Well, don’t fall asleep! Finish reading the blog first at least…

Anyway, check out this clip from Juno. It’s the quintessential “oops, I’m pregnant” scene. Check out how the camera highlights the most important aspects; the test, the plus sign, the toilet, her expression. These are all things that might be missed without the magic of the zoom button.

Here’s a digital story from MediaStorm that is comprised of all stills. But nonetheless, pay attention to all the close-ups of these women’s feminine features; their lips, hair, eyes. Close-ups are vital for bringing forward that which might be lost in a wide shot.

Take for example, the Harry Potter series. Love it or hate it, you’ve probably seen at least one of the films and/or read at least one of the books. Maybe you loved Potter from day one, or maybe you were dragged to the midnight showing by your cape-wearing, lightning bolt-bearing nerdy friend. Whatever the reason, you have to admit there’s got to be a reason for all the hype.

It all boils down to the original Harry Potter fans, who gave him his fame by first reading and loving the books. The movies were a success because fans wanted to see the magic described in the books brought to life, made visual. They kept coming back for parts 2-7 because, through the years, as the Potter books continued to be published, they audience too kept getting older. Every time they revisited the series, it took on a different meaning to the audience as they were in different stages of their lives with the release of every book or movie.

For the same reasons, the television series “Sex and the City” was able to have not one, but two big-screen films. The same applies for shows like Seinfeld and Friends. People love the consistency that long-time characters give them.

Check out this scene from the very last episode of “Friends”. Avid followers of the show understand why Rachel coming back to Ross is such a big deal. Anyone who hasn’t watched the show is now intrigued and wants to go back and find out more in previous episodes.

So, with that said, when visually storytelling, keep in mind that central characters that show growth or development of some sort are ones that an audience can relate to, or at least can keep up with and associate scenes with different emotions that the character has previously evoked in them.

Creating social media outlets for the character is one way to build a following over time. Trueblood on HBO creates Twitter accounts for all of their characters. Try writing a blog to get the story out ahead of time. Perhaps instead of creating one story, create a series.

Brian Storm does a nice job of writing previews for his stories, in which viewers already get to build interest in the central characters.

The point being, you can’t expect people to just tune into your story from a good title and a nice cover picture. Viewer loyalty comes from character interest. If the characters aren’t interesting and worth devoting extended time to, then you don’t have a following.

Check out this clip below. Not only is the film in black and white, but it’s also silent. The filmmakers effectively conveyed a scene and story without the need for fancy colors and dialogue. 

This doesn’t mean that you can’t effectively tell a story in color. In fact, color is usually optimal. However, black and white adds a nice artistic touch, especially when telling a story set in the past.

Check out this clip from, “Good Night and Good Luck”. The film is about Edward R. Murrow, a television anchor from the World War II era. Naturally, television would have been black and white back then, so taking away the color adds a realistic touch. It also makes the film a bit of a novelty. People wanted to see it for the sheer reason that black and white films are not as common anymore. The same applies for, “The Artist”.

Check out this great story off of Storyplanet that uses black and white photography to emphasize the desolation being felt while explaining a drought in Kenya.

The film is too new to have clips on line, but check out the trailer below to see a glimpse of the flashbacks (it’s where she has the blonde wig on).

Or, using another Friends reference (because everyone loves Friends) check out this scene that consists of all flashbacks.

Friends Flashback

Flashbacks are a great way to bring up a topic that would otherwise have to be directly mentioned by a character, taking away from the reality of the story. They can create nostalgia, humor, anger. They allow the audience to either remember a previous moment with a character (from perhaps another film or episode) or to be introduced to something unknown about the past.

Be sure to watch this memorable clip from “Forrest Gump” where the filmmakers remastered old footage of former President Kennedy and combined it with new footage to create a scene between Kennedy and Gump.

Using old footage is great for digital stories, just be sure to give credit to those who made it!

Your first B-Roll shot should be something captivating, maybe even a little confusing. You want your audience to say “tell me more” (metaphorically speaking). Check out this amazing short film by Ian Ruhter.

The very first scene is a little eerie, but also attention-grabbing.It continues into a man conducting some process whose purpose isn’t clear, but the shots are so nicely framed and asthetically-pleasing that the viewer just has to keep watching. Finally, when it’s clear that this film is about a man who invented a new type of camera, the B-roll footage effectively portrays him candidly at work, actually doing the passion he is talking about in his interview.

You can talk about the Mona Lisa for hours, but if you have never actually seen it, you’ll never be able to understand what it really looks like. That’s just a really elongated way of saying, VISUALS ARE KEY. B-Roll makes every story clear.

The middle of the story should be developed with the actions that are being talked about- nobody wants to watch someone being interviewed for more than a minute.

And as for the end, close out with some sort of clinching line- one that displays expectations for the future, or that really encompasses what the point of the video was.

Ruhter ends with “I didn’t just build a camera, I created a time machine.” With just that line, we know what the whole video was about, and how the subject felt about it. That’s the sort of sequence-ending every story-teller should strive for.

Take, for example, “Valentine’s Day”. The film received a weak 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yahoo Movie Critics gave it a C- average. But nonetheless, the film grossed over $50 million in its opening weekend alone. Why?

This is why:

With all the stars in this film, people were expecting some sort of intergalactic explosion (pun intended).

So what does this mean with virtual storytelling? No, not that you should make a crappy story and hire George Clooney to be the posterboy for it. It means that big names sell. So, if you’re doing a story about video games- ask the biggest names in video game creation to give you a quote for your piece. If it’s about comic books, go out on a limb and see if Tobey Mcguire will give you his perspective on Spiderman. (Hey- he might actually answer if your work is good enough!)

It doesn’t even have to be a celebrity. Experts of any kind but whose names come with enough prestige are a great way of giving validity to your piece, or at least drawing attention to it.

Check out this star-studded visual story on Mediastorm.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, there are occasions in which it is better to lyrics and/or instruments do the talking in order to allow the audience to pay attention to what is happening visually. In moments that are particularly emotional, this is especially true. Think about the times in your life when you’ve been literally “speechless.” How did you tell your friends or family about what happened? It probably would have been easier with pictures or film. But you can’t have pictures or film without any sound for too long- people might get bored.

However, it’s VERY important that the music you pick matches what you are trying to convey. I’ve created a little exercise to explain better what I mean.

Watch this famous romantic kissing scene from “Spiderman,” paying particular attention to the music.

Good. Now, play the clip again, but this time mute the volume on it while you play this song. After that, do it again, this time with THIS song.

Feels a little different, huh? Music is EVERYTHING. The first song gave an intensely romantic, dramatic feeling. The second song was fast-paced, fun, and less emotional.

“Across the Universe” is a perfect example of how powerful music can be in storytelling, as this film relies entirely on The Beatles’ discography to tell a story of love and war.

The clip below is particularly useful because it displays different approaches to using soundtracks, depending on what is happening visually. Notice that at first, there is no music- the audience doesn’t know what’s going on yet. Once it has become visually clear that someone has died and that there are people feeling agony, “Let It Be” begins to play.

However, there is still no music, it’s pure singing. As the scene transitions to a war setting, the singing is still heard but because there is no music the audience can hear the raw, natural sounds of screaming, fighting, and explosions. These sounds might otherwise be lost with music, but the singing adds an eerie, somber element to the story. The scene transitions to a funeral, and the background music to the song begins, occasionally flipping to an gospel choir shown in the church. This allows the music to merge with the visuals. It has become both the natural sound, and the soundtrack.

If you watch that clip muted, it is still clear through the visuals what is going on. A useful tip for deciding when to use music is to do just that- mute your footage, or flip through your pictures in silence. If you can still understand what is going on, no narration necessary, use music. Let characters speak only when they have something particularly important to say. Add a narrator only when the visuals aren’t clearly conveying the story.

Brian Storm does a nice job in this digital story of using a latin-flavored song to match his compilation of visuals of daily life in Cuba. The colors are upbeat and bright, which correspond directly to the lively soundtrack.

Mirror, mirror on the wall- who is Nina when away from them all?: Examining Solo Shots

For those who haven’t seen this film, the plot goes as follows. An obsessive dancer in New York City lands the part of the Swan Queen for her company’s Swan Lake production. However, the Swan Queen must be able to embody both the pure, innocent white swan, and the sensual, alluring black swan. Nina is the white swan incarnate, but when she meets Lily, the embodiment of the black swan, she quite literally explores the black swan within herself and imagines metamorphosing into an actual bird.

The scenes in which Nina is alone and tries to understand who she is and whether or not the Black Swan really resides inside of her are essential to the development of this film.

The clip below is one of Nina’s first hallucinations of the Black Swan inside of her. Darkness is slowly creeping up in her.

So what does this mean for your storytelling? No, not that you need a demented subject who is suffering from an internal struggle of good and evil. Simply that in order to convey what a subject is really feeling, who they are when they are alone, you must have shots of them doing whatever it is that you are trying to explain about them. Candid moments. Inevitably, if a person talks about himself, they include their personal views on who they think they are, so it is essential to provide clips besides interviews or personal verbalizations. Candid moments allow the audience to decide for themselves who the subject is.Other moments in the film, such as where Nina makes herself vomit, or her fantasies about Lily, are actions and feelings that, were this a documentary, Nina might not admit to. (Furthermore, in this film, Nina doesn’t realize that a lot of the times when she is with Lily, she is actually alone and hallucinating). These candid moments give insight into her mind. Certainly, when doing a non-fictional piece, tapping into a subject’s mind is easier said than done. However, it is important to strive to capture scenes outside of the subject’s “performance.” If you’re doing a digital story about an actual ballerina, you won’t be able to literally capture what’s going on in their mind before a performance, but you can film them getting ready in the make-up room, perhaps psyching themselves out over the performance about to come.

Black swan versus white swan; character contrasts

Before Nina can understand the Black Swan within herself, Nina decides that Lily is the embodiment of what the Black Swan must be. Lily is sensual, free and alluring. Scenes that include the both of them are essential to  providing contrasts between the two of them. Lily displays what Nina is not, and what Nina must become in order to really be the Swan Queen.

The clip below is an odd mix of a solo scene and a group scene, because in reality, Nina is not alone- Lily is there too. But the scene is about how Nina becomes obsessed with Lily’s Black Swan-like character. The interaction here is that Nina is watching Lily dance the way the Black Swan should. Nina realizes what she is lacking via Lily. This is essential to creating contrast.

A person is not simply who they are  personally, but rather, who they are in society. It’s important to put a person in context in order to display all the different faces of that person. When doing a digital story, add elements about the subject’s relationships. Who they value, and why. This provides a better understanding of who the subject is. A nice contrast to the hypothetical documentary about a ballerina mentioned earlier would be to then show the ballerina learning with her teacher, where she is likely to not show as much anxiety and act a different way because she is in a social circumstance.

These are two ways to go about conveying a character to an audience. Experimenting with the balance of the two facets (showing more alone scenes than social scenes, vice versa) is where creativity comes in. How much and what sides do YOU want to show about your subject?

This article by the American Film Institute talks more about character development in screenplay.

What’s particularly great about this film is how the different methods of story telling directly play in to the character development. Each character’s story is told in a different way that directly correlates to the type of person that they are.

Telling stories through narration:

As far as the characters’ background goes, their histories are told entirely told by an omniscient narrator. We are told that Summer was extremely popular growing up, so popular in fact, that the album of the song she quoted in her senior yearbook picture completely sold out in her hometown. This is established to point out Summer’s inexplicable charm on people. This is the very charm that Tom falls for. Tom is depicted as a hopeless romantic growing up, which explains his immediate infatuation and obsession with Summer upon meeting her. In the clip below, you see an example of the anonymous, third-party narrator. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate a clip where he is speaking from the film itself, but the same voice featured in this trailer is also featured in the actual performance.

The use of a narrator is great because otherwise, the history of the characters would have to be prompted in conversation, which would take away from the artsy feeling of the film. A narrator here keeps the flow of the film “natural.”

Sometimes time in a digital-story is too precious. Sometimes you have way too much information and not enough interview or visual material. Sometimes the subject doesn’t say what you need them to (like their personal histories in “500 Days”). Sometimes the subject is a potty-mouth. Sometimes you have someone speaking in a foreign language. When that’s the case, narrate. Narration, when done well, can add oodles of information to the story. But be careful not to talk too much, or use obnoxious, overdone voice inflections. A completely narrated story is overkill (Imagine this whole movie with a narrator…ickk).

In projects that are not particularly theatrically-inclined, inserting text bubbles or text-filled screens is not a bad idea. It’s a quick, modern fix and doesn’t detract from what is happening before and after the text appears. Where a narrator might sound a little cheesy, text is malleable enough to insert any kind of tone; excited, somber, neutral.

Speak for yourself! Letting the characters take the mic:

When telling a story, sometimes your subject says it all for you. No need for narration. which Summer, the leading heart-breaking lady, personally lets the audience in on her views on relationships.

Having the character’s speak for themselves is one way to approach your virtual story-telling. Try to imagine the scenario with a narrator. It would probably get a little bit excessive.

Summer is generally pretty mum on her feelings towards relationships, but these rare occasions in the film are so essential to that audience gaining insight into what kind of person Summer really is. Part of Summer’s allure is that Tom, along with the audience, are desperately trying to understand her. By the end of the movie, the audience generally feels a lot of resentment towards Summer, and it’s thanks to her heartless, mini-speeches that this is possible.

Whenever possible, have the characters or subjects speak for themselves. Let the camera roll and have them steal the show with words. Personal-verbalization is particularly ideal for documentaries where time is unlimited, and there is space to get creative. It really allows for audience-character connection.

Great video story by Brian Storm, no narration. All character voices.

More than words; Using Silence is Golden:

For particularly emotional moments, the best way to go sometimes is to just stick to visuals.

Watch as Tom’s thoughts are completely displayed, and nobody has to speak a word. Instead, a powerful ballad is played overtop. The music alone accounts for the melancholy, disappointed feeling.

This touching moment as the song strums the audience’s heart strings. There are no words to describe the feeling. In situations where there are communication issues with the subject (language barriers, emotional distance, etc.) or where the topic is particularly visually appealing, visuals with music is the way to go. Strong emotions that run deep (love, sadness, etc.) are better off seen and not heard.

In a documentary about tragedies, sometimes watching the tragedy, or the emotions that follow after, are more powerful than verbalization.

FIguring out what kind of person your character or subject is is the key in deciding what kind of voice you will give them. For mysterious subjects like Summer, tease the audience with little bits of verbalization from the character themselves. For moments where characters are overtaken with emotion, let the visuals speak for themselves and add a wicked soundtrack. And when you need to add in tidbits that the music or subjects won’t say for themselves, narrate.