Signal, Not Noise
AltaVista is developing original properties for screen and stage as well as storybrand narrative for marketers who want a fresh approach in the new media era. In an age of distraction and interruption, dramatic tellings capture and hold attention. Signal, not noise.
AltaVista has worked with dozens of well-known technology, industry and media brands in the United States and Europe.
Television Fiction
It is often noted that we are experiencing a golden age of television drama. In fact, internet distribution has already evolved beyond the conventional notion of linear television, enabling whole new storyworlds and immersive experiences as networks and streaming platforms jostle for global audience attention. The future lies in a new wave of global storytelling which connects local narrative everywhere with the world audience. This is a very exciting time to be living and working as a storyteller, analagous to the birth of cinema itself in Europe and North America over a century ago. As long-form drama dominates the schedules of distributors and pervades so-called factual programming, story skills involving empathy, suspense and surprise are coming to dictate the fate of an industry. And as every other industry rapidly merges with media, the opportunities for dramatic narrative across the entire economy are unprecedented. Alta Vista and the Craig Snider Writing Room swim in this space and bring their unique vision and execution expertise.
Screen Adaptation
With a high-powered background in literary education, the Writing Room develops its own story slate of adapted properties for the American, British and European screen markets. Every generation requires its own versions of the great classics, from Homer’s epic storyworld and Shakespeare’s dramatic universe to nineteenth and twentieth greats such as Edgar Allan Poe and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Literary adaptation for modern media spans animation and factual segments as well as feature film, anthology and long-form series formats. Craig’s team develop these properties for international audiences in collaboration with literary management companies, production companies and literary departments within major talent agencies.
Story Agency and Masterclass
Craig Snider and his veteran team of writers are dedicated to the fine art of storysmithing across media and platforms, both for original story properties and branded experiences. Based on groundbreaking research at Oxford and other European universities, Craig’s team craft dramatic narrative along timeless principles, reflecting the original Greek sense behind the word story – a learning by inquiry. The Prospero Story Masterclass, named after Shakespeare’s only original character and master magician, offers arts and communication professionals a deep dive into the core principles, models and trade of storymaking across fine and applied arts. Craig and Co. have worked for numerous global brands and media entities, including Microsoft, SAP, Sony, Siemens, Constantin Film, Merck, Allianz and Fujitsu.
Craig A. Snider
Craig Snider is the founder of AltaVista, dedicated to classical story design for the screen. Executive Producer of SUFFERING MAN’S CHARITY (2007) and FEEL (2006), he is currently developing original screen properties in both long-form television and feature-length format. Craig and his team follow in the tradition of classical filmmakers such as Stanley Kramer.
With a mature understanding of media creation from both a commercial and a creative perspective, Craig Snider is co-founder with James McCabe of The Prospero Story Masterclass, dedicated to creating original story in the entertainment and enterprise arenas. By applying the design principles and production values of classic drama to enterprise challenges, Craig Snider and his Writing Room of professional scribes help clients turn strategic positions into compelling narrative relationships with existing and emerging audiences. Building on a background in arts, business and educational innovation, Craig enables writers and other creative professionals in media and enterprise to craft unique storyworlds, develop episodic storytelling and bond emotionally with a wider international audience. Having already co-produced two feature films, he is currently leading his team of writers in the development of an original dramatic television series set in the world of live spectacle.
Craig is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and holds an MBA from Wharton Graduate School of Management. He is the founding Executive Director, Emeritus of The Snider Foundation in Philadelphia.
The AltaVista Writers Room
Headed by Dr. James McCabe, the Writing Room brings a wealth of craft knowledge in the narrative and performing arts, and has worked collaboratively with numerous creative enterprises and individuals – from technology stalwarts such as Siemens and Sony to renowned film studios like Germany’s Constantin Film as well as esteemed authors including Hollywood’s Robert McKee. The vision within this handpicked group of writing professionals centers on the timeless craft of dramatic narrative as originated in Greek theater and brought to fruition in world cinema.
The AltaVista Writers Room helps organizations of all kinds transform into media companies and create their own library of story properties from films and events to products, services and whole ecosystems.
Award-winning Oxford scholar and poet James McCabe was born in Dublin and educated in the singular Irish storytelling tradition. Having worked closely with Craig Snider for many years on both commercial and creative story projects, James devotes his time to developing original story cultures for global brands as well as creating screen adaptations of literary classics and his own series of story properties. Together with his veteran writers, James marshals a unique matrix of narrative knowledge, market insight and media fluency.
Learn About Story
Storytelling
The story code is ancient and timeless. Across all cultures, various theories of drama repeat the same classic pattern – empathy, expectation and surprise. This sequence is built into all theater, music, cinema, television and indeed all narrative arts. A simple joke begins with Joe Average, sets up a regular action, then pays you off with an unexpected result. Instead of the disconnected agenda of rhetorical argument, true story offers a chain reaction of event and response that evokes deep identification at the mental, emotional and hormonal level. Story, in its infinite variety, always follows this code. In ancient Greece, the philosopher Aristotle unveiled the sequence of story as the flow from empathy to pity and fear and on to emtional purgation. We empathize with a flawed hero – all of us share this quality of imperfection or hamartia. We undergo the tension and suspense arising out of our hero’s dilemma, suddenly revealed in all its depth and significance – the process of peripeteia. And we are cleansed of pity and fear through a profound resolution that displays but does not point a moral – Aristotle’s catharsis. In twentieth-century America, the dramatist Kenneth Rowe defined this same sequence as Attack, Crisis, Resolution. Japanese storytelling follows the same flow in its Jo-Ha-Kyū code: ‘Beginning, pause, rapid’. What’s your innate story code? Alta Vista helps you transform the elements of good policy into more influential narrative leveraging the timeless structure of dramatic story. This is the deep meaning of entertaining – holding the human attention for long enough to influence behavior. Unlike rhetorical advertising which spells out its message and thus fails to connect with an audience’s imagination, well-told story engages from the get-go and pays off the investment with indelible symbolic imagery. It’s time to evolve beyond saying what we mean – and learn to dramatize what we believe so that it engages, sustains and rewards the human imagination.
Why Choose AltaVista?
Alta Vista’s diverse team of seasoned professionals draw from a variety of backgrounds, real world business experience and professional story expertise to develop campaign narratives that appeal to wider audiences and complement traditional advertising and messaging.
With coast to coast representation, Alta Vista headquarters are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Let’s talk about your story. Feel free to call us.
Phone: (484) 222-3130 • eMail: info@altavistacreative.com