Shooting & Editing

Visual Storytelling

Shooting & EditingSpot Production, On Location

Interviews, TV & Online News Stories, Training / Corporate Media, Single camera TV shows, Documentaries,

Moviemaking, etc.

The future…

• Media communication has become about video and visual communication

• Digital still pictures• Image manipulation• Selfies

• Video stories, video messages, video narratives

• Viral video

Visual storytelling

• Language

• We will apply visual storytelling to various shooting and editing areas• News• Movies• Spot production• Emerging media forms

But first…

• What are sweeps?

• When are sweeps?• 10/31 – 11/27• And?

• Why does it matter?

Employers looking for…

• Passion and commitment

• Smart people

• Good writers

• Experience, but:• They will train you specifics• They can’t teach you to be a good writer• What does it take?

More than anything else…

• Desire and effort to be good

and do well

• ‘Pre-production’

Look around you…

• Do we have people passionate about working in this field?

• Does it show in our KKOM work?

• Does it show on our web site?

• Does it show in our Mane Media TV work?

• Does it show in The East Texan?

• Does it show in competitions?

Leo Buscaglia…

• If you’re not reading now…

• Adult responsibility

• ‘Most likely to work retail’

• Looking for a career?

• Motivation for being in college

• Brett Wims. Patric Sleightholm.

Scripting• Fully scripted• VO narration, on camera presentations,

structured interviews, news reports, TV shows: sit-coms, dramas, films

• Or: Outlines / rundowns• Interview shows, news shows, documentaries,

TV shows: some ‘reality’ shows• Each have some fully scripted parts

• Full planning and put ‘on paper’

• No ‘winging it’ ‘bluffing your way through’

‘Spot news’

• There’s a standard for reporting a story:• Tell what you know• Tell what you don’t know

• The standard applies to writing:• Be confident in what you know• Be confident in what you don’t know• Become skilled in judging source &

content

Good Scriptwriter

• Knowledgeable about variety of topics

• Good researcher

• Inquisitive, curious

• Meticulous

• Knows how to work in steps: methodical

• Understands people: sociology, psychology, target audience, appeals, cultures

Scripting

• Creativity vs. popular appeal

• Writing from what you know

• Story structure: spots, TV shows, movies, training videos…

• Jason Tomaric, ‘Filmmaking’ – “…everyone shoots industrial videos at some point in their career.”

Scripting Formats

• Animation

• Commercials

• Documentaries

• Feature Films

• Industrial / corporate

• Music videos

Plot and story• Vladimir Propp / Joseph Campbell

• Character

• Overcoming adversary

• The quest

• The journey and return

• Resurrection

• Comedy ~ Tragedy ~ Conflict

All content needs to

• Connect with an audience

• Make a profit?

• Entertain, inform, provoke, persuade?

• Tell a story• Beginning, middle, end

How to be a better writer?

• Study similar work (movies, commercials, training videos, etc.)

• Practice creativity

• Look for patterns, resonance

• Learn how to emulate, not copy

• Practice

• Start over

Next step…

• Focusing on the idea “Visual Storytelling” we will evaluate the development and effectiveness of a variety of types of productions

• First: video (TV) advertising…

…in Advertising / PR

• Client, Objective, Target Audience, Sales Theme (sales message that meets the objective), branding, positioning

• Approach– creative idea -> production• Audio, video, print, billboard … differences

• Creative thinking

• Clutter and gaining attention

Examples

• Visual storytelling class project

• Marketing / Promotion• ‘Information snacking’

• Queen City Project (photographers)

• Next

…in Interviews

• (WPB interview)

10 rules for online journalism

• Mindy McAdams

• Rule 1: Include basic factual details as needed for credibility. These might appear at the end of a linear presentation (video or animation), or below or beside a still image or graphic.

• Rule 2: Any reasonable assumption a viewer would make must be true. When we see a portrait, we assume it was posed. When we see someone jumping, falling, or raising a flag, we do not assume it was a re-enactment.

• Rule 3: A visual story requires more than one image.

• In his chapter about photo stories, Ken Kobré wrote: “How does a picture story differ from a collection of pictures on a topic? A picture story has a theme. Not only are the individual pictures in the story about one subject, but they also help to support one central point”

• Rule 4: Know what the story is before you start making images for it.

• Visual stories can transport us — not only to another place, but inside another person’s life.

• Visual stories often leave out a lot. This is part of their power, part of what makes them so effective. The best visual stories are compact, visceral, evocative.

• Rule 5: Edit ruthlessly to pare away all that is unnecessary to the essential story. Background and context can be supplied in a linked text, in other separate components.

• Rule 6: Ensure that the story makes sense if it stands alone. This does not mean it has to tell everything or “show both sides.”

• Rule 7: A visual story does not require a camera.

• In a 25-minute news program -- The reason the three-shot video sequence was so successful was because first it showed me something appealing (a child’s face, at 14:25), and then a fuller view of something that seemed very familiar (a kiddie Ferris wheel, at 14:30), and then it surprised me by showing something unexpected about the same subject in the previous two shots (at 14:35).

• The film The Story of the Weeping Camel, notice how often a new sequence starts by showing a close-up of someone’s hands or feet (or even an extreme close-up of a face) before cutting to a wider shot that reveals what was going on.

• Rule 8: Show things the viewer has not seen before, or show things in a way that is unfamiliar to the viewer.

• Rule 9: Keep changing what the viewer is seeing. The visual brain will become bored if the image stays the same. Vary the angle and the distance — especially if the subject remains the same!

• Finally, what makes a story a story? It has to move along an arc. If it’s flat — if it’s just a sequence of images and/or facts and/or events — it does not have the shape of a story. The shape is a mountain on which we travel upwards. The storyteller conveys us up that mountain, and when we reach the top, there has to be something there for us that made the journey worthwhile.

• Ira Glass calls this the moment of reflection

• A lot more helpful than telling you stories need to have a beginning, middle, and end. What does that mean? Every person’s day has a beginning, middle, and end — that doesn’t mean there’s a story in it!

• The story must start with something (a strong visual) that makes us want to go up the hill. That’s the open. Then the story must hold on to us to keep us moving up, up, up (see Rule 9, above). Ira Glass says we do this by raising questions and answering them, one after another, until we reach the top. This question-and-answer process can be done visually: Show us something that’s not usual or typical (question; see Rule 8, above) and then show us a fuller or more complete version (answer). For video, the Five Shot Method provides a template.

Finally…

• Rule 10: Tie a single string from the beginning to the end. Pull it taut and high just before the end. Then release gently, stopping at the firm final knot.

• Visual storytelling in journalism – online, broadcast, even print when you are showing still images.

…in Radio: visual storytelling?

• Rob South, WKAR Radio

• ‘A visual monologue’

• (old time radio drama)

…in Corporate Media

…in Moviemaking

• Discussion video

• Part 2

Find a way to care

• What kind of quality do you expect at a restaurant?

• What kind of quality do you expect from your cell phone company?

• What kind of quality of commitment do you expect from your relationships?

• What kind of quality are athletes expected to have?

• What kind of quality do you expect from yourself?

Find a way to care

• Good visual storytelling – whether it’s a commercial, a training video, a wedding video, a news story, a music video, a TV show, a podcast, etc.

• “If you don’t care, nobody will”