The assembly of detail needed for a complex film scene is similar to that required for running litigation. FTI Technology has Story Development services to help get all the elements into place.

I recently watched the film 1917, notable for the fact that it was shot in as few takes as possible. Characters moved from point to point, followed, preceded or accompanied by one or more cameras which were passed from hand to truck to wire and back to hand to match what the actors were doing or seeing. Technology undoubtedly played a big part in the success of this approach – high-quality cameras are light and portable for one thing – but technology alone is no substitute for the success of the continuous narrative which unfolds.

Think how much scripting, planning and rehearsal went into those continuous shots, with no chance to stop or to consider a different angle, and with the normal infrastructure of filming – lighting, sound, people – out of sight from every usable angle. Thousands of elements, animate and inanimate, seen and unseen, all come together to create a credible narrative.

Managing litigation has similar components. People, facts, words, and pictures all contribute to the story which must impress an opponent and the court. Some matter more than others. Some may have significance greater than first appears. Some, whether supportive or unhelpful, may slip by unnoticed until too late. A competent assembly of the story in advance is a prerequisite for delivering the case, in the same way that pre-assembly of a complex film scene is essential to its smooth delivery when the director shouts “Action”.

FTI Technology, the technology segment of FTI Consulting, offers Story Development services to help with this, producing fact memos, witness summaries and chronologies designed to help links between documents and facts, and to provide a narrative which analyses strengths and weaknesses as well as presenting the story.

As with the filming analogy, this depends greatly on technology. FTI has a long-established reputation for using technology to identify what matters and to analyse data content of all kinds. The Story Development solution takes this one stage further, using that data and the analytics to produce research and critical thinking.

A lawyer running a case has something in common with the chief protagonist of 1917. There is a message to deliver. From every side come attempts to foil the efforts to get the message across. The FTI Story Development service has many uses; one of them is to help keep the story on track whatever else is going on.

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