ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Joe Sabia - Storyteller
Joe Sabia investigates new ways to tell stories -- meshing viral video and new display technologies with old-fashioned narrative.

Why you should listen

Joe Sabia is a NYC-based conceptual digital video artist who creates shareable videos and formats across a multitude of genres, amassing more than 1 billion views in total. As a creative consultant, Moth Programming Board member, and award-winning director/editor, his current role has him creating franchise video formats across the Conde Nast Portfolio as VP of Creative Development.

You may recognize his voice as the guy on Vogue's "73 Questions." Some of his work includes the "Wired Autocomplete Interview" series, "You Sang My Song" on Glamour, and "Lie Detector" and "Tinder Takeover" on Vanity Fair. Joe created "African Men, Hollywood Stereotypes" which launched the awareness campaign of Africa-based non-profit Mama Hope. He spent two years making an art project called "The Office Stare Machine" which takes 700 stares from The Office and catalogues them against hundreds of emotions. He also co-founded "CDZA", a music channel featuring hundreds of conservatory-trained musicians in viral videos, including directing a set with Spike Jonze at the first ever YouTube Music Awards.

Sabia's hobbies include being an amateur classical pianist, the 2007 international pun champion and proud co-owner of an Italian restaurant. He also documents management facility in the Republic of Georgia.

More profile about the speaker
Joe Sabia | Speaker | TED.com

Full Spectrum Auditions

Joe Sabia: The technology of storytelling

Filmed: 2011-05-24

Readability: 4.3

1,352,099 views

iPad storyteller Joe Sabia introduces us to Lothar Meggendorfer, who created a bold technology for storytelling: the pop-up book. Sabia shows how new technology has always helped us tell our own stories, from the walls of caves to his own onstage iPad.

Joe Sabia - Storyteller
Joe Sabia investigates new ways to tell stories -- meshing viral video and new display technologies with old-fashioned narrative. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

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Ladies and gentlemen, gather around.

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I would love to share with you a story.

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Once upon a time

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in 19th century Germany,

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there was the book.

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Now during this time,

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the book was the king of storytelling.

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It was venerable.

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It was ubiquitous.

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But it was a little bit boring.

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Because in its 400 years of existence,

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storytellers never evolved the book

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as a storytelling device.

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But then one author arrived,

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and he changed the game forever.

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(Music)

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His name was Lothar,

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Lothar Meggendorfer.

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Lothar Meggendorfer put his foot down,

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and he said, "Genug ist genug!"

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He grabbed his pen,

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he snatched his scissors.

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This man refused to fold to the conventions of normalcy

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and just decided to fold.

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History would know Lothar Meggendorfer

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as -- who else? --

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the world's first true inventor

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of the children's pop-up book.

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(Music)

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For this delight and for this wonder,

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people rejoiced.

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(Cheering)

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They were happy because the story survived,

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and that the world would keep on spinning.

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Lothar Meggendorfer wasn't the first

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to evolve the way a story was told,

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and he certainly wasn't the last.

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Whether storytellers realized it or not,

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they were channeling Meggendorfer's spirit

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when they moved opera to vaudville,

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radio news to radio theater,

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film to film in motion

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to film in sound, color, 3D,

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on VHS and on DVD.

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There seemed to be no cure for this Meggendorferitis.

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And things got a lot more fun when the Internet came around.

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(Laughter)

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Because, not only could people broadcast their stories throughout the world,

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but they could do so

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using what seemed to be an infinite amount of devices.

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For example, one company

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would tell a story of love

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through its very own search engine.

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One Taiwanese production studio

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would interpret American politics in 3D.

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(Laughter)

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And one man would tell the stories of his father

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by using a platform called Twitter

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to communicate the excrement his father would gesticulate.

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And after all this, everyone paused;

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they took a step back.

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They realized that, in 6,000 years of storytelling,

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they've gone from depicting hunting on cave walls

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to depicting Shakespeare on Facebook walls.

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And this was a cause for celebration.

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The art of storytelling has remained unchanged.

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And for the most part, the stories are recycled.

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But the way that humans tell the stories

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has always evolved

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with pure, consistent novelty.

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And they remembered a man,

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one amazing German,

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every time a new storytelling device

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popped up next.

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And for that,

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the audience --

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the lovely, beautiful audience --

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would live happily ever after.

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(Applause)

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Joe Sabia - Storyteller
Joe Sabia investigates new ways to tell stories -- meshing viral video and new display technologies with old-fashioned narrative.

Why you should listen

Joe Sabia is a NYC-based conceptual digital video artist who creates shareable videos and formats across a multitude of genres, amassing more than 1 billion views in total. As a creative consultant, Moth Programming Board member, and award-winning director/editor, his current role has him creating franchise video formats across the Conde Nast Portfolio as VP of Creative Development.

You may recognize his voice as the guy on Vogue's "73 Questions." Some of his work includes the "Wired Autocomplete Interview" series, "You Sang My Song" on Glamour, and "Lie Detector" and "Tinder Takeover" on Vanity Fair. Joe created "African Men, Hollywood Stereotypes" which launched the awareness campaign of Africa-based non-profit Mama Hope. He spent two years making an art project called "The Office Stare Machine" which takes 700 stares from The Office and catalogues them against hundreds of emotions. He also co-founded "CDZA", a music channel featuring hundreds of conservatory-trained musicians in viral videos, including directing a set with Spike Jonze at the first ever YouTube Music Awards.

Sabia's hobbies include being an amateur classical pianist, the 2007 international pun champion and proud co-owner of an Italian restaurant. He also documents management facility in the Republic of Georgia.

More profile about the speaker
Joe Sabia | Speaker | TED.com

THE ORIGINAL VIDEO ON TED.COM

Joe Sabia: The technology of storytelling | TED Talk | TED.com