Great video making is about great storytelling.
You are going to go out and have an experience you found exciting. Then you are going to come back and tell that story to your friends and family - using pictures, sound and writing to convey the experience. Don't think of this as filmmaking - that means years at U.S.C. or N.Y.U. and thousands of dollars. Instead, think of it as storytelling. Sitting at the kitchen table with your friends or family and saying: "you won't believe what just happened to me"....look at this! This is something you already know how to do. Now you are going to do it in video.
Simple!
It starts with finding a great story. That's your job. Once you do that, shooting great video is easy to do.
All you have to do is follow a few simple rules.
The first rule is discipline.
The more disciplined you are in thinking, shooting and scripting, the better your final work will be. In other words, you can't just pick up the camera, point it at something and hope for the best. Like any creative endeavor, the more you spend time thinking about what you are doing, the better the final product will be. So before you do anything, ask yourself, what is the story I want to tell here? If you can't explain your story in a few words, you are note ready to start shooting. When you know the story you want to tell even in a very general sense (and it will change as you get to work), you can begin.
Three Parts:
Making great videos happens in three parts:
- Acquisition
- Scripting
- Editing
Acquisition is the part in which you go out and shoot the story. Think about the story you are going to tell. What is it going to look at? What elements does it have to have? When you walk into a room, walk around the room and think about what you will need, but also what you will not need. This may seem strange, but you are not going to need that much material to make your 1 minute or 2 minute piece. Real life goes on for hours and hours. Your job here is to compress the most important elements of real life into just a few minutes. So the shooting part is a very minimalist exercise. We used to say "shoot a lot to give the editor choices". But since you are the editor, this makes no sense. Instead, walk around the shooting location before you start to shoot. Make a list of all the elements you will need to capture to tell the story well. Then, start to shoot, in a very disciplined way.
Here's the best piece of advice you will ever receive about shooting: Don't move the camera.
Hold each shot for a count of 10 seconds. And really count it out. Vary the shots close-up, face, wide, side, over the shoulder. Shoot each event with a least 5 perspectives in mind. Then move on to the next event. You are acquiring the raw materials with which you will later build your film. If you acquire clean, well-shot work, your film will also be clean and well-shot. If you spend your time acquiring junk - your film will be junk. So take your time. You don't need all that many shots. A 1-minute film is generally 20 or so edits. That means, in your final film, you will end up using 20 of your shots. So make each shot perfect. Take your time. Relax. You don't need all that much material, but what you do need must be the very best you can make it. How good it is is entirely in your hands literally.
As you shoot, you should be thinking about the story you want to tell. Video making is above all else STORYTELLING.
Once you have finished initial shooting, you should be able to sit down, grab a cup of coffee, and storyboard out the film you are going to make. Seriously. Do it. As soon as you finish shooting, get a cup of coffee, take a pencil and paper and draw out the film you are going to make when you get back on the laptop. Don't worry about drawing nice pictures. You can draw stick figures if you like. No one will see it except for you.
Do you have all the elements you are going to need to tell a story? If so, time to go. If not, get back to shooting!
Scripting is the storytelling part of the film. You can't start to edit until you know the story you are going to tell. All of it. You would not start out to tell your friends a joke without knowing the punch line, would you? Same goes with filmmaking. You can't start to edit a film not knowing how it ends... or even begins. Or the middle. We call this scripting. Don't confuse this with a big, written, Hollywood script. We don't need every line and every cut... yet. That will change as we start editing. But we do need to have a blueprint of what the whole story is. How do we start, what happens then... and then... and then. How does it end?
Scripting is the outline for your story. The same way you might tell a story to your friends. I went to the office and on my way, I stopped off in the most amazing store... Whatever you have just experienced, you are now going to relate it to your friends and family. Tell the story as you would tell it to them.
Let's say you spent the day at a Dog and Cat Hospital, and while you were there, a little girl came in with Fluffy, her puppy who had been hit by a car.
As you film the event, the veterinarian takes Fluffy from the little girl's arms, puts him on the operating table, and miraculously, before your eyes (and the camera's), proceeds to save Fluffy's life!
Incredible.
When you come home, you sit at the dining room table and your spouse asks you: What happened today?
You have a great story to tell.
But how do you do it?
What would you say?
You would probably say something like: I saw the most amazing thing today! A veterinarian saved a little dogs life!
Now that is some pretty good story telling. You have got your audience. You have their undivided attention.
And you are well on your way to telling the story. (See, this was not so hard. You already know how to do it).
If you sat at the kitchen table and your spouse said to you, Anything interesting happen today honey?, and you sat up ramrod straight and said More than 2500 pets are hit by cars every year in the greater Cleveland area your spouse would think you were out of your mind. No one talks like that. No one tells stories like that. Just tell it the way you saw it. That's great scriptwriting.
Editing is the final part of the process - the place where we marry the shooting with the scripting. How do we begin? What pictures do we use to tell the story?
First, find your very best shot and start with it.
Just put it up there.
Now, look at it, as someone who does not know the story would look at it. What does the picture make them think? If it's a shot of Fluffy on the operating table, they are going to think, What happened to the dog?
Now, your job is to answer that question. Immediately. Here is the first shot the best one I have got. And looking at it, it made you ask what? Now I have to answer that question. It's a kind of dialogue with pictures and words. Show the shot of Fluffy, the person watching thinks What happened to the dog?, and you respond in narration: Fluffy was hit by a car.. and may die.
If you think about it, this is just how you would tell the story back at the kitchen table. I saw the most amazing thing today (the verbal equivalent of showing the picture). The other person at the table asks (What was that?), just like -What happened to the dog?- And you take a pause... and answer.
Great script writing - great editing - great story telling is about participating in a dialogue.
When you tell a great story in video, you are at that kitchen table - except you are at a million kitchen tables across the country, all at the same time, and telling the same story to the same people. Whether you are telling it to one person or a million makes no difference. They are all thinking the same thing and asking the same question... -What happened next?-
Except now you-re doing it with pictures and sounds as well as your own voice.
Don Hewitt, the Executive Producer for 60 Minutes used to tell his staff: -Tell me a story.-
Now it-s your turn.
Have fun.
And... tell me a story.
Michael Rosenblum is a long-time partner of the Travel Channel who has trained thousands of people around the world to express themselves through video.
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