And behind every story is a process, built by experience.
The Firestarter Difference.
From the outset, we work closely with our clients to understand key audiences and stakeholders, the range of questions we seek to answer, and central messages—including the narratives we’re looking to shift. We define project goals in collaboration, and develop a strategic plan to support the collection of story elements that will answer to these objectives.
Next, we conduct documentary-style interviews, translating our strategic story objectives into questions that will elicit the information, emotions, and messages at the heart of the narrative we’re building. We always seek to interview a diverse group of interview subjects, from voices on the ground to leadership offices, and capture authentic footage of our interviewees in action to more vividly illustrate the insights they share.
After filming, every interview is transcribed to provide a roadmap for the material. Transcripts in hand, we embark on our rigorous narrative development process. We begin by organizing the raw material—sometimes hundreds of pages of transcripts, representing many hours of footage—into Selects, organized by Themes. From these Master Selects, we develop a narrative storyboard—the script for the story we’re building. After several rounds of distillation, we’re finally ready to translate our storyboard into video.
At this stage, the narrative storyboard (a text document) is passed from story development to our editing team, and based on the script, our editing team creates a preliminary video cut. Our story development team then reviews the video cut, and engages with the editing team to tighten the narrative, and refine messaging and flow. We think of this process of peeling back the layers to reveal the most compelling essence as storytelling alchemy, transforming raw material—shapeless content—into story. Once the narrative begins to shine, we present our clients with a first draft (in print and video form) for feedback and refinement.
Collaboration with our clients is foundational at every stage, but perhaps most evident—and differentiating—during the refinement stage. We seek to move minds by moving hearts, and our clients are partners in this process. We collaboratively refine the narrative backbone of the film to “get it right” strategically and emotionally, and only then begin to add the bells and whistles of music, b-roll visuals, and graphics. We iterate and co-create, refine and polish until we arrive at a final product we’re all thrilled with.
Our stories headline events, live on the front pages of our clients’ websites, and bring narratives to life across social media channels. Our clients’ success is our success, and together we analyze key metrics—from driving engagement or donations to campus visits or email signups—and make responsive adjustments, as needed, to increase the effectiveness of our campaigns. Through long-term projects and relationships, we build a deep and flexible story archive, which we can draw upon as needs arise and new objectives are defined. We return to the start of every storytelling cycle with new insights and a deepened collaborative relationship, and hit our bullseyes together again and again.
