[DEMO] - Sensitive but powerful (?) treatment of difficult subject

Bruce very thought provoking, can only agree that whatever decisions are made will affect many others.Chat54

Hi, Bruce, what I liked from this demo is that you treat a very difficult subject and hard to hear data with elegance, dissociated from the more emotional and touching thing, so the viewer can follow the story without feeling bad about it.

I don't know if I explained this correctly, but what I liked the most is the "aseptic" perspective, while it's not cold nor indiferent.

Belén

Thanks Belen.

That pretty much describes what I was trying to do

Thanks again for the comments.

Bruce

Really well done, Bruce. 

Thanks Natalia...

Bruce

Nicely done, Bruce.  And that was quite a good VO, I'd also like to add.

ab

Hi Bruce,

Parents will go to the ends of the earth for their kids, won't they!  I think that you did an excellent job here Bruce.  

Not knowing the context that this will be used, I found that I was left with some questions (and perhaps the purpose is to start a discussion). How did the parents feel about having to farm out the other daughter? I wondered how/if the father handled/mended the affected relationships, and how/if the sisters mended their relationship.  During the year in isolation, how did they communicate with the people they were cut off from (e.g could they Skype)?  How did the family survive without his income?  How were the extended family/friends impacted and how did they react - were they sad or mad (i.e.the ripple effect you speak of - you said it was powerful - in what way)?  When you said she went back to normal - does that mean that she was cured (i.e. in the 30 vs the 70), or will she always live with some specter of this disease? Finally, why do we need to remember that all decisions have an effect on others - so you are prepared for the consequences . . . so you can understand in advance and plan . . . so you have accurate expectations . . . so you know that you are going to pay a price that you cannot yet see?  Does "Dad" have any advice for us? 

The story is compelling and well-told.  You weren't asking for feedback, but if any of this makes sense for your piece, the only thing I have to say is - tell us more!  Also, if it would be appropriate, a real-live picture of happy/healthy Alex (or the family) would be powerful at the end with the caption "For the love of Alex."

Can you tell I like to infuse elearning with emotion wherever possible?  

Jill

Bruce, thanks for sharing. The subject matter was certainly handled sensitively. But, putting the emotional aspect aside, and speaking to the elearning itself, this is such a good model for what we, or at least I, keep reading about in terms of the less is more approach.To name a few:

• Simple silhouettes
• Lots of white space
• Small bits of information appearing on the screen
• Being careful about cognitive load
• Snippets of text to reinforce the audio, but not distract from it; same with images

And I agree, great VO

Nice piece of storytelling there The flow is really nice

Thanks for the comments Andy/Jill/Rebecca/Morten.

One of the things that I am trying to do as I develop my eLearning skills is to consider emotions in every subject - so important as mentioned by Jill.

This one was a natural topic, however, I am sure that it is possible, (with adequate thought), to use this sort of technique in most subjects at least once on every course.

Taking people on an emotional journey, with just a little bit of "uncomfortable" is one very powerful way to ensure they recognise the content as being relevant, and not just theoretical.

Jill - I extracted this one slide in isolation from a course which addresses Deprivation of Liberty Standards.Some of the questions you asked are contained within the course, but the more "personal" ones are not, in fact, I do not know the answers. In this case I think we need to keep those unanswered, as to some extent we need to stsy "clinical" about decisions like this. If I get the chance, I will speak to Dad  - however...as I do not know what eventually happened, I do not want to open doors that he may prefer are kept closed.

Dad, in this case, is the course SME, - it may have been that this experience guided him in life, however the course is full of passion anyway, he has a HUGE number of "was stories" to tell, so I feel the emotion will seep into the eventual build anyway.

Thanks again.

Bruce