I'm supposedly a photographer, but at heart I have always felt that more than anything, I'm a storyteller. I'm an emotional and spiritual person, easily touched and I love stories; I love listening to them and I love telling them. Photography is the medium that I've used the most, but I have had experience with both video and radio though it's been ages since I used it at all. Now the technical stuff you can always pick up again, and do tutorials through sites like lynda.com - but the art of storytelling, is harder to learn on your own, which is why I really wanted to do Bob Sacha's workshop at Nordphotography this summer.
It's only been a day after the workshop finished, and I have to say, that I'm feeling so inspired! And before I forget everything that I've learnt I think it might be a good idea to summarize it here. This workshop was about making compelling multimedia pieces for the web. And here's the first report of what I learnt from my five days of soaking it up with the very amicable multimedia maven Bob Sacha.
What is forgiveness? How do you move on? This is the story that I made at the workshop with Bob Sacha.
What?
Visual story telling is a new language that has a more literary style, but no narrator. When we hear the subject talking, we see them in action, rather than see their "talking heads" on the screen. (If and when we do see the main character speak - it's a powerful sentence!). It's a literary story with no narrator. There is no middleman; the interviewer is never heard, because this breaks the magic of direct connection. This style of visual story telling is essentially character-driven, they are who you invest in and connect with, and they are who the audience engages with.
How?
Technically, the story is told through a person, a main character, often a woman or a girl, and gives people something to care about. It usually has one strong character that represents everybody. The main character should be a good talker (a detailed storyteller), someone who speaks well. What's great about visual storytelling through video, is that you give your character a voice, rather than just taking their photo.
Our "office" at Saga. Editing time.
The person is the story
A place or an event is not a story, but rather a person connected to that place or event, and the personal story they carry inside them. To find out what the essence of the story is you have to ask yourself: what is the universal connection? Why should people care about this story? What is it that connects your viewers to the character, and the greater story? Identity and loss for instance are stories about a bigger concept that connects viewers to a story. You need to convey emotion to tell a great video story.
It's all about feelings...
In non-narrated storytelling, it is essential to ask open questions, such as: "tell me a story about what happened? tell me what you were thinking then? What did you learn?". You can also ask about specific things such as the weather, clothes, memories/senses like "what did it smell like? You have to ask about feelings, because visual storytelling needs emotion to connect the viewer. Good video has to have lots of emotion and feelings! To capture this, you have to have a conversation with them, not an interview. Ask your character to take you on that journey, the day "it" happened. Then film what they do. And remember, show - don't tell!
Bob Sacha is not just a vivid storyteller himself, but also a great listener. And I've learnt that it's crucial to have good listening skills when talking to your subjects/characters, and picking up on the things that they don't say, but that would be great for your story.
A selfie of me trying to make a time lapse of the sky for the first time. After trying three times, I finally managed to make one, of the tide filling up a small "lake" in the sea. It's at the end of my video.
My idea
After discussing ideas, my story boiled down to the universal concept of forgiveness. I could have explored so many angles, and interviewed people, and made something more character driven, but because it was a personal story I decided to do something more abstract, which in many ways made it harder. You can see the result above. That's it for now, but If you have any examples of great visual storytelling I'd love to see them!