About
Story Inc is a New Zealand-based company which creates original and intelligent exhibitions and experiences for museums and tourist sites round the world.
Who we are
We established Story Inc in 1997. Since then, we have created visitor experiences worth tens of millions of dollars for cultural institutions, government agencies and corporations in many countries.
Our work ranges from museum exhibitions to theme park experiences, from visitor interpretation centres to art installations – and everything in between.
Story Inc. has three directors:
Steve La Hood
Steve is a third generation New Zealander and a full-blood Lebanese. He is a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington and California State Universities at Humboldt and Berkeley. Steve worked as a TV director at TVNZ for over ten years from the mid 1970s. Since then he has worked as a freelance producer and director of drama and documentaries. From 1997 Steve has been a partner in Story Inc with James McLean and Dean Cato. Steve was chair of the Clyde Quay School Board of Trustees for six years, is an executive member of the Screen Directors’ Guild of New Zealand, and the chair of the Board of Studies of Toi Whakaari, the New Zealand Drama School. He is married with three children.
James McLean
James was born in Washington, DC, in 1961, and grew up in France, Malaysia, New Zealand and Britain. He graduated from Victoria University in 1982 with a first class Honours degree in English Literature, and began work in independent documentaries. Between 1986 and 1990 he lived in Tokyo, learning Japanese and working as a production manager for Japanese film and television location shoots around the world. On returning to New Zealand he began to work as a writer for TV and video. He was Creative Director at Corporate Visibility Ltd, a corporate communications company, from 1993 to 1995. From 1996 to 1997 he worked as a freelance writer. From 1997 to the present he has been a partner in Story Inc with Dean Cato and Steve La Hood. James has three daughters and two sons.
Dean Cato
After studying at Wellington Polytechnic School of Design and the Ilam School of Fine Arts at Canterbury University, Dean spent 12 years at the Avalon Television Centre designing a wide range of film, video, and theatre productions. Dean followed this activity with a four year contract as Design Services Manager for TVNZ at their Christchurch studios. In 1989 he moved to the private sector as staging, audio visual, video and print designer for business communications company, Corporate Visibility Ltd. Between 1993 and 1997 Dean ran his own business before partnering James McLean and Steve La Hood in Story Inc.
What we do
Strategy
- What is the main reason for your project?
- How will you know if it is successful?
- Who is your target audience?
- What story do you want to tell them?
- What do you want them to feel, learn and understand?
- Who do you need to work with to make the project a success?
- When do you need to finish?
Concept
- What is it that we are making?
- How will it work?
- What is it about it that will appeal to visitors?
- What are the high points?
- How will visitors flow through it?
- How will it tell the story?
- What techniques will it use?
- How much will it cost?
Content
- Who knows the stories the best?
- How should we work with them?
- In what order should we tell the stories?
- What are the key messages for each part?
- The detailed work of research and writing of scripts and text
Design
- How can the story be expressed in physical form?
- What will make it striking and beautiful?
- What will it be made of?
- How can we make sure that it’s durable and robust?
- How does the design work, in detail, with the content?
- The detailed work of design and documentation
Installation
- Supervising the fabrication and installation process to make sure that quality is maintained.
Refreshment
- How can we make sure that the experience goes on attracting and satisfying visitors?
- Maintaining and refreshing the experience
How we work
Creativity is the heart of our business; creativity harnessed to take your visitors on a journey.
Story Inc is a creative company that is run along strict business lines.
- We manage our creativity with a robust and proven delivery process
- We partner with and support our clients
- We communicate with our clients regularly, clearly, and in writing
- We select the best service providers and technologies for each project
- We complete our work on time
- We complete our work on budget
- We make our projects a great experience for everyone!
