot sequence that picks up the pace of the story without allowing us to get focused on the humans then we get a transition shot the weather is a visual cue the previous shot was sunny and nice but now it's rainy so the scene is a different day notice how the lighting directors used to light sources yellow light on the workbench and separation and a white light to make the man's white t shirt show up it's a small narrow beam of light they don't want to wash the whole scene down shadows add texture notice that the puppy enters on a close up shot it's a clean transition to a new development in the story this scene is one of the very few pan shots in the story it's a deliberate move to pay and shows exactly how much time has passed between the puppy's entrance and the man's reaction a cut wouldn't have shown that even the next seems a quick cut door opens man gives a woman sad wet puppy then puppy tries to escape gets caught and has ado to a guy that we don't know it's good that he's wearing sunglasses we have no connection to him the puppy stuffed into the back seat and the slam of the door is what wakes up the horse action reaction watch again notice the range of shots wide close up and medium shot distinct they remove the state from the car license plate any names or logos on the car that's all to prevent distractions and notice how white the fences are notice that the fences at the end of the lane appear have been recently placed there so the horses would have a background when they stop the car when the farmhand notices what's going on he's wearing a budweiser head but it's subtle the next scene is peak action the winnie in clydesdale her discourse the victorious puppy in the puppy close up is the pay has the horses calling to the barn your friend just coming home we have no idea where the man in the sunglasses went but who cares story's not about him that's why they never developed him as a character in the first place so he could disappear easily so now the barn guy chokes up and so do we we all admire the victory over adversity and we're back to the puppy barking in dancy the grass is green the horse talks back and the camera pulls back to extreme wide shot this is a classic storytelling frame it starts with friction runaway strongwilled puppy builds to context why he runs away to be with his friend and it ends with an explosion of action heard confronts the car the music peeks with emotion in the story ends quickly after the explosion of action it's a shape that you know well once upon a time suddenly fortunately as it turns out budweiser commercial may be magical but it's not built on magic it's just solid storytelling that every video storyteller can learn from beethoven is said to have considered his compositions to be stories and would create the following traditional structure with music suffering developing our presentation and we hit on the theme of story for the t v part of our section we thought we'd have to come up with another theme for the web piece but then we realized that in a very real sense sarasota dot com is the story of the city of sarasota it's the story of our past of our present and even our future now numbers can tell a pretty good story and here's a  tell the whole story a story is most effective when logic and emotion work together this is the way to move hearts and minds as this is precisely what we've tried to do there are subtle cues to create the emotional connections the colors the photographs the layout are all meant to be comforting familiar in addition to the personal side of the story every last click oh and by the way there's about three thousand of them is a way to make a person's life better three thousand ways to be more efficient more fun and feel more connected to this community and the people who are par presentation sometimes a story helps to illustrate a point better than a set of facts a story gives people a reason to care about what you're saying if they relate to your story it's easier for them to relate to your message the eighteenth century poet samuel johnson when he was asked to read the manuscript of a hopeful writer remarked your story is both good and original unfortunately the part that's good is not original and the part that is original is not good this is our challenge as storytellers whether we're telling a story about a brave kid with a disease a woman honoring her family history through her restaurant or the story of the city of sarasota in three thousand clicks we realize i'm a grandmother