136. A Filmmaker's Guide to Storytelling + Empathy to Advance Social Good - Cheryl Miller Houser
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Overview
Meet Cheryl. This founder and CEO of Creative Breed, is an award-winning filmmaker who now applies her human-centered storytelling to marketing to help brands and organizations drive connection, engagement and action. In fact, she feels so passionately about how story can transform a person that she's leveraging her best tips to help nonprofits elevate their video storytelling game. Tune in and hear her tips for casting and building a narrative story arc.
Today’s Guest
Cheryl Miller Houser, Founder and CEO of Creative Breed
“I believe that with storytelling, empathy is important, because I talk a lot about and I the my approach is based on the science of storytelling and the physiology of what happens to us when we experience a story.”
Episode Transcript
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Episode Highlights
Cheryl’s story and the journey to where she is today (2:00)
Creative Breed: an empathy agency (6:00)
Narrative transportation: how to craft a compelling story (6:20)
An example of a successful story that activated people in a positive way (14:30)
How to create video content on a low budget: it’s not about the production value, it’s about the storytelling value. (19:30)
Storytelling ethics (22:42)
A powerful moment of philanthropy in Cheryl’s life (30:00)
Cheryl’s One Good Thing: everything boils down to our relationships. (36:00)
Powerful quotes
“I believe that with storytelling, empathy is important, because I talk a lot about and I the my approach is based on the science of storytelling and the physiology of what happens to us when we experience a story.” -Cheryl
“If you can cast people and and show them in a way that's very relatable, then that can activate oxytocin in the audience” -Cheryl
“There are all these studies that show that people take in information 20 times better when it's embedded and interwoven in service to a narrative story.” -Cheryl
“My favorite stories to tell are the ones of the triumph of the human spirit.” -Cheryl
“If the executive director is going to be on the video, then that person really needs to be talking about the why like the passion, the motivation, not the numbers. I mean, the numbers are important, but the numbers can be delivered in many other media. Video is not the medium for that.” -Cheryl
“It's definitely possible for nonprofits, who have very tiny budgets to tell really compelling stories. But they it can be it's not about the production value. It's about the storytelling value.” -Cheryl
“Let's come together, let's collaborate, Let's respect each other, let's treat each other with dignity.” -Cheryl
“I look at my mother and my father and the values that they had. They treated every human with such dignity and respect and the belief that every human has the right to the same rights and the same opportunities as as all of us and they both worked so hard to drive that sense of, you know, equal opportunity.” -Cheryl
“My view of philanthropy is both very deeply personal from it all starts with each one of us as humans and as individuals and how we treat and view others to very big.” -Cheryl
“Go in and you build common ground, and you build a real relationship built on just one human to another. From there, you can build common ground of how do we come together in a shared mission.” -Cheryl
Empathy Manifesto
by Cheryl Miller-Houser, Creative Breed,
Make it human - People are moved by other people. But not just anyone. People whom they can identify with and root for. It starts with finding subjects who are genuine and then accessing their vulnerability to capture the full range of universal human emotions. That is how we tap into our shared humanity.
Show struggle - Audiences also identify with and root for people who have a goal with big stakes, clearly stated or implied. The bigger the goal, the larger the obstacles they have to overcome, and the harder they struggle, the more an audience will root for them, feel empathy and be emotionally transported by them. We bring this struggle to life in an engaging, relatable way organic to that story.
Inspire through uplift - Once you have moved your audience deeply through the emotional journey of others, leave them empowered, with the sense that they can make a positive difference in their lives and the lives of others. We achieve that by ending on uplift and a call to action which inspires people to take action.
Connect with Cheryl
Connect with Creative Breed
Website / Documentaries / Empathy Manifesto
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Jonathan McCoy, Cheryl Miller-Houser, Julie Confer & Becky Endicott
