Cinematic Storytelling in Compliance with Marc Havener

“Compliance” and “cinematic” aren’t words you often see together — but for our guest this week, Marc Havener, the pairing makes perfect sense. Marc is a filmmaker and the founder and CEO of Resonate Pictures, a company that produces cinematic training films that stick. Why cinematic training films? On today’s episode Marc shares about his innovative use of storytelling and how he uses it to communicate memorable messages.

The divide across filmmaking and compliance training

The idea began when Marc’s friend asked him to do training videos in the style of the TV show The Office — which Marc recognized as the spark of creativity that could make communications stick. That experience opened his eyes to the world of corporate training and ethics, and made him realize that the perceived divide across filmmaking and compliance training isn’t all that wide. 

The heart and essence of filmmaking and storytelling is changing culture, and so it is with compliance training. Embedding a message in a story is the best way to engage your audience, give them something tangible to wrestle with, and change behavior.

Crafting a Resonate Pictures Film 

Marc is very particular about his craft, and shares the elements that give a story power when presented in a cinematic film: 

The script: Marc brings screenwriters on board because they have the experience and technical knowledge to bring the internal out into the external: they know how to use subtext, how to frame a message so it doesn’t sound pedantic or patronizing, and create characters who are human, vulnerable, and relatable.

The cinematography: They place a high value on creating the mood and feeling for the piece. 

The actors: They work with SAG actors, who are able to communicate more with a look than a page of dialogue.

The new initiative

Marc and his team at Resonate Pictures have a new offer for compliance training. Their main offer before was one-off videos that ranged anywhere from one minute to 35 minutes. Now they’re offering the same power, drama, and story in video library form: 6 episodes, 3-5 minutes each, to keep them manageable and not have one video take too much time out of an employee’s day.

The initiative is being launched through partnerships with companies at two levels. At the Executive Level, partners have the power to choose topics for two of the videos, have the rights to use them in perpetuity, and gain access to the other four videos. At the Associate Producer Level, partners come in as early investors with early bird pricing to kickstart the initiative and allow Resonate Pictures to gather the budget they need to begin.

If you’d like to join, the deadline to sign up is January 15, 2019, or when all positions have been taken. Screenwriting begins in January, and the videos will be released in the fall. 

Resources for Marc HavenerLinkedIn

Resources for Resonate PicturesWebsiteMore information about the Library