Storytelling blog post - Evan by Sandy Hook Promise

As my digital storytelling blog post, I have chosen the 2016 viral campaign on the video: Evan. Evan is a video done by the Sandy Hook Promise non-profit that trains people to detect signs of gun violence. The video is 2 minutes and 36 seconds long. It is divided in two parts. Nobody in the video is a hero or a victim. The characters are just acting along a normal day without framing any specific person to show villain or heroic traits.

 The first part of the video distracts us with a love story of two kids at school that are the center of the story. They are writing each other messages in the desk between classes and you are so focused on the plot of the two main characters you ignore the rest of the video. For audio, the video only has a background song that goes with the plot until the end when the girl notices the boys handwriting and they exchange a few words. By the end of the first part, the shooter comes through the door. Then the video pauses to say: “While you were watching Evan, another student was showing signs of planning a shooting. But no one noticed.”

The second part, the video zooms into the shooters storyline in the plot. They change the song to a more dramatic one and no words are exchanged. You notice how obvious the signs were and how people were so ignorant not to notice. After quickly going through the video again highlighting the shooter, the video reads: “Gun violence is preventable when you know the sings.” And ends with a call to action to visit the website sandyhookpromise.org learn more about their non-profit. I think having the second part go scene by scene is a very important aspect of the campaign because people can see explicitly everything again with everything the same but be focusing on another kid in the plot.

I think when it comes to storytelling for advocacy choosing words, video or audio is very important. Using words you allow people to create more visuals in their own perspective, but when it comes to video you lay out the whole picture right in front of them leaving very little space for imagination. This is why I believe in Evan the use of video worked perfectly. The viewers were drawn to the love story of Evan and then were redirected to the issue of gun violence. It was smooth, clever, and smart. The love story they used was to bring an emotional content for persuasion and it worked because the power of stories is on the emotional appeal.

When it comes to sensitive topics such as gun violence which is a very controversial topic using other types of approaches instead of political or call to action like vote is often more effective to get the message out there. Especially, when a story is so real like the one in the video that happens in schools around the nation everyday. I think the advocacy goals in this video were to challenge dominant narratives and stereotypes and enhance the salience of key issues. I think also from the six moral foundational values the video shows care/harm. They share care through Evan and his friend and the relationship they share at school with their friends and themselves. Then, they also show harm thought the intentions to harm other students and professors in the community with violence. It highlights that every story has two sides and as a community and policy makers we need to be able to notice the issue.