Resonance with Universal Values — How to engage an audience

There are stories to be told, and there are people who will pay you to help them tell it.

Companies, entities, government agencies especially. I empathise with them - so much of their work is made by an amalgamation of the nation's people, a mix of stories so varied that can make it challenging to tell them. With so many stakeholders and vested interests - try as we all might, we cannot speak to everyone the same way.

I endeavoured to make my skyscraper documentary specifically because I wanted to face this challenge head-on. How do I tell a story, steeped in information, such that it engages the curiosity of a country of people who are familiar with the subject while also piquing the interest of people beyond our shores?

I was made aware of a potential answer to this question back in 2018 when I attended masterclasses at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. During one such class, the potential of how any media resonates with its audience is in the universal values that serve as the foundation of how the stories are conveyed.

Since learning of this perspective, I wish to spend a lifetime understanding it. For the case of the skyscraper documentary, it was how buildings make us feel.

Since the beginning of the project, I posed a challenge for my Director of Photography, Jeremy, to do justice to the scale of the buildings featured. I knew that it was difficult to showcase the magnitude of these structures from a human's perspective but I felt it was necessary to ground the film's perspective to it because buildings make us feel in certain ways.

It may make us feel small when we tilt our head up at the peak of a building from the ground. It may make us feel vulnerable when we stand on the edge of a balcony and look down. It may make us feel excited by simply looking at the many buttons of a skyscraper elevator.

These creative decisions were made on the foundation that I wanted to showcase the scale of the buildings, because that is what we latch on to when reacting to such structures - which means we have, unknowingly or otherwise, a connection to this intimate structure that some call buildings, others home.

And I believe the information that the film sought to convey was received well by the audience because they were engaged by this universal value. And my continued understanding of this perspective will help me develop the craft I need to execute on my philosophy - to do justice to stories told.

If you are trying to communicate information and are contemplating a story to carry the message - try to find a universal value to serve as the foundation for you and your team's ideas. The ideation process will still be varied, messy and frustrating, but at least with this approach, the ideas will have a leg to stand on.