A Weekend with Stacy Barton

A week ago, I spent a long weekend working on a new exciting project with Stacy Barton. 

Stacy and I have collaborated on a few projects over the last year. We really see eye to eye on several aspects of storytelling and creating an experience for people to relate to, entertain and form an emotional connection to an IP for a company. 

This time, the task isn’t for someone else but her! We’re creating her Master Class based on the concept of writing stories in themed entertainment, something she knows a lot about. Stacy has been writing and creating experiences for themed parks including Disney and Sea World, for 20+ years, in addition to being a published author of several books.

It’s always harder working on a project for yourself than it is to work for other people.

Stacy knows that, so she called me. On that, she said, “I tell stories for a living - but when I wanted to share my story with the next generation by creating an online masterclass, I needed help. When it’s your story, you need someone else’s perspective, someone else to remind you to be yourself in front of the camera, someone else to make sure the story you’re telling is the one you intended. I do that for others, and this time, Chris did it for me.”

The idea is to share her experiences and knowledge from her years of writing with two audiences. The first audience is up-and-coming students entering into themed entertainment. She’s had a lot of discussions on this topic over the course of the Covid pandemic with those she’s encountered on LinkedIn as well as across the guest speaking circuits she’s engaged in. The second audience is for those already in the entertainment industry who can learn from her as the theme entertainment industry rapidly grows in size, making it impossible to be everywhere she needs to be. This class will be her attempt at reaching as many as she can, as quickly as she can, as personally as she can. 

We spent a lot of time crafting her story to make sure she gives her viewers as much of an intimate in-person experience as is possible. The trick: teach a class while making it a conversation. Stand out from the masses of other “instructional” videos by differentiating the approach.

It was really interesting watching a storyteller tell her own story, even a pro-veteran like Stacy. She was totally in her element when she was teaching the instructional part of the class, but when it came to the other parts that will serve to weave the pieces together, she found herself too “in the weeds” and scripted. I spent a good amount of time helping her craft that message. I found it was easiest to actually echo back to her some of what she was teaching others. I would simply her some of the questions she asks herself when writing. “Where are you trying to take your audience?” “What do you want them to take away from this?” “How do you want this to stand out from other videos like this, out there?”

I swear, it almost became “a fireside chat with…” I mean, literally, we were one rainstorm away from that while shooting. But the rain held off. 

“ I can’t recommend him highly enough: producer, creative director, editor, visual storyteller extraordinaire.”

She’s too kind, and I’m humbled.

We don’t have an announced release date yet, but… Coming soon!

In the meantime, here are some images from the shoots we did.

Enjoy!