THE NEED FOR STORYTELLING

Why do we need stories We need them to help us make sense of our world, both the past and the present so we can make our way to a future. 

But there are other reasons stories have been important, beyond the need to understand, and one is the need of the teller to communicate. Whether in pantomime or Elizabethan tragedy, storytellers want to communicate with others. The cave painter and the short-film director may have different means, but both want to use their medium to bind artist and audience together for that instant or that half-hour of the storytelling experience. For that time, storyteller and audience become a community, with all the historical implications of the relationship between artist and audience. 

Another reason for storytelling is the education of the community. Many cultures have used storytelling to educate, particularly about the ethics of living in the society. The passing on of tradition and ethics has been a central focus of storytelling, from the fairy tale to the fable to the documentary film. Finally, storytelling provides a legitimate access route to the world of our dreams and our fears it provides an outlet for both of these types of 

Although screen stories have unique qualities particular to film, screen stories for both short and long films often share characteristics with other kinds of storytelling. In this chapter, we will discuss those general qualities and suggest links to other forms of storytelling, forms that provide the first and best source of material for short films. 

All stories must engage the curiosity of an audience, whether that audience be one or a thousand. The storyteller must build on that curiosity, inviting our involvement in a character s situation, and finally allow the viewer to identify with the character and the situation. 

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The romantic spy adventure, while meeting the aesthetic needs of the mediirm for sirrqilicity in storytelling, escapist interest, and fast-paced... 

You probably know that today s job ads often demand excellent communication skills. Storyteller and teacher Heather Forest adds that social interaction skills are essential to participating in adult culture. The ability to articulate thoughts, feelings, and needs can contribute to academic, interpersonal, and professional success. For safety s sake, children need to be able to express their thoughts so they can ask for help and get what they need from adults. Good listeners learn more efficiently. ... 

Time is an increasingly rare commodity for filmmakers, especially during preproduction and editing. Yet time is often what enables a film to have depth, in terms of research, themes, and layers of storytelling it can enhance creativity. As a group, we need to resist the pressure to turn out documentary products, rather than documentary films. 

We re surrounded by subjects that offer potential for documentary storytelling. Current events may trigger ideas, or an afternoon spent browsing the shelves at a local library or bookstore. Some filmmakers find stories within their own families. Alan Berliner made Nobody s Business about his father, Oscar Deborah Hoffinan made Confessions of a Dutiful Daughter about her mother s battle with Alzheimer s. Even when you re very close to a subject, however, you ll need to take an impartial view as you determine whether or not it would make a film that audiences will want to see. This is also tme when you adapt documentaries from printed sources a story may read well on paper, but not play as well on screen. In making the series Cadillac Desert, drawn from Marc Reisner s book of the same name, producer Jon Else chose three of the roughly 40 stories in Reisner s book Else and his team then conducted their own research and determined the best way to tell those stories on film. 

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