I want to be a storyteller.
Last weekend I felt very flat. Unmotivated. Lost. I don’t know where it came frame, what triggered it or even how I got over it. I just did, luckily. I am back to being me, with all my ideas and plans and possible projects and way more than I will probably be able to do in a lifetime anyway. So I’m now again looking at this goal of mine and how to achieve it. It’s not a new goal, it’s been there for a long time but I didn’t use to know what it was.
I want to be a storyteller.
Last year I was a bit lost in my photography until I became interested in street photography. I want to tell the story of life in front of me. I fell in love with documentary photography because it’s so real. Everything happens in an instant and every moment is barely long enough to capture it.
Another way of storytelling is the written word. Go figure!
I was “forced” to do some scriptwriting this ear for some videos my team and I were going to produce. And somehow I started to enjoy the process. I’ve always been reluctant writing things because I felt I didn’t know what I was doing. It was way out of my comfort zone, something I never learned to do. But sometimes boundaries need to be pushed and sometimes amazing things will follow. Like me enjoying the process of writing.
So now this is another one of the things I want to know how to do. I bought a book “Back to creative writing school” and so far I love it. I’m still in chapter one though, so what do I know?! But I want to write more. I want to write something people want to read. I want to write meaningful stories. I just need to figure out what those stories will be.
In my job as a video producer, I need to combine the two ways of storytelling – the visual and the content. Within the last year I got to create some clips that I’m really proud of. Thanks to an amazing team at work, I can play and learn and be inspired by others. And the result gets me closer to this goal – to be a (great) storyteller.
There are 3 videos I would like to use as an example of the kind of work I do.
Culture shock explained
I work for a company that offers higher education for international students. Those students come from everywhere in the world and it’s a fact that everyone will experience some sort of a culture shock. We want our students to be aware of that feeling, so they know what’s happening. How do you deal with the weird food, the cultural differences, the language barrier? This is the story I came up with. It is scripted but it is not a lie – all those things mentioned, are issues and problems our international students raised when we talked to them.
With this video, I got to be the director, writer, camera operator, motion graphics designer as well as video and sound editor. And with the help of a supportive team I created something I am very proud of. It’s not perfect but it carries a message.
Enigma Quests, an INTO UEA alumni story
Nargiza and Dmitri met at their Foundation year at INTO UEA, fell in love, went to university, got married and opened a business. The now have an escape room business in London of all places. A competitive, busy and demanding city. And they’re doing so well. Meeting them and getting to tell their story was so much fun. My colleagues and I spent a day at their office, getting to know them and filming as much as we could fit into a dark December day. This is a story of successful graduates. It’s inspiring in so many ways – it is the reason why I love what I do. Education is a powerful thing and my job is it to promote this with creating engaging videos.
A day in the life of a student
Earlier this year, my team got to travel around the UK to meet loads of amazing and inspiring students from all over the world. Students with goals and dreams and ambitions. And we did our best to tell their stories in a way that represents who they are. One student I really liked was a girl named Tayma. She’s an art student. I like art students. I just love to surround myself with creative people and try to soak up their energy. Tayma told us about why she decided to study in the UK, what she does in school and where she wants it to take her. I got to write her story with her words. My colleague and I documented her university life through video and I put together the pieces to create this:
So why did I write about this here? It’s some sort of a writing exercise. And well, I want to show what I did over the last year. My business has not been the main outlet for my ideas for a while but it’s still here, waiting for me to figure out where the journey is going to go.
Photography and videography go hand in hand for me and I don’t favour one over the other. They’re still separate somehow but in both my mission is the same – to tell the story. Now my goal is to get better in every aspect of it.
I want to be a storyteller.
Whose story shall I tell?
