Video Storytelling

Some video storytelling tips I’ve cobbled together.

Format

Some pros and cons of the formats we’ve already mentioned in class:

• Sound portrait. No hearing your own voice! Depends upon your sources having good quotes, which means more work interviewing. Depends on having lots of strong B-roll, which means more work editing. Requires natural sound.
• Voiceover. Can paraphrase and make up for less-than-perfect interviews, or subjects who don’t say much. Allows you to bring in outside information the subjects don’t cover themselves, which can make the story more well-rounded. Requires script writing.
• Stand-up. Can fill in visual space when you just need to explain something. Gives a sense of immediacy or being “live.” Good for hands-on or on-the-scene demonstrations. Requires script writing and physical poise.

Storyboarding and shot list

This is even more important in the case of video. The same principles we discussed before apply here: Write (and I mean actually write) a story with a beginning, middle and end, find visuals that tell the story and put them in the right order.

Consider this plan for shooting a person doing a task. Lay out sequences like this for the whole story, but also for sections of your story, like showing how a city employee tests water quality.

• Close-up of the hands. Holding test tubes under the water.
• Close-up of the face. Shows concentration while working.
• Wide shot. Shows the setting in which the water is collected.
• Over-the-shoulder. Shows the tubes being placed under a microscope.
• Creative shot. Extreme close-up shows floaties in the tubes.

This whole sequence may be only 20 seconds of video, but it won’t be a good 20 seconds unless you plan the sequence and plan to capture all these shots.

Food for thought

Notice how many different shots are used in this video.

In the one below, we start to get tired of the robot, but only after having seen it from every conceivable angle.

The usual rules

And last but not least, all the stuff we’ve been over and over.

• Good stories are based on good reporting. Start early. If you need three sources, call 10 people.
• Use an external mic like a lavalier mic for interviews. Internal mic is fine for natural sound but not much else.
• Use a tripod. Give your shots stability. No panning around like a kid filming the dog.
• Shoot horizontal. No vertical videos unless you have a spot on Snapchat Discover. Fill the frame.
• No zooming. Zoom with your feet.
• Use title text and lower thirds text. Unless you have a smooth, plain background space in the video (like a wall), put a dark background behind light text (or vice versa). Floating text over a busy background is unreadable.
• Find good light, and provide good lighting if you can’t find it.