Eight tips for visual journalists to create compelling multimedia stories

Bob Sacha is an award-winning filmmaker, photographer, editor and teacher. He’s created the video for projects that have won the Pulitzer Prize and a National News Emmy. He also leads workshops that teach video to photographers and anyone who loves visual storytelling.

As part of our impactAFRICA initiative to fund and support data-driven storytelling in six African countries, we want to highlight the work of great journalists and provide guidance or tips about how people applying to impactAFRICA can learn from their example.

Bob recently judged 78 multimedia stories and shared some takeouts on the process on his Medium account.

So with his permission, we’re republishing Bob’s eight simple but useful tips about what makes for great video journalism to help potential impactAFRICA contestants think about the best ways to approach and package their own story ideas:

1) A great story that is only talking heads

is not a great video story. Never.

2) Always use some ambient sound

It gives a sense of place, unless your story actually takes place in a sound booth.

3) Audio mixing is important

Our brain does it every second of the day so apply that same skill to your story.

4) Viewers want to see something happening

They want to hear what’s going on when something happens. My colleague, Travis Fox, calls that X-roll, “X-roll is when you get your interviewee’s money quotes in their natural environment,” hopefully when they’re doing something related to their story.

5) Story structure is crucial

Outline it on a sheet of paper before you start editing.

6) Start with something compelling

Most of the time, context is important, but it’s probably not the most compelling thing in your story. People have a short attention span when watching stories online so they may never get to the interesting stuff if you start with the context.

7) Color correction

There’s no way you’d let a picture go straight out of the camera into print without toning it (at least for contrast). So why would you not apply the same effort to your video? These days color correction is easier than ever since Premiere added Lumetri, with Lightroom like color controls.

8) No more mournful piano scores

Please, please, please stop.

Read bob’s full entry below: