Folktellers : Stories to be Shared

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Welcome to the Folktellers podcast, where whomever holds the story wields the power. What do building marketing tech for blockbuster movies, playing professional basketball, and writing award-winning young-adult novels all have in common? Stories - a lot more than you can ever imagine. Come join us as Kurt David, Stephen Sadler, and Josef Bastian share a few tales, have a few laughs, and interview some great people, while trying to uncover the mysteries and wonders behind every great story.

  1. 10/02/2023

    What Makes a Tale Tick: The Psychology Behind Compelling Stories

    During this episode Josef, Stephen, Kurt and special guest Kevin Stein discuss, how stories affect us as humans? What is neuro-coupling? How does psychology affect the ways we interact with stories? How does our imagination impact the way we see stories? Kevin Stein is a cultural anthropologist, professor, and expert on matters of the mind as they relate to the world we live in. Kevin is Principal/Co-founder, Signal Path Immersive, an experiential entertainment production company based in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Stockholm. Kevin is also a former executive of King World Production, CBS, Viacom, HBO, NBCUniversal, and the co-founder of the Jimi Hendrix Foundation. He brings to his work a history of successful business development and content production in advent technology, digital media, and traditional entertainment with specialization in web3, augmented reality, social analytics, and neuromarketing as well as documentary film. Folktellers Universe | Stories to be Shared.   #StoryTelling #StoriesToBeShared #KevinStein #CompellingStories #FolkTellers #NeuroCoupling   All right. Time for our latest episode of Folk Tellers podcast stories. We shared, I am Joseph Bastian and here are here with, I'm told that I shouldn't use fancy words. Uh I've gotten some feedback. So I'm just gonna say here with Kurt David, wait, wait a minute feedback from the audience. And I was like, jeez, I was gonna say, yeah, if it's audience feedback, then we have to listen to that. Right? Yeah. So, but I love the fancy words. Do you and who are you? And I don't know, II I have no facial recognition. I only know you by your adjectives. Who are you? Uh Stephen Sadler. So Kurt and Steve and Joseph were here. So you're here. Yes. This episode we're talking about the psychology of storytelling. So to tee this up and we've got uh I call him a social anthropologist named Kevin. Stein. Kevin is many things uh done a lot of work in the entertainment industry. He's a professor and, and uh we're gonna talk to him in a little bit about the psychology and maybe the, the culture of storytelling, uh who knows where it's gonna go. So, he studies ants and uncles. Yes. Those kinds of ants. What if your aunt was an aunt? What if your aunt was an uncle, you know, she would not be your uncle who's on first? All right. So, uh this is I'll, I'll tee this up. Uh How storytelling affects the brain. So, we're talking about the psychology of storytelling and uh we're gonna go down this rabbit hole then throw a couple of things out. I know Kurt, this is your favorite neuro coupling. So, neuro coupling in storytelling in your brain, uh It's when a story synchronizes the listener's brain with the teller's brain. And this is the concept that when you're telling a story that the storyteller's brain will actually synchronize with the audience uh and creates a third brain, which is kind of fascinating. Then there's uh mirroring. Mirroring is when uh the neurons in your brain enable listeners to mirror the experiences that the storyteller is sharing. Uh There's also two areas in the brain that are activated when processing facts, stories activate many additional areas such as the motor cortex, sensory cortex and frontal cortex. So what they're saying is stories uh activate multiple parts of the brain uh by the by their very nature. And they also release dopamine in response to emotionally charged events and then they don't put people to sleep. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff going on in your brain when you tell a story. And when you hear a story our brains love these stories. So what does all this mean? What some people are falling asleep? Yeah. To me, this is exciting because modern technology, especially in the medical world has allowed us to find these connections, right? These neuro coupling connections, all the things that happen, the mirroring uh they they show scientifically now that this is happening. In other words, it's not just opinion that this happens, but it is actual scientific proof that, hey, when I'm telling a story and the audience member connects with that through that neuro coupling or through mirroring, they can show that in imagery now, which is amazing. And, and so for me, it's like, OK, you should kind of tune into this because there's a lot of things happening. Um I know that stories are powerful because of, you know, you see them in action, whether you're listening or whether you're telling stories. But for like for you, Steve, what is it? So what does it matter? Like, what does it matter if your brain is doing all these things when you're telling or listening to the story? Why is that? Why is that important or even interesting? Well, I, I think I mentioned this before in one of the other podcasts. When I got sick back in 2015, I was actually still able to vision and image things and create stories even when my brain was disconnecting from my body. That's a very strange thing. So it it literally, I mean, just because you're conscious of something doesn't mean that your brain is not operating in the background because it, because it does, I don't think everyone knows what happened to you. So, why don't you, why don't you go a little deeper on that? Well, it's interesting because, uh, the, one of the charts that you gave us here at, uh, actually listed cortisol as one of the aspects that your brain produces and it actually doesn't produce pro uh cortisol. It actually produces something called, um AC C, which is uh corto hormone. And yeah, it sounds complicated. But what that does is it tells your adrenal glands to produce cortisol and that's what keeps you calm under stress when you have any type of severe trauma, like a concussion or whatever, your pituitary gland, which sends the signal to your adrenal gland stops working, that's called secondary Addison's disease. And that's what I have. So I have to take uh a certain amount of cortisol every three hours for the rest of my life. When I was going through that, I was actually in the process of, of writing novels. And it was so interesting because I, and I think I mentioned it once before I was able to write stories even though I was kind of just out of it. I mean, and this is before I got diagnosed and, and, and, and they gave me the actual medication which kind of brought the physical, my physical body, my brain back to one because that's kind of what happens. It's like your brain and your body just separates, right? And everything, your brain totally works on stories. I mean, that's how it figures things out. That's, you know, it's, it's that process of, of, of everything that you've seen. And that's, I think that's why we dream the way that we do because it's the processing and the creating of stories. But um but I can, I can tell you that, that the brain is just an amazing thing, but it's very scary once it gets separated from the body. Yeah, I remember you telling me that during that time when you, we're working on, uh I think you're working on mindset and you, there are parts of it. You don't even remember writing. There's, if I go back and read the book now, it's like I didn't write it. That's what it feels like sometimes. And, and it's really because I don't remember even though, you know, I, I wrote a lot of it on the plane going back and forth actually to Los Angeles to meet Kevin Stein, who we're going to talk to today, which is kind of interesting. But um but yeah, it's uh uh yeah, the mindset story is, is literally all about a lot of the things that we're talking about today, like a device that actually connects to your head and enables you to be able to convert your thoughts into text for your phone. And, uh, it's how that technology goes, you know, off the rails in a bad way. That's, yeah, that's spooky. But, um, but, yeah, I mean, it's everything is the, the psychology, the psyche of the brain. Right? I mean, without, without us being able to control our brain, you know, storytelling doesn't really matter. I mean, it's, you know, that's why mental health is so important these days. So that's a really important point because as we're talking about the psychology of storytelling and what happens to the brain when you're hearing a story or telling a story, it's important to know this stuff. One, I think as a storyteller because if you know that there's certain certain storytelling devices that will trigger certain responses from your audience and in the brain, that's a pretty powerful thing. Yeah, you can control audiences that way and they do. Well, that's interesting because to me, it, it's, you know, I think about marketing, I think about um media, like, you know, different types of media and how, like you said, Steven, how it could be controlled people, you can control people. But more importantly, you can influence people, especially if I'm a marketer and want somebody to buy something. I want to tell a story, there's a certain story about that and if I'm engaging with that audience member and this is what's interesting and how Kevin's gonna come on and talk more about this in detail, right? As far as how this works. So, but I do have a question. You said you were disconnected from your body, right? I mean, how long did that last? And what did that feel like? I mean, were you aware of this happening? So I could be in the shower, for example. And then all of a sudden my brain is floating off into la la land. I'm still in the shower, but I am actually seeing visions and people and places that I don't know, I never been. And then I, because I, you know, when you have a curious personality, which I do, I would tend to try and focus on that image or that story that I'm seeing and then because I really want to see what it is, right? It's like I'm being sucked out through this hole into what I'm seeing, right? But not through my eyes, through my brain. And then as soon as I do that, it literally feels like I'm gonna throw up. It was like, right? And there was a che

    49 min

  2. 09/18/2023 · BONUS

    Welcome to the Chucklebucket - Comedy in Storytelling - BONUS CHRISTMAS EPISODE!

    A great comedian is one who tells stories in a funny way, not to be confused with telling funny stories. Our guest on this BONUS episode is none other than Dave Coulier! Born and raised in Detroit, Dave is an actor, stand-up comedian, impressionist, and television host (and massive Detroit Red Wings fan). He was of course, Joey Gladstone on the ABC sitcom Full House, he's also voiced Peter Venkman on The Real Ghostbusters, and Animal and Bunsen on Muppet Babies, just to name a few of the many characters he's portrayed and voiced over his illustrious career. Folktellers Studios | Folktellers Universe Dave Coulier   #StoryTelling #Comedy #FolkTellers #DaveCoulier #FullHouse #FunnyStories #StoriesToBeShared #FullHouse   Welcome everyone. Week 13, we call this episode a welcome to the Chuckle Bucket because we're talking about comedy in storytelling. Uh This is Joseph and I'm here with my enigmatic Stephen and the Stoic. What is this podcast, by the way, you didn't mention that? Oh, this is, uh, well, Steve calls this the bonus Christmas episode because for people that don't watch, uh, Steve is British and Canadian and American and people who don't watch British television, actually, their, uh, their season changes, the Christmas episode, unlike, right. So, uh I have a word for you today. What's that? You're a logo, file, a logo, file, logos is Greek for words, isn't it? You're someone that loves words. I do. So I had to look that up. I mean, you've been giving us words adjectives all the way through this series. So, you know, I actually took the time. Well, to search Google for like three seconds. Find that word for you. Well, I do my thank you. Um All right. So here's our, here's our quote. And by the way, uh we've got a, we've got a really cool guest for our bonus Christmas episode. Uh Dave uh comedian, actor pilot. Uh, he's, you'll be shocked when you hear all the things that he's into, uh, he's gonna be our guest on in a little bit. So, um, here's our opening. Um, this quote is a great comedian is one who tells stories in a funny way that is not to be confused with telling funny stories. And then the other piece is, this is the, the equation for comedy, comedy equals tragedy plus time. So, I, I will, I'll open with that. What do you guys, how does that make you feel? Yeah. The first thing that comes to mind to me is that sometimes it's too, it's, it's too close to the truth to be funny because of the timing. Yeah. Yeah. So you hear that? What's, what's that expression? Uh, oh, too soon. I think that's what, isn't that what they're referring to? Like, uh, not enough time has passed to make this funny, to make this funny? So, so that's where the math comes in, in the equation here, I guess with my engineering hat on, I'm looking at this and going, this is an equation interesting. What would you call, what would you call it? I know. I see a plus symbol. A sign. Well, you put them there. That doesn't make it. I didn't put them there. I guess that makes it come just the fact you're making this into an, that's, that's funny within itself. Here you go. What a way to start, what a way to start. Um OK, so I wanna, I wanna add on to this, so this idea of uh comedy Eagles tragedy plus time. Uh So, so sometimes the stories themselves can be funny but sometimes they're, they're actually heartbreaking stories with humor injected and that makes them more palatable that, which they otherwise would be too hard to hear. Do you think that's true? They use comedy for that? Like Shrek win? What do you mean by that? Well, Shrek, I mean, it's a sad story but I mean, there's comedy interjected all the way through it. Yeah, there's some depth ogres are like onions, layers, layers. Yeah, I think the biggest thing about comedy for me is it, it has to relate to where I'm at today, right? You talk about the timing of it. In other words, I could hear something that was funny. We, we were just talking about that. Actually, I had some college teammates, we got together the last couple of days and we were talking about things that were funny to us during college. We don't find as whimsical now, right? Or whimsical, whimsical now. And so uh so that even though as our lives change, that comedy might change as well, yeah, it's definitely timing is a key part to, to comedy, not just in the moment, but you know, in the era, right? There's lots of comedians like, like stuff that Eddie Murphy did many, many years ago that I used to just piss and now I look at it and it's like, well, yeah, it's not as funny as it was back then, but it was definitely funny in the day. So, so do you think your sense of humor changes with age? Absolutely. It does. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, it probably diminishes with age, I think sometimes. Right. I don't know if it's for you, Kurt, how has it, how has it changed? Yeah, I think for me, uh, it's become more sophisticated. Right. I'm not as, it, it, it doesn't take, uh, somebody farting for me to fall out of my chair now. I mean, yeah, I still chuckle a little bit but it's not as funny as it was wrong. I'm sorry? Yeah, you look at, uh, the blazing saddles. The scene around the campfire when the guys are eating beans and blazing saddles is funny and I still find that. Yeah. Yeah. There's still parts of it that are definitely. But again, timing too. Some of that is very controversial today than what it was. Well, you always have to fart at the right time. Not just the farting scene, but is there a wrong time? No, not really. Well, our audience, I think, yeah, if there are any women, they're like, you guys are disgusting. That's the other thing too. It's like when you're with women that's a bad time to far. Unless they're farting. I, I'll, I'll tell you what my there and then my, my far is not going well. This is my, this is my, like, fart scam, uh, dating far. What I would do is I'd open the door for my date and then I close the door and then I, when I walked around the car, that's when I let them all out because, you know, you had to like those all built up over the evening. Do you know what that is? What's that timing? It was timing. Here you go. It was a tragedy. You know, I'm starting to think that your formula is correct. Well, it was, it's not my formula. I can't take credit for it. Oh, my gosh. So, so Kurt, I guess farts still are funny. Certain parts. Yeah. Far. No pun intended. Oh my God. So, where do we all right. Where do you move from there? Yeah. Where do we? Well, everyone, we're so happy and excited to have, uh, Dave on with us. Good morning, Dave. Good morning. Is it morning everywhere? Um, it's what says that a Jimmy Buffett song, uh, it's morning somewhere or something. It's, it's somewhere, it's somewhere. Well, you're here with Joseph and Kurt and Steve. Then it is a good morning. Yes. Top of the morning to you, I'll start with the voices and then that was just to Tu of Dave because you're the expert. So, so for people that don't know, Dave Cooler that have been under a rock for 40 years. Uh Dave is not only an actor, a comedian but uh he has a bunch of secret talents like being a pilot and a home builder and, and many other things and Dave. So today we're talking about comedy in storytelling and we teed up, uh uh before you came on, uh the equation, I'm sure you've heard it before. That comedy equals tragedy plus time. Do you buy that? Do you think that's true or like as a, as a comedian? You know, what's your take on, on, uh comedy and storytelling? I never took any of those courses. You know, my joke is I, I didn't go to college. I couldn't find a parking spot. Um So, you know, comedy for me is a lot of the time listening because when I write jokes, I'll hear something and it, it kind of triggers something inside of me where I just try to turn that into a laugh. So for me, it's being very aware of your surroundings listening and to, to go back to your point. Uh I didn't have a tragic childhood but in some ways it was a disappointing childhood because I grew up very Catholic. I went to Catholic schools my entire life. Uh from second grade catechism to third grade through eighth grade in a, in a Catholic school. And then an all boys Catholic High school, Notre Dame High School in Detroit when I was, when I was nine years old, uh, everybody I knew was Catholic. And so, um, you know, I, with that in mind when my parents got divorced at nine, I was the only divorced kid. So I kind of carried around this banner of, you know, banner of shame. Yeah, it was, it was guilt and it was guilt and shame and every other thing that, you know, that you're supposed to feel at that moment. So, for me that's when I got funny and I gravitated towards a hockey locker room where there was a built in audience. I gravitated towards funny kids. My friend Mark Sands and at that point, I just really started to devour comedy. So, so to, to talk to your point, Joseph, it's, it, it is rooted somewhat in tragedy for me and it was overcoming the sadness that I felt when I was home. Hey, Dave, this is Kurt and, and having grown up 12 years of Catholic education myself, I just wondered how the nuns and the priests handled that when, when that came out at age of nine for you. Well, um, you know, it's funny because when I was, um, you know, doing sound effects and voices and stuff, the, the priests and the nuns all and my teachers all called it noises and then, and then, and I was very disruptive and, you know, then when they would come to my shows later on when I started doing stand up, oh, my gosh. You were such a funny kid. Those sound effects you did. Suddenly the complexion of who I was as a child completely changed. Once there was an audience you were a professional at doing it now. Yeah. At that point it's funny. Yeah. That's actually really interesting. Actually I grew up Catholic too and I found out that sort of, that repressive um, environment, uh, really lent itself to elevating uh, the, the humor, like, like, you

    47 min

  3. 09/05/2023

    A Thousand Words – the Power of Pictures, Paint and Visual Storytelling

    How do images add or take away from a written story? What is Visual Literacy in the Modern World? What is the future of art in visual storytelling? Our guest is Patrick McEvoy - an artist working in comics, illustration and multimedia animation, working professionally for over 25 years. "In terms of genre, I've done Fantasy, SF, horror, and educational work (for ages ranging from kids to high school to college)." "In the past I have worked on contract with Marvel, doing dozens of pictures for the Marvel Style Guide, lots of advertising, and other behind-the-scenes art. And you may have seen my work on a lot of game art, such as Arkham Horror, Call of Cthulhu, Warcraft CCG, Legend of the Five rings, and even about 100 cards for the Game of Thrones CCG."   Folktellers Studios | Folktellers Universe   #Storytelling #Folktellers #Stories #PatrickMcEvoy #VisualStorytelling   Well, welcome everyone to the folk tellers stories to be shared podcast. It's week 11 and we're talking about 1000 words, the power of pictures, paint and visual storytelling. And I wanted to, uh, before I warm everyone up with our little thoughts for the day, let's introduce my compatriots. We have the stunning Steve Sadler. Oh, I like that word. Do you know why? Because I understand that word and the uh incomparable, that's good. There's two words we can understand and you can feel good about yourself. So I appreciate it. I just can't believe this has been a week 11 now. I mean, that's unbelievable, but it's a good thing. They say time flies and having fun, but it's still fun. We're still having fun. That's what I'm saying. This is work and this is, this is a conundrum. This is a OK. All right. So here we are week 11, we're talking about visual storytelling power of pictures. Um We're gonna have uh Patrick mcavoy on a little bit in a little bit. Um Patrick's a uh incredible artist. He does a lot of work for folk tellers and he's a big fan of Jack Kirby and people don't know who Jack Kirby is. Jack Kirby was um the Marvel artist who came up with all the biggies. He came up with the Hulk and Spiderman. And you know, it's funny, people always think Stan Lee. Stan Lee wasn't an artist. He was a writer. Uh Jack Kirby was the one who came up with, with the, the look, the, that the Marvel look. So one of the things Jack Kirby said was says, I achieve perfection. My type of perfection through visual storytelling, storytelling was my style. And then I've got another quote here. It says um this is Anthony Demelo. Um He's a uh he, I think he's actually a priest and uh uh he's a famous storyteller speaker. Um You have to understand that the shortest distance between a human being and the truth is a story. So those are our two icebreakers, gentlemen. Like, so one of the first big questions is we're gonna get into visual storytelling. So to you, what, what do you think visual storytelling is? I leave the floor open. Well, uh an image is 1000 words, right? Yeah. Pick a picture or a picture is 1000 words. I don't know what, what is the the exact phrase we're supposed to be a picture is worth 1000 words or an image, right? Or an image, right? Well, we, we're in digital today. What does that mean? We'll, we'll use image because what, what what does that really mean? Is that true or is that just a absolutely sure it is. I could look at an image and, and pull a lot of context out of that image just by looking at it just like I can if I'm driving my car down the road, I mean, that's an image that or, you know, or a picture that I'm looking at, right as I'm driving and uh and I'm pulling that story out of it. So, yeah, definitely without, without words. So from an audience perspective, and this is what, what, what I found as, as a writer, um as a writer, what I've chosen or what's been put upon me is the uh the craft that takes the longest to engage with uh where visual media, it's instantaneous, like music like you hear, you hear a couple notes or you see something visually. Um There's an immediate response reaction and either rejection or engagement where in writing it's like you have to read it, you have to process it and then you have to reflect on it before you're really engaging with it. So it's a, it's a much longer process. So, Kurt, what's your take? Yeah, for me, you've brought up music it because we did a couple of episodes uh or a couple of episodes ago, we talked about music. To me, it's the lyrics and, and the melody coming together. That's where the story with the visuals come together, right? It's like the music has the melody line, but then you have the lyrics that match it with, with the vision part of it. To me it's a, it's a, I have to see the vision match the narrative. In other words, I could have this story. But when I see an image that attaches to it, oh my God, you, you know, you brought up about Marvel, I mean, think about the imagery of those characters that are part of the story, part of the narrative. That's the powerful part of it. I mean, I can look at an image from Marvel and say, oh yeah, I know exactly who that is without knowing a story without seeing the story. Then why do people say I saw the movie and the book was better? Why do you think that's such a common statement? My daughter is a big reader. I mean, she's the kind of person that could actually pick up like a Harry novel, Harry Potter. Harry novel. It was a slip there, a Harry Potter novel and she can literally read that book in a day. I could, I could never do that. It would take me a month to read every time that she sees the movie. She goes, well, that's not as good as the book. And I'm like, well, why isn't it? She goes because in her mind, you're, you're, you create a mental picture while you're reading and many times it's better than what they can ever come up with in Hollywood. Well, I think part of it too is just simple length. Right. You have a 500 page novel like that. Right. There, much more detail can be gotten into and as opposed to a 60 90 you know, even a three hour movie. Right. There's only so much time you have for that. Yeah. There, there's greater constraints from a production standpoint, I think on, on doing a feature film, you know, you've got, yeah, you've got 90 minutes or, or whatever, whatever the standard is. So if they're adapting from a book, you know, a book, you just can keep writing more pages, you know, more series. Yeah. So, yeah, I think, I think that's one of the challenges uh in that there's, there's more constraints so the book can have more, usually has more detail to it, especially JK Rawlings. I mean, she is very detailed in her stories. Yes. Right to the, you know, the color of the wood and the texture of the door handles and stuff like that. So that's a good point, Stephen, because the visual doesn't necessarily have to be an actual visual. It could be something created in our mind from reading that it's a, it's a mental picture that, that you're making. But when we talk to Patrick, you're, you're gonna understand how his mind works because that's literally what Joseph and I do for him. We give him that mental picture and he converts it into the beautiful art that he's been doing for many, many years. He's just absolutely incredible. So you guys, we have our friend and another compatriot, our art director extraordinaire, uh Patrick mcilroy. So a little background on Patrick, uh he will not tell you this himself, but he's done a ton of work for Marvel and Disney and Sony. And he, I mean, he really is a, a incredibly, not only a talented artist but a visual designer and a visual storyteller himself. So, uh Patrick, great to have you on. Well, great to be here. Thanks. Uh Yeah, if you uh ever want me to blow my own horn, I, I am happy to, oh, well, by the time we're done, it's better when someone else gets the ball rolling for me. Now, you've just created a visual story for all of us of you blowing your own horn. Um But we won't go down that rabbit hole. So Patrick, we're talking about, we're talking about visual storytelling. So I wanna, I wanna tee this up with you because you are uh now the resident of visual storytelling expert and Patrick, what we were talking about was um how uh visual storytelling, visuals and, and art and all that stuff gives you like music. When you see it, it's an immediate engagement or rejection. Uh But uh you have an immediate uh you know, visceral reaction, whether it's looking at a piece of art, whether it's going to film, uh watching a film or uh versus, you know, versus writing. And so the way Patrick and I met was, I was looking for uh folk tellers for the visual, what, what this universe would look like. And I had kind of an idea in my head, but I ended up, I interviewed 100 and 50 different artists and then um someone who I worked with on the, on in my professional work, uh a colleague said, hey, I got a friend I grew up with uh who does, you know, he does drawing. And I was like, oh OK. And uh so it totally undersold Patrick. But then he's like, yeah, go to his website and I looked at stuff I was like, wow, this is really, really good. And then Patrick and I, we got on the phone and that was, I believe Patrick, that was the, the rouge, the graphic novel project that we started with. So that was the whole the Red Dwarf project. And so I said, well, the way I work is you need to read my work first and come back and kind of summarize retell me the story because I caught listening for the echo. I'll know if he gets like the, the heart of what I'm getting at in, in the story that I'm telling. So he read it, he came back, he got it and uh you know, did a couple comps and it was just incredible and we've been working, I mean, it's, it's pushing 10 years now that we've been working together. Um And so, and, you know, it was Patrick's artwork that Steve saw in the investor in the investor meeting. That was like, yeah, you got something. He hadn't even read the stories. It was the

    43 min

  4. 08/28/2023

    I Don’t Think We’re in Kansas Anymore: The Deepening of Immersive Storytelling

    What makes for an interesting interactive story? How complex must the story be? Why some interactive stories (like in gaming) flop? Why is the user experience so important? Our guest this week is Ronda Thomas from Alozari. "At Alozari we seek to return that connection through a collaboration of seasoned professionals in events, entertainment, and technology. We’ve been weaving the real and the virtual worlds together for decades, always at the forefront of technology and engagement."   Folktellers Universe   #Storytelling #StoriesToBeShared #FolkTellers #Alozari #RondaThomas #InteractiveStories   All right, this is week 10. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. The deepening of interactive storytelling today, we're talking about interactive storytelling, immersive storytelling. And what does this all mean in this, in this modern age? And so guys, I wanna begin with a, a quote from a video game. What is a man? But the sum of his memories, we are the stories we live and the tales that we tell ourselves. This is from uh Clay Kasick of in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. If you've ever played Assassin's Creed, actually, I am not a big video game person, but I love some of the stories that they tell my kids play these deep um interactive games like Assassin's Creed. And, uh that's the only one I can think of top of my mind. But there's actually a story to those. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And they're great. I mean, they're by, they're so immersive and they're so layered. Uh, you have full character development stuff. We need to introduce our, uh compadres here. Uh We've got the elusive, elusive, you keep getting up to go to the back. Yeah, that's, that was a stretching and the uh incredulous. I have no idea what that word means. Look that one up, look it up. You are often incredulous. OK. Maybe not today because you, you were smiling. So Stephen Sadler, Stephen Sadler is here. All right guys. So uh I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. We're talking about the, the deepening of interactive storytelling. This is a, a kind of a mysterious one. Not um it's not mainstream. No, this is not mainstream. And so, you know, are or is it well? OK, let me begin with this. Let me begin with this. So here's, here's a quote about interactive storytelling in our highly mediated technology driven world. We are all looking for meaningful ways to connect. This has constantly inspired me to create environments full of lively immersive experiential elements specifically crafted to foster human connection. And this is uh David Rockwell from uh he's a, he's a game developer, but we're talking about game more than just games. We're just, I mean, this is kind of a can be a uh a melange of different interactive, what do you guys think about interactive storytelling? Like again, we'll do our, our gut check before we bring our Well. Yeah. And, and for me, when I hear this and when I, I understand what it's about, it's, it's just part of that trans media, right? It's part of that trans media approach for telling a story. You can have a film, you could have a TV, you could have uh a TV show, you could have a book and you can have it in a game or, or some type of um platform like this where the stories are being told. And this is, this is something new to me. Um And it's interesting because it is just another platform, but you have people that really enjoy this platform to tell their story, to live their story. And what, what is, what is interactive storytelling? Is it just a video game or do we live in it? 00, this, this smells like a rabbit hole to me. This is all right, Steve Lay, lay down that. What's, well, there was an interesting project that um Carnegie Mellon. Um uh A few guys from Carnegie Mellon created. Uh I think they stopped the program in 2002. And it's funny because I didn't know that you were gonna title this podcast uh with Kansas. But the project was called the Oz Project, which is kind of strange. Yeah, but the way that the, the uh the Oz project works, I mean, it's probably what the, the framework that they've actually used for a lot of video gaming since then. And I know some of the guys that worked on that project actually got into A I. Um but there's an interesting component to it all is one, you have an interactor. OK. So if I'm a part of this interactive storytelling system, so imagine it's a piece of technology, right? Um I'm interfacing as the interactor. Uh Then there's characters that are controlled by something called a drama manager. OK. Is this something they're building? Is this they built this? OK. So this is a piece of technology, correct? Keep going. And this drama ma manager actually was responsible for moving the characters around to make sure that you are having an interactive experience within this, you know, this environment, this physical environment, which is not a physical environment, it looks like one, but it's a, you know, a 3d virtual environment. Um but it could have multiple different endings. So maybe there's 10 or 15 different programmed endings, you know, back then because back then probably they weren't using A I with you, I should say machine learning with machine learning, you could probably have, you know, limitless number of endings relative to, you know, what the characters are doing and what you're doing relative to interacting with the characters. Well, when you look at the way that that system is all laid out, is that not the world that we actually live in, is there not a master drama manager which is controlling the characters? Maybe I'm the inter actor and you are a character. You, you already were a I Joseph that I still am. This is, this is the, this is you, you, you might be a character in my story and vice versa. I'm a character, character many times So who is this big drama manager? Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I, I remember in one of our earlier episodes, you kept avoiding the A I language. It was like this is mechanical learning, right? This machine learning machine learning, right? And so same thing with this that this is a machine technology that tells a story. But this is something I didn't know that these, these games, if you look at that aspect only they are telling a story and you're living that story during that game. Yeah. So, so what you guys are touching on and this is becoming more and more prevalent in the development world, whether it's whether it's development of technology, whether it's um it's anything tied to story is story world development. And we've touched on this a little bit, but this concept of being able to build out an entire world. And previously, you know, you did this, you know, you could do it through books or you did it through a game and like, and now it's like, and it's what we've said that's really trans media. If you're doing it right, it's really story world building. And as Steve has said, it's like building a platform where it though there will be multiple outfit uh outlets and outputs. But that it's really all about the story and the multiple layers, wouldn't it be great if we can get an expert on our show to talk about this? But if we could do that. Yeah. In fact, uh, so Rhonda Thomas works for a company called Azari and we're gonna have her on and, uh, she'll, she'll be able to, to enlighten us a little bit before she comes on. I, I'll forget this. Thought. There is a, a piece of technology called conductor and it's spelled weird. I have to look it up. But, um, there's the, uh, Robert Prat. So Robert Prat and Jeff Gomez are the two like gurus of story World Building. So what Robert Prat did years ago um he built this engine, this like Steve you were talking about uh the Oz project. It was um it was a tool where you could basically build out your trans media story. It was called conductor where you were like the conductor of a symphony and you had full control of the story and then what the outputs were gonna be and you, you would stage it. Um it never took off because it was too complex. You had to be an expert developer. But what he does now he took the same technology and he's using it for crisis simulation. He's out, he's in London and I talked to him a couple of times. Super, super smart, super nice guy. But um now he does these crisis scenarios and and uh they're live scenarios but it's all managed with this, with this conductor system. So it's like the drama manager. It is he is the drama manager, the conductor. Like that was the analogy he used was the conductor of the orchestra. And you decide what piece you're gonna play, especially the drama, right? I mean, it's, it's we're talking drama. Well, welcome. Uh Rhonda. Thomas. Rhonda is our good friend from a Azari and I'll let her describe uh the, the crazy, cool things that Azari is doing. But Rhoda, you're here with uh Kurt David and Stephen Sadler and here's truly. Hi, Rhonda. How are you? I'm good, good. Nice to meet you. Good to hear you. Like, which part of the world are you in? So, I'm in Park City, Utah. I'm in the mountains at about 7000 ft. Is it still snowing? No, thank heavens. We had snow into June this year. I know. Oh my God, it's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Awesome. Well, Rhoda, thanks for, thanks for being on with us. We're talking about uh interactive storytelling and we're kind of going deep. This is kind of a mix of uh technology and story world building. And um it's right in your wheelhouse. So, you know, you've started this company, uh a Azari and it's, you know, I think it falls into the metaverse but it falls into a lot of different things. What is a Azari? What are you, what are you trying to do with um with your technology and with your interactive storytelling? Sure, thanks. So it goes back to the name of the company. So the the name of the company is a, a made up word Alo Zari. And we picked it because Zari is the golden thread that weaves through cloth, ancient cloth and Allo is hello in most many languages. So we looked at c

    45 min

  5. 08/21/2023

    Lights, Camera, Story!

    Telling Tales in Film and Television What makes film a compelling storytelling medium? How does film differ from a television series? How has moviemaking changed over the years? Our guest is Bill Sarine – Beachglass Films is a collaborative, creative-first company founded by brothers BIll and Douglas Sarine. We have a strong history of using our skillset to create high-quality entertainment. Our brand of creativity combines new strategies and technology with time-tested filmmaking expertise.   Folktellers Universe   #Storytelling #BillSarine #BeachglassFilms #FolkTellers #StoriesToBeShared #Film #Hollywood   All right. Hey, welcome everyone back to the Folk Tellers podcast. Hey, uh, this is week Nine Lights, camera story, uh telling tales in film and television. Uh Our usual introduction, uh, some people call me the space cowboy. Uh This is uh Joseph Bastian and we're here with the abominable. How do you spell that? You know how to spell that? Yeah. Ok. Kurt David is here and the, uh hm, I'm not the extra. I heard you say the word A, is this like the Canadian edition of the, uh for you, the podcast for the P A? So, so we're gonna talk about storytelling uh in film and in television and we have a very cool guest. We'll bring on a little bit. Um, so I'll, I'll start with this, this quote. Um If it's a good movie, the Sound could go off and the audience would still have a pretty clear idea of what's going on. And that's a quote from Alfred Hitchcock. So, what is it about film that makes it unique, a unique storytelling medium? I'll tee it up with that. What do you think? Yeah, it's interesting because there are some parallels between television, which is what I'm involved with in film. And, and I've heard that before and in fact, I, I practiced that before. You watch a, a show without the sound on to see what that body language looks like, what the interaction the nonverbals look like. And I don't know how you do that with a film though because there's a lot to a film with music with uh you know, the visuals as well. Um But I think what, what he was trying to get at was that the story can be very evident whether the sounds on or not. I think that's probably what Hitchcock was referring to was that whether the sounds on or not these stories should be very evident. That's what my take away from that. That's, that's really good. I've got mine, I'll, I'll sit on mine until I ask Steve. So, what, what is your take on film is a storytelling medium like, right? Just your gut check or it's the closest thing to reality, right. Really? Yeah. Well, maybe tell me maybe video gaming is, um, moves even closer towards that. But obviously, when I make a film, you know, you're relating to it because it's related to other stories that, you know, are, obviously, are fictional or stories that, um, you know, uh, that have, uh been made up from the past. So it's, it's, uh, it's, it's definitely reality. I mean, um, that's definite. The other thing is, it's uh, it's very communal in my, in my opinion, like, you get to watch a movie collectively together. That's why it makes a very good medium. Right. Yeah. And it's typically like minded people that might like that genre. Right. In other words, it's a certain genre or a certain story that people attract to, like, like, you know, different movies that are out right now. There might be a certain genre that wants to watch a certain movie. It's like when we talked about music, it's very, very similar to that, you know, you get people that, you know, get, gather around to listen to a record, you know. Well, people obviously gather around to, to watch a movie collectively and, and experience that. So it makes a very good medium for storytelling because of that, of that fact. Right. That, that's really interesting. So I just thought it's something funny. So back in college, a woman I worked with, she said she goes, I had a terrible, terrible night last night. I was like, what happened? She goes, uh we went and this is when there's still Blockbuster video, right? So she, she goes, I went to rent National Velvet to watch with my mom and dad. And uh I rented Blue Velvet instead. Yeah, about 20 minutes in after the severed ear in the field. Uh The parents are like, where's the horses? It took 20 minutes to get to that part of the story. Talk about the, the communal experience. But um so, so here's my sort of my gut check on, on film and storytelling. I remember the first time. So I'm as a writer. Um you know, I write um novels and fiction and whatever so that what you do long hand, right? You're writing. So you're, you are telling, you are telling when you're writing. So you're telling the story in film. I, I tried to write a script and uh the editor just right across the front just wrote in big letters. Exposition. I'm like, what does that? What does that mean? Well, exposition is when you're telling and in film and a script, it's showing it's all direction. So when you write a script, you're not writing a narrative, you're writing, like here's the direction of how you want the scenes shot and yeah, you have dialogue and things like that, but it's, it's seen and setting and things like that where they're standing, this is what they're doing. This is like there's characters involved. It's like you're, it's like you're building something. It's really like the engineering of the, of a story. That's exactly it. So, so film as a visual medium, you are mostly showing, which is why like what Hitchcock said is you could turn the audio off so you could get rid of the dialogue and you should probably still be able to follow follow the story and this is why I'm not a screenwriter. So that's not a natural thing for me. So I have to ask you to right now. What's your favorite movie? What is your favorite film that you've seen? I can't answer this for what reason. Because if I answer it, my wife listens to this podcast. Just one. Ok. One of your favorite favorite? Yeah, we don't want a divorce court over this but one, there's a funny story behind it. Ok. That's why total recall was one of my favorite movies. And the reason being that it's, you know, that, um, it's a kind of a thorn in my side and her side is that, uh on our wedding night apparently. And I don't remember this. She said she said I rented it, you know, on our wedding night, I'm like, I don't remember that. She's like, yes you did. I, I recall it clearly. You rented this movie and apparently that's not what you do on your wedding night. So, anyhow, what, what do you do? I don't know. I'm not getting into that. I don't watch movies to, not to, not to self. Yeah. So what was the, what, what about the story in Toto Rico that attracted you? What is it you like? I, I love, first of all, I love science fiction. Um, and I like twisted plots where you don't know, really know what's going on. That, that to me is good storytelling. I love, you know, I love Hitchcock. I mean, love Twilight Zone I mean, all of that, that those old science, science fiction and adventure stories. I love those Indiana Jones. I love, I mean, everyone does. I mean, really? So, and that's a Stephen King short story. Total recall. Hm. Did you know that? Now you, do you ask me my, my favorite film? So now, now this will be esoteric. So it's actually a German film called uh Wings of Desire. And I believe it was uh Americanized with Nick Nicholas Cage was like angels in L A. They, they butchered but it was, it's, it was more of an art film. And basically the concept was, it was shot in Berlin before the wall came down and it was the story of an angel that gave up its immortality to become human and the backdrop of the Cold War of, of Berlin, the both sides of Berlin. It's just a beautifully shot movie. But um thematically, it's just what's it called? It's called Wings of Desire and the director, I think it won a bunch of awards again. You know, we're back into the eighties again. But it, it, it affected me. I was in college at the time and seeing that, that film. Um Yeah, that story really, it really affected me. And again, that's one of those things. It's a German film with subtitles so you could watch it. Uh without, you know, unless you, yeah, without the audio and you would, it would be a beautiful it would still be a beautiful film. Did you watch that on your wedding night? No, I didn't. No, no, no, because you guys would be sleeping. Oh, nice, nice. Well played. All right. So, uh, we, we've got, uh, Bill is here with us and Bill has a wide and varied background as a Hollywood film director. So definitely an expert in the field. But, um, Steve, you met Bill a long time ago. Why don't you, uh why don't you uh give Bill his big intro, Bill. Where did we meet? I think it was in a, a Met's office many, many years ago, probably. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah, I remember um there was always a community of filmmakers and, and we're talking about our Met Zap here in uh in his office. And I remember sitting around the uh used to have these picnic tables and, you know, you never knew who was gonna be sitting there and, and one day, Bill was sitting beside me, we, we became very good friends. So, um so it was really, really good to hear your voice bud. It's uh great to be here and I'm really excited to talk to you guys about storytelling and, or whatever you'd like to ask me about. Well, I have a, I have a question. I know that you're a, you're a midwest guy uh from Chicago. And so I'd love to, the listeners, would love to know your story. Like, how did you get into Hollywood. How did you get from Chicago and get to Hollywood? Oh, man. Um I, I often say that my life is a cautionary tale. Um So it's uh I, I've had kids on set, you know, say to me like, oh, I don't, you know, just tell me what to do. And I said, I'm, I'm gonna tell you everything I've done and if you do the opposite, you should be fine. Um It's uh I literally, I was a, I was like an artist without a medium

    43 min

  6. 08/15/2023

    Securing Your Story

    Protecting Your Narrative in an Open Market Every business has Intellectual Property, and today it’s more valuable than ever. But most businesses don’t recognize it, protect it, or exploit it. It’s usually an afterthought. When an inventor develops something new, management may start thinking about patents. When a new brand is ready to launch, management may start thinking about trademarks. When an employee leaves and takes your new product to a competitor, management may think about trade secrets. Every business needs to make Intellectual Property a top priority of business planning. Financial experts say that the Intellectual Property portfolio is typically one-third or more of the total value of a business. Intellectual property can also lead to greater profits, expanded market share, multiple streams of revenue, and better business reputation.   Folktellers Universe   #StoryTelling #SecuringYourStory #StoryTellers #FolkTellers #BillHonaker #IntellectualProperty   Ladies, gentlemen and everyone in between. Welcome to the folk tellers stories. We shared podcast this week, we're gonna be talking about securing your story a little professional and personal advice on protecting your narrative on the open market. So the beggars and thieves can't take your good story telling. Uh I'm here with my compatriots, Kurt David and I keep thinking about your opening here of ladies and gentlemen and everybody in between because now we're talking about protection. Ok. I'm not in touch with that and, and cut that out. But are you wearing any? Ok, this is, we're, we're going down the rabbit hole quick, Steve can't even get his name out, but uh you're here. Who else is here? Well, I'm here, Stephen Sadler, Stephen Sadler. I'm glad you're here. Stephen Sadler too. I would have missed you if you weren't here. So, anyway, all right. So, uh uh that was like just checking it in with the laughter, right? So securing your story, uh We've all published. Uh Some of us had patented, uh our stories, our ideas and, you know, it's a, it's a hidden world. It's a hidden world. I, the quote, I begin with is uh Pablo Picasso says a bad artists, copy good artists steal. I'm like, oh, that's not nice. But uh uh one of our, so I wanna want to start with a, is a book written by um one of our friends and actually our intellectual property uh attorney's name is Bill Nier. Bill wrote a book, uh a really cool book uh called the Business Owner Guide to Intellectual Property. Turning your ideas into gold. And Bill is an IP lawyer. Uh Bill couldn't be with us, but he's letting us, uh he's letting us actually steal some of his stuff. So that's kind of cool. Um Well, I guess it's not stealing if he gave us the rights. Picasso said it's ok. All right. So here's what, here's what uh Mr says about intellectual property and about protecting your, your creative ideas and stories and endeavors. He said every business and this could be every person needs to make intellectual property a top priority in their planning. Financial experts say that intellectual uh an intellectual property portfolio, say that three times fast is typically one third or more of the total value of a business. Intellectual property can also lead to greater profits, expanded market share, multiple streams of revenue and better business reputation. Uh Bill was the uh lawyer for uh Kellogg's for years and years and years. And uh they sold, when Kellogg sold um part of their portfolio, they sold Ernie the Elf uh from Kieler cookies and he had been uh the Chief Elf since 1968. Uh and in 2001, Kellogg's purchased Kieler Foods for approximately $4.5 billion. The intellectual portfolio that Ernie and his friends in the tree represented was $1.5 billion of that value. That is one very expensive Elf. And one of the things that bill advises is it's 33 steps. He says you need to research, collect and protect and we're gonna talk a little bit about that. So what do you, um, what do you guys feel like? Uh is it a, is it a waste of time to try to lock down your, your ideas and your story or is it something, you know, in your personal experience? Is it something that you've, uh, you've had good luck with no luck with or what, what about you, Steve? I mean, you've done, you've done a lot of stuff on your, uh your ideas and your stories. Um, some things you've, you've just written, like I can tell you as a writer, um, you retain, like if, if you write something down and you have a physical or a digital copy of it, um, that you can prove is written at a certain time, it, it's got sort of automatic copyright but you don't have all the protections versus filing it. But Steve, what about, you know, what's been your experience in this because you've done a lot with like, like patents and devices and technology and stuff. I think it depends on the reason why you're trying to secure the IP. And what I mean by that is if you're, if the reason that you're trying to secure it is because you want to sue people later on, then that's not the right reason to secure the IP. Securing the IP should be kind of going to what Bill wrote in his book there. You're, you're creating wealth, you're creating value. So the reason that you're patenting something or you place a copyright on something or you're protecting your brand, it's to build the value of the entity that, that, that it's in and that doesn't matter whether it's a product or whether it's a song or whatever. Um But a lot of people don't, they don't see it like that. It's like they, they wanna, you know, kind of secure it and protect it for the purpose of either sitting on it and suing someone else later or whatever. And, and as an event and as in being an inventor, that's bad energy to me, the, you know, the reason that you're doing is you want to protect, you know, your art. And the interesting thing is when you're dealing with patents and trademarks, it's actually called art. Really. Yes. Matter of fact, if you're doing a search, you're looking for what prior art, that's the research part that Bill was talking about that the first thing is researching, making sure that, that idea or whatever it is, is not already out there. Yeah. And that's usually why you, you need an attorney, like an attorney go out and they'll actually do a proper patent search or a trademark search or whatever, find out whether someone else is using it and if they're not, or if you're doing something that's similar, then, you know, obviously they have to cite that and say, you know, this particular pattern here is, you know, similar and cited but yours is different. And, and that's the other thing. Another word that comes from stories is novel. You know, the, no, the, the novelty of, you know, of what a patent is it something original, original. Yeah. Actually, I think the definition is a, a patentability requirement according to which an invention is not patentable if it was already known for before the date of filing. So that is the key part. You have to have that component. It has to be, has to be novel. That's interesting. Kurt, um Kurt fell asleep. Um Kurt, we need to wake you up because you're like, what, what do I know about this? Like he's over here taking notes. He's like, shit, I didn't secure any of that. No, you know, it, it's funny because this is a great topic and, you know, one of the things that I've learned is that I'm still learning, but most of us, I think most of us will. I think it's safe to say most people will never be filing for a patent. Right? I mean, would that be a safe assumption that most people are not gonna file for a pen? But what is important? Right? For certain people, certain situations, I think it depends like you mentioned, Steve and it depends on what the idea is because as I tell people, every book, every TV show every product starts with one thing. It's an idea, right? It's an idea and we all have ideas. Some are great, some are grand, some are like, what, what was I thinking? Right? Something as simple as a Hula hoop, right? I mean, think about that. I mean, somebody who came up with that idea, um obviously has done well with it. Um I, I remember when I first wrote my, my book, my first book and talking about this, right? It's like this is new terrain for me. I, I didn't know anything about copyright or how did this work? And one of the biggest suggestions I had is, well, there's a poor man version that you can do right to protect your IP. And I said, well, what is that? And Stevie alluded to it about the time stamp, right? They said, well, if you have something written, you can mail it to yourself in a certified letter, it'll be time stamped with that certified letter and just don't open it because from that date, you can prove that. Hey, here it is. Right. And if it's in a court of law or whatever that is, I can then open it or have the judge open it. And here it is, this is my idea, by the way, and here's a time stamp, but that's a cheap version. You have to send a lot of those to you. What do you mean? Well, say you send one and someone, you know, it says, hey, this is my pattern. As soon as you open it up, you've opened it up, you only got one. Oh, so that's even a, a, it's a little more expensive than the Superman version. It's a great, so a 10 pack of registered letters. But no, it's a great point because yeah, when that does have to be open for whatever the reason and, and like you said, if, if the motive for doing that is to, um, sue or protect or, you know, from, not protect but to, to look at, ok, well, how can I sue somebody if they steal this? You know, to me it's a protection of an idea, right? It's an idea that you have that I have that whatever it is we want to protect that and, you know, we deal with that. In fact, one of the things I deal with the distributors for TV, programming, uh that I'm involved with is, well, who owns the content. That's always one of the first questions that distributors ask in TV, con

    41 min

  7. 08/07/2023

    You’re a Real Sport

    Athletes and their Tales of Growth and Change Sports is the ultimate serial story that attracts an audience from all walks of life. It’s not only the singular wins that keep fans engaged and invested. The stories of the teams and players woven through the years keep us invested and connected at a deeper level. Our guest, Douglas Eric Smith is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played for the Los Angeles Kings, Buffalo Sabres, Edmonton Oilers, Vancouver Canucks and Pittsburgh Penguins over the course of his career. He was selected second overall in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft. Folktellers Universe Home Doug Smith Performance   #Folktellers #Storytelling #StoriesToBeShared #Sports #HerosJourney #WarriorEthos   Well, welcome everyone to folk tellers stories, be shared podcast. I am Joseph Bastian and here with my, oh, no, it's a Spanish day. It's si Kurt David Stephen Sadler and we're happy to have you here uh, on this episode entitled, you're a real sport. We're gonna talk to athletes and talk about tales of growth and change. So to tee this up, uh we're gonna have uh Doug Smith on later. Doug is a former NHL hockey player and he's a good friend of Kurt. And um we're gonna, he's got an incredible story to share with us. So, uh I would don't wanna steal Kurt's Thunder, but um so to, to kind of open us up, I, I always like to start with a quote from some people to kind of get our thoughts around this. And so, so our theme now is like sports is story. And I know in another episode we were talking about, we touched on this a little bit with uh sports and myth as a mythological heroes and heroes and things like that, but just listen to this and like take some so time with this. So this is from X it was uh an article written in Forbes magazine and they said uh sports is the ultimate serial story that attracts an audience from all walks of life. It's not only the singular wins that keep the fans engaged and invested the stories of the teams and the players woven through the years, keep us invested and connected at a deeper level. So like let that soak in because one of one of the things that I wanted to pull you guys into is, you know, I read this book um called the Warrior ethos. And it was all about how warriors and how soldiers think and what I don't think a lot of people know about, you know, the history of a lot of sports is sports started as um practice for war. Like a lot of these earlier, earlier cultures when they weren't fighting, they had to keep in practice. So they would play games and they would, you know, they would play war games and they would have competitions and things like that. And so a lot of the sports that we have today, I mean, that's kind of the genesis and there's some, I just wanted to read a quick thing and then tee this up to you guys because I know you're gonna have a lot to say about this. So in the warriors ethos, they say um warrior's ethos, the warriors ethos dictates not just how a warrior should behave towards his enemies, but also how he should relate to his people and overcome his own weaknesses. It is a philosophy that must balance the encouragement of active aggression with voluntary self-restraint. This tension lies at the core of the warrior ethos. And these are the 33 sort of tenants of the warriors ethos honor the way of death. The highest duty is to the people and who sweats more in practice, bleeds less in war. Now, think about what that, you know, and an athlete's mindset. Kurt, you, you know, you actually are athlete at the highest level, the highest professional level, you know, how does that resonate with you? Yeah, I think one of the things I always have to qualify is that, you know, my, my career was pale in comparison to a lot of the hall of fame, all star world champion athletes that I sit on with today. However, one of the things that, that struck me as you was reading these things was, I think about, I don't know if it was the Aztecs or, or which tribe it was, but they used to actually have sporting games in which the losing team was put to death. I mean, literally, and, and so when I read that first, uh at, at attribute about honor of the way of death, I mean, it truly was for, for that game. I mean, you know, we talk about winning and losing today and it's like, oh, you didn't get the trophy. But, uh, you know, for those tribes or during that time it was literally, or you would be put to death if you didn't win. Yeah. So, and that's really, yeah, the stakes were high, right? Like we think the stakes are high now. But, you know, it, I, I always think, and we've all played sports at, at, at different levels and you know why you, why you get into sports, why some people get into team sports, individual sports? Uh, you know, what's, what's the driver there, Steve, what do you think the driver of, why people get into sports? Yeah. Why do people get into sports competition? I mean, it's, it's built into our nature to want to compete, right? But there's also people get into different kinds of sports. You can't lump all sports together like a tennis player versus like a soccer player or a hockey player. You're talking in team sports versus individual sports. So those are different reasons why people get into sports. Actually, I played badminton when I was in high school and I always gravitated towards playing singles and it became very much of an individual sport. But I also played other team sports as well. Like today, for example, I played hockey, uh, before I got here, that's why every time I come and do this podcast, I'm tired. But today I've ate enough bananas to try and have enough energy to be able to, uh, before you came I did. Yeah, I got all the showers hot for everybody. Ok, great. Thanks for that image. Yeah, no problem. But, um, but you, you mentioned something about the, the war warrior ethos. I mean, what is ethos? I mean, what is it? Yeah. Well, ethos or ethics or a, a set of beliefs, that's really what it is. So, like the, like what you live by? So honor the way of death. I mean, what does that mean? The the highest duty is to the people and who sweats more in practice, bleeds less and more? I mean, that's some pretty, pretty heavy duty stuff. So I have to say something at this point because it's changed throughout the years, throughout the, the hundreds of years, right? Of, of when sports been around, I mean, you think about the Greeks, you think about the Olympics, you know, the things that have happened throughout the hundreds of years and, and that ethos I think has changed from your description because, you know, more and more and this is one of the things that get me is this participation award, right? In other words, everybody's a winner. Well, you know, in a certain capacity, yeah, for competing, you are a winner. Absolutely. But there is only one winner, right? II I always said this as a player and then as a coach that literally one team finishes a season on a win, think about that for any sport, one team finishes on a win. So what, what are the implications of that in, in life? That, in other words, not everybody wins, right? You, you have to learn how to win, you have to learn how to lose. But the goal is to try to win, right? To try to be the best you can be the, you know, I love John Wooden's philosophy because he was at UCLA. I think it was 18 years before he won his first championship and then he had a slew after that, right. He still holds the record as a coach. But uh the point is that his focus as a coach for the players was we're not focused on what the score is. We're gonna focus on what the best is as a team. In other words, how do we play as a team? What is the best we can do as a team? Because that's our focus. We're gonna play teams that are better for us or better than us and we're gonna play teams that we're better than, but when maybe we don't play as good, so they're gonna beat us by the score. So our focus is playing the best we can. Yeah, and that, that's really interesting. And Steve I, this goes back to your point about, you know, that there's the individual performance and then there's the team performance and some people select a sport because they like the individual performance and some like being in a team environment. But um, you know, what's the, how does that play? Well, it goes back to that, the word that you're using before the ethos, right? Being a distinguishing character with moral nature and guiding beliefs is that even does that even exist anymore? A lot of, a lot of, a lot of characters, but look at everything that's going on over the last three years even. Right? I mean, politicians, medical, general sports. Where is the ethos? Where is it gone? Well, and that's the individual component to it. So if you break down the individual component, then how can you ever have a solid team without, without having the individual component? And obviously you need many warrior ethos to create a team, a team sport. Yeah, I think, I think there's a lot to unpack in there because when you think the original, like original sports were, it was practiced for war. So the warrior ethos that we were just talking about Kurt, I think you're right. It has changed because it's not about war now and now sports are, I mean, there's the whole competitive factor and there's all the life lessons but it's a business and don't take me wrong. I mean, when you look at the highest level of sports, I mean, it certainly is like a battle out there because people are trying to win, right? I mean, bottom line is you, you play for a Super Bowl, you're trying to win that Super bowl, right? And you can get hurt. Well, that's every day, right? And practice or, you know, walking to the practice field. I mean, you can get hurt. And so, but literally, I think, you know, the competitive spirit is still there, but it's nowhere near what it used to be, in my opinion. So guys, this is a really good time to bring our gue

    49 min

  8. 07/31/2023

    It Ain’t Sex that Sells – It’s Story

    Using Storytelling to Sell and Market Anything What is the difference between Sales and Marketing? Sales is when you go out and try to convince people to buy your product and service. Marketing is when you create such a compelling story that people are drawn to it. Our guest is Eric La Brecque from Applied Storytelling – a brand strategy firm that uses storytelling to build and communicate brands through story.    Folktellers Universe Home - Applied Storytelling | Applied Storytelling   #Marketing #StoryTelling #AppliedStorytelling #EricLaBrecque #Stories #FolkTellers   Everyone. Welcome to episode six of the folk Teller storytelling podcast. It Ain't sex that sells people. It's story. And today we have a guest with us uh Eric Labreck from applied storytelling. He's the CEO he is a brand strategy guru and he's brought storytelling into brand marketing. Eric, thanks for being with us. Great to be with you guys. Thank you. And uh we've got uh the other two cohort my cohorts today, adjectives today, the ubiquitous ubiquitous Stephen Sadler and the undulating character. How about that you just mentioned and now you're saying I'm out of here. Are you jealous? No, they all thanks to everyone thought I was undulating. Well, I've been undulating for years. I mean, you were last night, let me tell you, oh my God, this time here as a guest. Sorry, Eric. The first person we've had physically in the room when we were already, you guys are setting my mind in overdrive. I'm thinking well, of sex cells and story cell is storytelling. Sexy. Is it having sex? What, what is it? Ok. Now, I've got to kind of juggle this. Thanks is flowing. So I'll, I'll tee this up and then we'll get rolling. So uh my, my thought for the day is I had a uh a guru of mine. His name is Paul Tobin. I'll have to call him after they say I use this code. So he said, he said, Joseph, you know the difference between sales and marketing. I said, no, I don't know the difference between sales and marketing. He said selling is when you go out and try to convince people to buy your product or service. I'm like, OK, that makes sense. He goes, marketing is when you tell such a compelling story that people are drawn to it and they, yeah, they're drawn and they're drawn to the story. And this is really, you know, Eric, that's, this is kind of your Bailey wig. This is your like your, your whole philosophy on how you get people to be excited about a brand. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah. Well, for us, first of all, we start with a simple definition. A brand is a story, it's a type of story. Um and it's different from other types of stories and obviously in that you're using it in the marketplace, we talk about brands and we're talking about buying and selling things, right? And also as a form of story, it's really different. Um it's really diffuse, it's told through all kinds of channels at all different times um across time in a different way. And so this diffuseness is a really interesting aspect of it. And that's where the work that we do comes in. If it's so diffuse what ties it all together, you know, and there's, there needs to be some kind of a narrative thread, some kind of starting point to keep all these different things, all these different impressions, meaningful tied together and emotionally, very powerful. So I, I didn't mean to interrupt, but we've talked in the past about seeing brand through a storytelling lens. What, what's different in that than sort of the traditional way people would look, look at a brand. Well, I think the traditional way people do branding and marketing is to think of it as a story. Um Long before the word brand got thrown about, let's go back thousands of years to the first marketplace and I'm walking in it and I have come upon something I want to buy and we've got to figure out between me, the purchaser and you, the seller, what am I gonna pay for it? And the way you're gonna try to get me to pay what you want is by telling me a story about the thing. It's been a timeless way of selling since the very beginning. You can hear it in modern marketplaces, traditional marketplaces today. And if you take that principle and you say, OK, look why isn't that happening now? Well, it's because the buyer and seller are separated by media, they're separated by time because the marketplace is much bigger, much more complex because we live in, in modern industrial civilization, right? But that principle still holds true. That's our point of view. And a brand is really just that it's a story that's told in a marketplace. So again, we see it as like the old, becoming new. Again. That's interesting. I mean, it's kind of like haggling, social media has become the modern day haggling. Haggling is part of it. You know, there's the haggle phase, but there's also the post sell phase. I remember purchasing or bringing in a leather jacket to uh a leather repair, clothing repair place and I paid the price I was happy to pay for it was kind of expensive. And afterwards, the the guy who specialized in leather was telling me how beautiful it was and how beautiful my jacket was and how it deserved all this care left me feeling really good. We're in post tale now, you know, so there are phases of it and you know, in the direct marketing marketplace too, you sure do. You're making the right decision by spending that money on that leather jacket, right? To get it right? And we're building a relationship, right? Like I'm appreciating it. There's a little element of entertainment and there's an element of respect. He's telling me a story about how much he cares about me and what I brought to him to work on. So, Eric back up a little bit, I mean, it's amazing having you here in studio and just your work. I mean, just that alone of, of what you do and building brands. And I think that's, there's a, I guess what I want to hear a little bit is you brag on yourself a little bit about and it doesn't necessarily mean names as much, which is, boy, this is, this is the credibility you bring to this podcast. where like, where are you coming from? Eric? It's like, I almost feel you came in like all of a sudden we got real serious and sacred. There's like a sacred, the sacred story and we've got a sacred storyteller in here. And um I mean, that's knowing about where he came from or what, what your origin story. Yoda. I look, I, I seriously, I think I was in a series. It's one of those stories of being in the right place at the right time and being lucky enough to recognize it. So, as a kid, I grew up in a household where stories were big. My father was a probation officer and every night at the table, we had these incredible stories of the people in his case load, you know. So oral storytelling was something that I grew up on in a particular way. I also grew up in the border region. So San Diego and Tijuana Sister Cities and my dad, uh who's bilingual would take me down to Tijuana with him and there, we would purchase all kinds of things and some of the touristy things were in marketplaces where you haggled to go back to what Steve was saying as a kid, I got into haggling. I loved it. I thought it was awesome and it made the things that came out of there that I purchased, you know, Guitar Morocco's a chess set, um feel even more special. So there's that right. And then let's zoom ahead a little bit. I'm in Hollywood, if you will. I'm in L A and my office. I'm at this point, I'm kind of a copywriter, kind of a marketing consultant. Haven't really thought about the storytelling thing. I end up working next to a remarkable duo Linda Berman. Jonathan Katz. Linda Berman was a marketer behind Caswell Massey and Jonathan Katz had the biggest, one of the biggest uh um uh like prop houses in town. And they were in the thick of developing this idea of themed retailing and themed retailing involved developing backstories. And these backstories would be given to visual merchandisers, marketers, people making the clothes to help create these themed environments. So, you know, I worked with them on these environments when we figured out that we kind of dug each other guest. The guest stores were one Discovery Flagship Store, Nature Conserve, uh Nature Company had a store, um you know, so themed retailing was another stage, right? And then I kind of thought Well, um ok. Uh if you can do this for retail, can't you make back stories for anything? And there are some other steps along the way, but maybe those are the two key parts of my origin story. And here it was awesome. So here I'm in L A, right? And all the writers and basically that's what I am are drawn into the entertainment industry and there's good money there and a lot of fun and you're part of what L A is. A lot of L A is about and I've got this little place to myself, right. I'm in this big city with a lot of commerce going on, that's not entertainment and some of it's entertainment and there's this need or this recognition that this kind of approach to selling stuff um works. So it was like being this little tiny fish in this big big pond and really I should have been eaten alive, but there were no other fish. So it was a great place to start. I'm, I'm always grateful to L A for being a place that's entrepreneurial and spirit and, and uh where I could figure out some of these ideas and kind of like Hollywood production model you could say applied to um applied to brand thinking right, right place at the right time. I mean, I think Malcolm Gladwell and Out Outliers, right about his talk of people that have had a success because of being at the right place and the right time, the right place and the right time you got me thinking about. So a couple of years ago they did this experiment on ebay and they bought, they went and bought a bunch of the, these little salt and pepper shakers and whatever. Just, just worthless information, just kind of junk. And so, so these guys bought and th

    43 min
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About

Welcome to the Folktellers podcast, where whomever holds the story wields the power. What do building marketing tech for blockbuster movies, playing professional basketball, and writing award-winning young-adult novels all have in common? Stories - a lot more than you can ever imagine. Come join us as Kurt David, Stephen Sadler, and Josef Bastian share a few tales, have a few laughs, and interview some great people, while trying to uncover the mysteries and wonders behind every great story.

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