What

are they watching?

Use your WHY? to guide your plan for the content of your video.

What story are you going to tell?

What formats will you use?

There are lots of ways to tell your story. Applying narrative frameworks & devices to your content helps to hook and engage your viewers, taking them on a journey and learning along the way.

Story

A young person lying on their front, reading a book inside an open tent.

Some example frameworks include:

- The Hero's Journey
- 3 Acts / Beginning, Middle, End
- But… so… / Conflict and consequence
- Magic Reveal / in media res
- The Pixar Fairytale
- Freytag’s Pyramid
- The Big Idea
- Flashbacks
- The Narrator
- Chekhov’s Gun
- Breaking the Fourth Wall
- Mazin’s Bait and Switch

For example, if you want to share the latest results from your university research with the public, you could start with a 3 Act structure…

Beginning: Frame the context

Middle: Describe the problem

End: Share the solution

Storyboard diagram. Beginning: shows a sketch of two people talking "Frame the context". Middle: shows a person gesturing to a graph "Describe the problem". End: a diagram of a flow chart, "share the solution"

Next, let’s apply an example study and frame the journey with conflict and consequence…

  1. In order to improve our current predictions about our globally changing climate, researchers use highly sophisticated data simulations

    BUT

  2. Modelling the global climate is extremely difficult to do; there are currently huge gaps in our knowledge and large, disparate sources of data.

    SO

  3. We developed a new AI machine learning model that saved months of data processing time, and resulted in a much more accurate model of the global climate for use in future research.

A graphic of a map of Europe and Northern Africa. The names of countries are obscured by orange circles of various sizes, representing a visualisation of geographic data.

This is a straightforward example, but you could expand on this further by applying a framework like the Hero’s Journey – following the individual researchers as they overcame challenges and transformed their understanding of the global climate.

Your video can use any of a number of formats to present the information, such as:

- Talking head
- Animation
- On-location filming
- Interviews
- Demonstrations
- Screencasts
- And much more…!

Carefully selecting the formats that best suit your subject matter makes a big difference to the viewer’s engagement and understanding.

Format

A behind the scenes photograph showing a camera viewfinder screen displaying five people in a studio

Interviews allow viewers to hear directly from authentic experts on a subject.

For example, a CEO answering questions about key decisions, or a researcher sharing the results of a study first-hand.

Behind the scenes photograph of a woman being interiewed, with camera and lights in the foreground

Animations can help demonstrate and break down complex, technical concepts. They are also useful for showing things that are difficult or impossible to demonstrate in real life – like the movement of electrons in chemical reactions or the flow of electricity through a circuit.

An animation demonstrating 'hallucinations' in AI large language models. The user asks an LLM to describe the moon, using it's training data the LLM responds with "The Moon is made of cheese"

On-location filming gives viewers access to hard-to-reach places.

Imagine trying to organise an in-person tour for thousands of people around a delicate laboratory; but one video can be used by anyone to see the lab whenever they want.

An engineer in a lab environment with complex equipment in the background. She is smiling at the camera.

Video has the ability to give everyone a front row seat.

Contents

  1. What is Educational Storytelling?

  2. Who is watching?

  3. Why are they watching?

  4. What are they watching?

  5. How are they learning?

  6. What’s your story?