See a photo of Barry, his bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A.
Q&A with Barry Poltermann, Questions 3 and 4:
Q: What people or entities have been most influential to you in your story work and why?
A: My first love was movies. Growing up I watched anything and
everything I could. Coppola, Scorsese… even John Waters. What’s interesting to me now is that we so many avenues for young people today to hear, watch, or read stories, whereas when I was a kid there weren’t many at all. Despite my voracious appetite for stories growing up, I wasn’t able to get as many movies or shows or books or magazines on one year as a kid today can get in one browser session. I think that as far as my work, my career in stories and storytelling, it was that generation of filmmaker that most influenced me, and still does today. But I’m a living, breathing, changing human being, so I’m certainly influenced by what I see on the Web, on my TiVo, and all the rest of it, too. The decision to start AboutFace was not only influenced by but predicated on the influence of the web, especially social media. You can’t put blinders on, you have to keep your eyes open and evolve with the times.
Q: The storytelling movement seems to be growing explosively. Why now? What is it about this moment in human history and culture that makes storytelling so resonant with so many people right now?
A: I’m not sure the storytelling movement has ever been bigger — or smaller. I think that now, with the technology to bring so much of the world together online, and with the relative low cost of things like video cameras and laptops where you can edit a video or start your own blog, there’s more opportunity for more people to tell more stories. It’s been a sort of leveling of the playing field, taking the monopolistic power of mass storytelling out of the hands of the few and putting it into the hands of the many. That said, there are certainly more stories available out there today, but you don’t necessarily see an exponential growth in the number of great, well-told stories. Like anything else, it’s a skill, it’s a craft, and if you study and practice and work at it, you’re bound to improve. If you think about Outliers, it’s those people who have logged their 10,000 hours who are most likely to master the art of the narrative, and as more people are able to have access to the tools, we’ll be lucky enough to see more stories and better stories.