Three super short stories from The Story 2019
For too long I’ve listened forlornly as my creative heroes recount tantalising snippets of missed wisdom. Nine years late, I finally make it to the 10th edition.
1. A story of colour
Not a conference to be tied down, this year The Story celebrated art, games, books, theatre, film, telly, museums and more. A colourful display, and one that regularly spoke very literally about colour.
Finbar Hawkins of Aardman discussed the impressionist art style and signature colours used to convey the emotional journey of two very different characters caught up in the great war. 11–11 Memories Retold is Aardman’s first console game.
Marie Foulston, curator of Design Play Disrupt at the V&A, showed how colour was an essential identifier for each level in the rich world of indie hit The Journey. In uncovering this beautiful and rigorous design work, she made a compelling case for a new way of showing games in museums.
Knights Of is a newly formed publishing company enjoying the rollercoaster of success following their celebration of colour. They tapped a rich vein with a mission to promote proper diversity:
In 2017, under 4% of children’s books featured characters of colour.
Finally, Justin Thompson, production director on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, blew us away with a colour masterclass. His job was to work out how to express whatever the central character was feeling, and colour played the starring role in a stunning reinvention of the superhero movie.
2. A story of space
From the physical space created by Patricia Fleming to nurture dozens of world-renowned artists to the space between the words of a joke that make it funny…
A magnificently witty conference footnote from Joel Morris and Jason Hazeley revelled in the joys of one-liners, epic captions and the power in the spaces between words. It’s an invitation to create a narrative and one that’s all the more rewarding having worked for it.
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
With Ernest Hemingway’s classic six-word story as a benchmark, they romped through Viz quips, their Ladybird line, The Meaning of Liff, Philomena Cunk and the Onion, thrilling in brevity and letting readers take pleasure in puzzling out.
In her previous job, Sara Wajid would look on with envy as three museum colleagues got their “bounce” on in writers room style, bashing out another male/pale/stale exhibition. So she created the space she needed for that energy to flow. It started with immediate colleagues, then grew to become Museum Detox, a flowering story both of colour, and of space: somewhere safe to bounce!
3. A story of permission
Alison Kobayashi is determination personified, transcending any need for permission. She spent seven years deciphering some found cable recordings to produce the remarkable Say Something Bunny show that casts the audience as both observer and participant.
The dole office didn’t give Glasgow’s Alison Fleming permission to be an artist, but she went and bloody did it anyway, carving a path for others to follow.
Justin Thompson gave it; he empowered a team of 800 creatives to express themselves, re-write the rendering rulebook and reinvent the superhero movie.
There were, of course, many more themes weaving their way through the staggering array of creativity on show, but you’ll have to wait until 2020 for StoryThings’ next full Technicolour instalment of The Story.
