Feet First
Storytelling Project

In the planning phase, I brainstormed story content and determined a purpose of this project by considering resources, capacity, and limitations.

• Key Priority Project

  We decided to focus on Feet First's statewide Advocacy Network where they share information and challenge more complex statewide issues with other organizations across Washington state.

• Target Audience

  Organizations in similar sector across Washington state (non-profits, schools, etc.)
  Washington state residents who may have an interest in making their communities walkable (parents, older adults, people in an educational sector, etc.)

• Primary Action

  Visit the organization's website to learn how to get involved.
  Contact Feet First for inquiries

• Emotions

  Inspired, Excited, Hopeful

• Channel

  Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube), website

Chris Randels

Chris is a founder of Complete Streets Bellevue promoting walkable community in Bellevue, WA and joined Feet First's Advocacy Network in October 2020. I chose him as the main character to show that anyone can contributes to building walkable communities and encourage the audience to take an action like Chris did.

The goal is to make the audience inspired and motivated to take action for making their community safe and walkable.

To take the audience on an emotional journey and keep the story interesting to them, I mapped out the stories based on the three milestones (Beginning, Middle, and End)

Story Structure

Starting Point	Mid Point	Ending Point
Future (Hook)	Past (Low Point)	Current to Future (Call to Action)
Chris's excited and hopeful feelings for the future of the Advocacy Network	Small anecdote about the traffic accident that touched Chris's emotions His transformation from the past and where he is now	How he joined Feet First's Advocacy Network and what he envisions in the future of a walkable community

I added small details to make stories authentic and help audiences picture the scenes. With those details, I was able to achieve making stories more personal, which allows the audiences to easily relate to and have meaningful connections with the stories.

Starting Point	Mid Point	Ending Point
Emotions: neutral, a sense of excitement	Emotions: sad, frustrated	Emotions: inspirational, motivational, excited
Details: How he started to ackowledge the safety issues in his community Expressed his excitement toward creating walkable community with other organizations in Washington State	Details: Used small anecdote about the traffic accident that affected Chris's emotions and actions His transformation from the environmental perspectives to more holistic one that encompasses safety issues, social justice, racial issues, etc.	Details: How he started his own Advocacy work How he found Feet First on Twitter, contacted one of the board members, Rachel, and joined the Advocacy Network His insight for statewide Advocacy Network that benefits our communities in Washington State

We work together
for our family
for our friends
for you.
Create safe streets together.

• My goal for the ending was to make the audience feel hopeful for their future and be excited about improving the walkability and healthy environment in their communities.
• To create a motivational atmosphere, I added Chris's motivational lines using his real voice and inspirational messages on a screen along with an uplifting music, which lead to the call-to-action at the end of the video.

"I started to understand the importance of safety issue it is and how important of a social justice issue is that people be able to walk, bike, and take transit on our city streets safely without worry."

The story unfolds with a neutral tone with Chris's authentic voice talking how he started to ackowledge the safety issues in his community. I believe that this first line shows his honesty and authenticity very well. This simple but direct message will grab the audience's attentions and make it easy for them to understand that the story's theme in the first 10-15 secounds. By saving some details for the ending, it also holds the audience's interest to continue watching.

I recorded the interview session with Chris and filmed some scenes in Bellevue, WA. I edited the video using Adobe Premiere Pro.

• I learned the importance of a deliberate planning before the design and production phase. It allowed me frame the narrative and have a clear understanding of who we're targeting at and what message we are primarily delivering.
• I was able to apply my knowledge and skills in making the story personal by mainly focusing on a single charactor and creating emotional and meaningful connections with the audience.
• If I were to continue working on this project, I would add some supporting charactors to show different perspectives and add another dimention to the story.
• While I crafted this video storytelling based on the storytelling strategies that I learned at Georgetown University, I didn't have any skills in filming and editing videos. I hope to add those practical skills and refine the video in the future.