One of my favorite examples of storytelling lies in Casey Neistat, specifically the op-docs he did for the New York Times around 7 years ago. While this is similar to the short videos/explainers mentioned in the article, this differs in that Casey actually goes out and films everything for himself. This creates a more authentic feeling, as it’s not something from a stock photo/video, and helps the viewer see what he’s doing first-hand.

For example, in his video “The Truth Behind Calorie Labels”, he shows the process of actually preparing the food to be counted for calories, shows what the food looks like, and shows the scientists working to find the calorie counts. With the visualizations of the different foods toward the end of the video for how many extra calories he may eaten, it shows the viewer how much discrepencies in calorie counts can actually affect someone’s diet.

Similarly, in his video “NYC Soda Ban explained, sort of” he constructs pyramids to show how much sugar is in different drinks, but also shows how you can avoid the ban (while also looking kind of ridiculous). Both videos are examples of how he gives his own credibility by presenting himself at a scene or with credible sources, and visualizes the impact of what he’s investigating to the viewer, which helps the viewer better realize the consequences.