How I learned about the importance of authenticity in content.

In one of my first big projects that I was responsible for at Local Glimpse, I had to manage the production and delivery of a digital onboarding video series for new employees. The company — a popular digital healthcare provider, which due to an NDA shall remain nameless — had planned and scripted monologues for employees to memorize and then deliver to the camera. The monologue itself usually pertained to introducing a new employee to a certain department, role or culture of the work place. My job was to film and make sure that the lines were delivered in accordance to the script.

One particular person — who happened to be a psychologist by the way — found it very difficult to deliver her lines and would beat herself up over it. She tried over and over again, and despite my team’s best efforts to console and motivate her, she still couldn’t do it. Finally, she broke down in tears telling us that she needed a moment to recoup. I had been quite silent up until this point, I mean I was still new to the job, and I didn’t feel qualified to jump in with a suggestion. However, I did do it anyway. I suggested everybody leaving the room so that it would only be the psychologist and I left. I told her she was doing a great job and that I understand that it’s not easy to do what she’s doing. I was thinking that what she needed was a safe space. We took a pause, she thanked me for the encouraging word and we went for it again. It didn’t go smooth instantaneously, but it did incrementally get better. She delivered her first line, then a second one, a THIRD and suddenly we were on a roll. We got to the end of it and were so happy! She gave me a big hug and told me that I was like a “solstråle” which is Swedish for “Sunlight” — which by the way is one of the nicest things someone has ever said to me.

The difficulty she experienced, she told me, was due to the fact that there was a script which prohibited her from expressing herself the way she normally would. Memorizing a script is not easy, and it led to a moment of stress when faced with a camera. It made me think, you wouldn’t ask an accountant to do the job of a plummer, so why would you ask a psychologist to do the job of an actor? Scripts are great for certain things, but not always. Sometimes you need to give the voice back to the person. That’s how I learned about the importance of authenticity in content.