How Stories Shape Us

I’m five years old, sitting with my Mom in a crowded movie theater, about to watch my very first film ever. As the lights dim and the movie begins, I become enraptured with the animated cartoon world and the characters. Then, something we call an “inciting incident” in storytelling happens onscreen. When it does, little five-year-old me starts screaming so much that my mom has to take me out of the theater.

I’ve never watched Bambi again to this day (if you’ve seen it you know exactly what inciting incident I’m talking about). Although Mom had no idea an animated movie would have such an effect on me, at the same time, it also reinforced my love and deep caring for animals. Plus it showed me how worlds on film, even in cartoon form, allow me to feel something.

My guest today, Lindsay Eberts, has lived her life in and around story, film, and the delicious emotions they evoke. It all started first with her father, Jake Eberts, a film producer with a storytelling gift who created pioneering films like Driving Miss Daisy, Dancing With Wolves, and Gandhi, and later with her own work in helping emerging filmmakers around the world.

If you’re curious about:

What makes a story stick? What’s one way to challenge yourself in creating stories? How do you get past your fear and get back into the emotion you want to convey through your storytelling when you’re speaking in public?

Then you’ll want to tune into this episode as Lindsay and I take you behind the curtain as she shares her incredible perspective through stories about growing up with her dad, their Oscar date night a few months before he passed, and the last words she heard him say on his deathbed that all illustrate the importance of living a life surrounded by emotion.

• Why everything can be made into a story
• How one or two words can tell a story
• How to focus on serving your audience with your storytelling

Lindsay Eberts is a British-Canadian film producer and emerging filmmaker consultant based in Québec, Canada. Using the example of her father Jake Eberts' extraordinary career and wonderful character as a central guiding principle, she helps emerging filmmakers develop their first projects for maximum impact for their long-term career goals. Thanks to her time attending and working for the Sundance Film Festival, she is obsessed with short films and what they can do for filmmakers, especially if they get the right support.

She is currently serving as Executive Producer on the feature-length documentary, For Love, which is a celebration of Indigenous culture and people that draws the connection between residential school trauma and the overrepresentation of Indigenous kids in foster care, and a promise to do better.