We Think in Narrative
WE DON’T TURN TO STORY TO ESCAPE REALITY, WE LOOK TO STORY TO NAVIGATE IT. AT COUNTERSTORY COLLECTIVE, WE RECOGNIZE STORYTELLING AS ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL MEDIUMS FOR SHAPING HOW PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THE WORLD AND THEIR PLACE WITHIN IT. STORIES HELP US NAME WHAT WE FEEL, IMAGINE WHAT’S POSSIBLE, AND SEE ONE ANOTHER WITH GREATER CLARITY AND COMPASSION.
WITH OVER A DECADE OF FILM INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE, WE BRING RIGOROUS CRAFTSMANSHIP AND EMOTIONALLY GROUNDED NARRATIVE DESIGN TO EVERY PROJECT. OUR CAMPAIGNS PAIR BOLD, CINEMATIC VISUALS WITH JUSTICE-CENTERED STORYTELLING TO CREATE WORK THAT RESONATES DEEPLY AND MOVES PEOPLE TOWARD MEANINGFUL ACTION.
Our Process: Strategy-Driven, Human-Centered Storytelling
Step 1: Audience & Narrative Mapping
We begin by identifying your core audiences and mapping the cultural, political, and emotional landscapes that shape how your message will be received.
Step 2: Theory of Change Development
Together, we clarify how storytelling can support your broader goals—whether shifting public perception, mobilizing supporters, or influencing policy.
Step 3: Call to Action by Design
We craft clear, values-aligned messaging with defined calls to action that feel authentic and achievable for viewers.
Step 4: Credible Messenger & Story Framing
We center voices rooted in lived experience, ensuring stories are told with integrity, trust, and emotional resonance.
Step 5: Impact-Oriented Goal Setting
We establish measurable, realistic outcomes for engagement, outreach, and long-term narrative growth.
How We Work >
Our Personal Code of Ethics and Creative Standards
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The moral of each story should highlight a commitment to social justice. Viewers should leave the story with a reinforced idea of social justice imperatives and a need for collective action. Ideally, that includes a commitment to change.
Center the lived experiences of subjects with dignity, in ways that are culturally authentic. There must be care and compassion in the image-making, ensuring each subject’s safety, dignity and well being.
Include historical, cultural, political, geographic, and economic context shaping the storyline. Represent subjects at their full multi-faceted complexity with backstory, avoiding caricatures at all costs.
Center the subject’s agency over their own situation. We must recognize the subjects of our images and stories as active contributors and stakeholders in our story development and portrayal. We honor their agency over the narrative.
Challenge harmful ideologies that perpetuate social inequalities and stereotypes. Challenge and dismantle narratives that degrade marginalized communities and disrupt power dynamics that are rooted in colonialism, racism and patriarchal norms at any opportunity. Acknowledge our own privilege and power dynamics at play in any situation. Choose to uplift marginalized voices whenever possible.
Be authentic and truth seeking in all aspects of story formulation. We will not knowingly misrepresent the individual, situation, context, or location of an image or story.
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Diversify within the collective of storytelling voices. If not possible to have a collective story formation, rely on consultants and thought leaders’ feedback from varying cultural backgrounds.
Approach partner organizations with research and fact-based analysis. Understanding a social justice topic is fundamental before assembling a narrative to avoid confusion, misinformation or adversity to the cause. Hire analysts and experts in an applicable field of social justice when necessary. Engage with in-depth interviews and information gathering.
Evaluate alternative solutions and disruptive frameworks. Through the use of test audiences and research, engage with all possible outcomes of a message campaign before presentation.
Consent throughout the narrative and image-making process is non-negotiable. No individual, collective or other subjective entity will be included in a narrative without consent to be documented and proliferated in a digital and/or physical storytelling medium. When possible, have the subject propose their own feedback and approval of material.
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We view every project as a partnership, not a transaction. Our team works alongside communications staff, organizers, and community leaders to ensure stories align with both movement strategy and lived reality.
Clients are involved at key moments throughout development, production, and post-production—without being burdened by logistical complexity.
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Counter Story Collective brings film-industry rigor to every project. From pre-production planning to post-production delivery, we maintain high technical and editorial standards while remaining adaptable to real-world conditions.
Our team manages logistics, crew coordination, equipment, and timelines to ensure efficient, respectful, and high-quality production environments.
