Visual Storytelling

How important is what you see? Can you tell a story without words? Silent movies told stories long before voices could be heard on screen. And, if you watch carefully, you'll discover that there is a language or grammer to the audio/visual medium. It varies from film to television and genre to genre much like dialects within a language. Take Spanish for example, Spaniards speak differently than Mexicans, who speak differently from Puerto Ricans or Cubans, but they all speak spanish. Genres are like that.

It all goes back to the language of the audio/visual medium. If you watch an amatuer filmmaker's product, you may not know why, but you'll know it's amatuer. Typically there are a number of reasons, one of which is the misuse of the language of film. The amatuer will usually move from a master shot to an extreme close up or something equally as jarring. Or they will take a conversation without using over-the-shoulder shots. They may even only give the viewer one angle the entire piece.

So, you have to have the ability to plot out in your mind what you want the final product to look like, then capture those images. That's why live events are so difficult, you can't plan enough. Along with different shots and angles, you need to consider the way the image is framed or will look on-screen. There are rules to keep, bend and break when shooting, but until you know the rules and how to capture a visually stimulating image you have to learn. Take a photography class, read books, look at great art.

Then, once you've captured the images you have to put them together with good editting. But that's another post.

It takes time and practice to understand and learn what we've all become visually accustomed to. That's why film school is important, one of the reasons anyway. Sure, you could learn without schooling, many have. But school helps, a lot.