The Toolbox for Video Storytelling
Quick Start Guide

In the Toolbox for Video Storytelling, we can step you through the process of developing a script that will impact and inspire your audience to a new awareness of your ministry that you may have never thought possible.

This guide is a quick way to get started, an overview of the process. Along the way we'll point you to various chapters in the Toolbox where you can get more detailed information and examples.

Have fun!

Step one: Organize your thoughts.

Take an idea that you have and see if you can express it in the form of a story. Often, presentations are expressed through a topic, but topics usually lack human interest. Try to relate that topic to a person, and how he or she is affected by your topic. You may like to talk about the ministry of Bible translation, but your audience may get lost in the technicalities without a human-interest element. Share a story of how the Scriptures in their heart language have impacted a person, or the part that person played in the process of getting the Scriptures into his or her language, and then you will have a good story. See chapter 3.

The most interesting stories will have three elements (besides a beginning, middle, and an end). They will have 1) a character, 2) a goal or destination, and 3) something standing in the way of that destination or accomplishment, such as a conflict or reversal.

The conflict could be in the form of another person (the antagonist), or it could be conflicting elements, such as the weather. For the missionary many conflicts, or reversals, take the form of spiritual opposition.

Write out a short paragraph, as if you were reading a blurb in TV Guide about your video. This is your summary statement. The summary statementÕs purpose is to keep you focused. Focus is the most important element you can bring to your script. See chapters 4-7.

Example:

Greg and Faith Waite, missionaries with TEAM, share how Eduardo, a confessed atheist, communist philosopher, and university professor, came to Christ as a result of their friendship evangelism ministry, and as an answer to prayer by their home supporting team.

In our example just stated, the Waites are in a church-planting ministry focusing on a friendship evangelism strategy. That is your topic. Their story is about Eduardo, a university professor who came to Christ as a result of their friendship evangelism ministry.

With your story elements now in mind, you can expand your summary statement into a one- or two-page treatment. A treatment is a narrative statement that helps you to articulate in your own mind how you want to "treat" your story material: why you are doing this video, how you hope the audience will respond, and how the video will look. I like to describe the first minute in more detail. It helps me to "see" the opening and gives me direction. For example, having read in the Toolbox the section on "captivating the eyes and the ears of your audience," you decide that a news opening would be effective for a video about Colombia. See chapter 8.

Even though you may wish to tell one story, within that story are cultural elements, spiritual need elements, and end results. These are mini story elements by themselves, or modules. Each of these modules also fulfills the basic communication structure that is needed to effectively communicate with the intended audience. For example, the Cultural module helps to create interest and draw people in. The Spiritual Needs module lays down the premise of your work and also introduces what you are up against (the conflict). And of course, the End Result story module substantiates your premise. You may want to even name your individual story modules. For example, Bogota's Turmoil (cultural/news), Eduardo's Testimony (spiritual needs), Sylvia's Letter (end result). See chapter 9.

You may want to briefly describe what story modules you are considering in the development of your script. You will not have to write everything out in detail. This treatment simply serves as a tentative road map for your video. Let others read it, and if they can find their way, then you know youÕre on the right track.

Step two: Structure your material.

Look at your treatment and see:

• Does your beginning get your audience's attention and create interest?
  
  
• Do your stories illustrate your ministry sufficiently so that you convince your audience that what youÕve just said is true? Here is where two or three story modules would illustrate the results of your ministry. These can be short redramatized modules (or picture stories carried by narration rather than dialogue), interviews, or testimonies of people whose lives have been changed.
  
  
• Do you provide your audience with a means to respond to your message? Will it be through a challenging story, an appeal from you or your subject, or an instruction of some sort? Perhaps directing them to your personal or missionÕs Web site. Or, will you ask them to pray in a specific way for you or the subject of your video?

You may want to invite people to respond apart from your video, perhaps by a live invitation or challenge from you, your pastor, or someone who may be hosting your meeting. See chapter 10.

Step three: Expand your thoughts into an outline or script.

Now you are ready to write the first draft of your script. Use conversational English as your audience will listen to your script, rather than read it. You may want to transition between some of your story modules by using a scriptural thread to help carry your theme throughout your video. See chapter 11.

Make notes in the margin of your script of the visuals you already have and would like to use, notations such as "Ann translating literacy primers" or "Charlie teaching Greek at the training institute."

You are well on your way to writing a good video script. In Part 1 of the Toolbox for Video Storytelling you will find further explanations of each of these steps. In Part 2 you will learn how to videotape and produce these story modules, how to improve your video technique, and how to prepare your material for editing.

The CR-ROM that comes with the book has over forty minutes of video examples that illustrate these concepts. There is a section of photography tips, too.

We trust you will be inspired to produce a good video story for your next furlough.

P.S. If this Quick Start guide has been helpful to you, please forward it or share it with another missionary. If it has been E-mailed to you by a friend, please visit our web site, www.VillageAve.com for further information or E-mail us at Toolbox@VillageAve.com.

Copyright 2002 John Walton