Create shareable content: 5 Hollywood storytelling tips

Editor’s note: This article is a re-run as part of our countdown of top stories from the past year.

“Emotional storytelling is the best way to truly connect with your audiences,” says Brandon Daniels, currently a motor oils product manager at Marathon Petroleum.

“Without it, your speeches, presentations or YouTube videos will fall flat,” he warns.

He speaks from experience. Daniels previously worked as a spokesperson and social media manager at Marathon, where he was heavily involved in video production and multimedia project development.

“People laugh and cry when they watch movies, because they identify with heroes on the screen and get to go on a journey,” he said in a recent Ragan workshop. “So we always made sure to apply Hollywood storytelling norms when we created our best videos.”

Here’s his advice for matching the film industry standard—along with insights from an actual Hollywood insider:

1. Watch movies…seriously. “As a communicator, you’re also a storyteller—just like producers making movies,” says Daniels. “The similarities are definitely there.”\

For example, “We used a traditional scripting format,” he says. “We storyboarded, we had production meetings and we edited using Avid Media Composer and After Effects.”