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Matt Checkowski, the founder and creative director of branded content company The Department of the 4th Dimension, shared a theory with attendees of The Conference 2014 in New York City. He believes that without becoming better storytellers, we will hasten our own extinction.
Storytelling, he said, began with explorers, but has been continued by artisans.
Centuries ago, for example, men boarded ships, traveled the world and had the stories of their discovery translated in to useful tools made by blacksmiths or craftsman. Today a brand may represent the explorer, and media creatives the artisans.
“Today’s artisan class is in a critical place in the development of how we tell stories,” he told the audience. And in an age of social media, where the voices are loud and many, Checkowski believes everyone from camera men to studio executives have a responsibility to tell the right stories and to tell them well.
“Story builds culture,” read a slide behind the stage. After his presentation he tweeted the slide and asked followers, “If you’re not building it, are you okay with who is?”
At the Department of the 4th Deimension, they understand that they are an inflection point. “As a director, the performance comes through me. It finds its way through the camera and through the TV and in to people’s homes. We are deciding what content gets put out there and that elevates our responsibility as the people who get to make things,” he said.
The space between the camera and the subject, or the TV and the viewer, is what he calls the fourth dimension; the space where connection and extinction-preventing storytelling takes place.
He begged the skeptics to consider the history of storytelling again.
“Take it back 40,000 years and you begin to understand the impact of how storytelling can shape our future. Today, whether it’s how to craft a brand by finding an environment for them to tell their story or working with actors to shape a narrative, we are part of the timeline of storytelling. We just have to move the needle in small steps by being considerate and thinking of what stories we want to tell.”
Image courtesy of John Minchillo/AP.
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