Workshop Participants
Ralph Watkins is storyteller and professor based out of Atlanta Georgia. For years Ralph was a sociology professor who later in life turned to photography and multi-media storytelling as a way to share his work. He works with Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasting Network hosting his own talk show and producing documentaries. He is also a photographer who specializes in documentary and event photography. He is also a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary. He earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and his MFA in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design.
Ralph participated in the December 2016 MediaStorm Methodology Master Class. He had the following to say about his experience:
This workshop changed my life.
It gave me the courage to start my own storytelling company. I was convinced that I can tell the stories I want to tell the way I want to tell them.
I saw story in a new way. Stories came to life as I understood the MediaStorm method.
The methodology behind the work at MediaStorm is detailed yet one can grasp it and make sense of it. I left the workshop having rethought my process and was able to redesign the way I do my work.
Brian and his team are down to earth, approachable, accessible, authentic and transparent. They withhold nothing. The question and answer sessions were enlightening and empowering.
MediaStorm is about much more than technique. MediaStorm is about an ethical way of storytelling that seeks to be truthful, honest and fair to the person’s story they are prevailed to tell. The person whose story we are telling is the focus of the MediaStorm method and that is why their brand of storytelling is so powerful.
Stories don’t have time limits or goals. The story is told as is should be told and it is the story that dictates the length of the piece. Give the person voice whose story you are telling. We don’t speak for them but rather we provide a space for them to speak and tell their story. It is in this telling of their story that the viewer connects and is touched by the work MediaStorm does.
MediaStorm taught me how to breathe life into my story telling.
MediaStorm taught me how to tell stories in such a way that the viewer will connect with the story and the person who the story is about.
MediaStorm taught me how bring my character’s life to the screen.
They taught me how to make sure those how view my work will feel what I felt as I interviewed the people whose story I am privileged to tell.
Ralph Basui Watkins, MFA, PhD “The scholar with a camera.”