The story of stuff is a very interesting use of multimedia, one that I find extremely effective. No matter your personal political opinions on the subject, the synthesis of video, narrative, illustration, and sound design really drive the point home. I watched both the “The Story of Stuff” and “The Story of Broke” and was thoroughly impressed by each.
I was particularly interested in the illustration (obviously) aspects of the multimedia videos. The simplistic manner of the drawings helped in a few ways. Firstly, it added a visual aspect to a heavily audio-oriented movie, allowing for the audience to focus their eyes on something other than a talking head. Had it just been the author talking the whole time, the videos would have been supremely less interesting. Secondly, the illustrations really did a good job at cleverly explaining the audio in a simple manner, aiding in the reinforcement of the author’s main points. Thirdly, the drawing style, basic but still well-rendered and intentional glorified stick figures, can appeal to a wide range of people. The style is accessible, easy to understand, and also light-hearted enough to cause the audience to almost forget the graveness of the narrative.
I tried to do a whiteboard narrative advertisement, similar to this one, and found it to be extremely difficult. The amount of careful planning that went to the creation and execution of these stories is immense and I have great respect for the designers and editors involved.
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