Three Keys to Storytelling with Film/Video

Continuing my series on digital storytelling (DS), I want to focus on a crucial component of the planning and development phase--translating raw information into compelling narrative. Often times, students begin a video project with an existing written essay or a series of facts from their research. In order to maximize the potential of visual storytelling, they must have a basic understanding of how to use the language of video/film, how to show not tell, and how to engage the viewer through questions and answers.

To be clear, the goal of Media Commons is not to turn students into film majors; rather, we are interested in sharpening another skill set for them to effectively communicate in their discipline. Hannah Inzko astutely pointed out that when faced with a deadline, students don't want to be overwhelmed with "film speak;" they usually want to know exactly what skills and resources are necessary to complete the assignment. As such, I stress the following topics when speaking about digital storytelling in general, but I try to tailor a class workshop towards a specific project's needs. (ie interview-based documentary vs. PSA commercial vs. fictional narrative).

The Language of Video/Film

Most of us don't notice, at least overtly, the language of moving-image storytelling. Yet through hours and hours of viewing experience, we've been trained to understand its mechanics and underlying structure. For example, if a character looks off screen and suddenly becomes surprised at something, we expect the next shot to be his/her point of view. It would be quite jarring to see an establishing shot instead (and for many avante garde films, that's the goal).

Because we tend to focus on a film's story, not its construction, adopting the visual conventions and grammar is not intuitive. From my experience, students do not inherently know what a medium shot looks like or how to frame an interview.  So in thinking about the language of film, I focus on three communicative strategies: camera techniques, mise-en-scene techniques, and editing techniques.

Camera Techniques
There are many ways to position the camera in a scene. Different camera angles, distances, and movements have different expressive qualities.  Yet while we typically tell students to use close-ups, medium shots, and wide shots in their movies, we don't explain why one would make sense over the other. In her article "The Shot Tells the Story: Dissecting Wall-E" Karen Lloyd provides a nice framework for this. And so in my digital storytelling workshops,  I provide a quick summary of why an establishing shot might be useful,  using examples from Titanic. (For the sake of brevity, I won't go into the details) 

Mise-En-Scene Techniques
Mise-en-scene refers to everything that we see in the frame--props, costumes, actor performance etc. Here, I cover three point lighting, rule of thirds, framing, and background design. I include some tips on sound as well, both diegetic (within the storyworld) and non-diegetic (existing outside the storyworld) In film, everything is a choice. Special care must go into how an image is composed, and, without going into the theory, the more control over mise-en-scene, the better the overall production value.

Editing Techniques
Finally, I explain that editing choices communicate story information as well. A slow fade indicates the long passage of time, whereas the jump cut signifies an immediate transition. Montages tell the reader that a lot of events have occurred over time. Slow motion makes a particular gesture more dramatic. And so on.

But to return to Hannah's point, I don't think students need to know every detail about film language. My goal is to 1.) show that everything in film is a choice for a desired effect and 2.) provide a vocabulary for students to use when building their storyboards. I want students to think about what voiceover we hear over a certain image, how much time has passed in a scene, where the camera is located, what transitions they might use, the list goes on. Even if they don't include all this information, at least they have an idea of what to think about. Basically, rather than waving their flip cams wherever they please, I want students to be aware of all the possible details that go into production. So when it's time to start shooting, they have a concrete plan.

Showing not Telling

While novels excel at describing character motivations, psychological depth, and inner conflict, films communicate this information entirely through actions and performance. A screenwriter would never say, "Tom was feeling happy today;" they'd have to express that visually. Maybe he'd be dancing down the street, greeting random strangers while jovial music plays in the background. (See example here ) In the DS workshop, I highlight a number of examples (from Miami Vice to Pushing Daisies to Citizen Kane), but my favorite clip comes from the Wizard of Oz. In the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,  L. Frank Baum describes Dorothy's introduction to Oz as follows:

"The little girl gave a cry of amazement and looked about her, her eyes growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw. The cyclone had set the house down gently--for a cyclone--in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies."

The film version from 1939 conveys the same information but with a much different grammar. Take a look: 

While Baum can freeze story time to describe the wondrous and amazing details of Oz, the film version does not have this luxury--the story continues on in real time. The viewer must interpret all this descriptive information within seconds and evaluate its glory. Obviously, the transition from black and white to color cues our understanding of Oz's magnificence, but the camera movement through the door accentuates this change, gliding into a new world as if it's seeing it for the first time. We hear the harmonious sounds of the birds and the melodious music spiking. We see the luscious set design, along with bright angelic lighting. And rather than a narrator telling us Dorothy's emotional state, we learn from her reaction and gestures that she is in utter amazement. Thus, a combination of camera angles and movement, editing, mise-en-scene, and music guide the viewer's emotional response to the story.

This is an important concept when crafting any digital story. Students are quick to add voice-over to their images, even though the visual content speaks for itself. The best practices allow the viewer to feel a particular emotion, rather than being told it. For example, I recently worked with a group of students doing a video on the lack of accessibility for elderly folks around town. Instead of presenting a bunch of facts and figures, they spent a day in the life of an older person. That is, they went about their normal day using equipment that simulated specific disabilities. One person wore glasses that constrained their peripheral vision. Another student maneuvered entirely in an elderly scooter. Seeing their frustration and agony at the lack of mobility and convenience perfectly demonstrated the poor design of the facilities there.

The Power of the Question

Any great story draws the audience in with dramatic questions, especially from the very beginning. I like to show the famous opening scene to Citizen Kane as an example, though it could work for really any movie. It would have been easy for Orson Welles to begin the film with Kane's childhood and explore his growth thereafter, but instead he begins the story with Kane's death. Why? Because the question "What is Rosebud?" entices us to keep watching the film. We ask even more questions throughout the first scene. Why was he holding a snow globe? Why did he die in this fairy-tale castle? Why is it so ominous and dark there? These are questions that propel our interest in the film. (As a side note, I show the corresponding passage from Welles' screenplay which further demonstrates how to write with visual language)

Likewise, in a digital story, it does no good to show the following picture of the Kent State shooting and narrate, "On May of 1970, a fatal shooting occurred..." This image is so expressive and so powerful that it raises many questions all its own, namely "What happened?" So to draw the viewer in, we might begin the piece with a black screen. We then hear sounds of gun shots, screams, and rioting, and suddenly...this image:

Maybe then we get a voice-over: "Imagine this scene at your campus..." Now we have a compelling intro to the story, not a textbook recount of the event. Thus, whenever we experience visual storytelling, we naturally want to ask questions, make hypotheses, and form assumptions. A masterful storyteller plays with this instinct and carefully reveals answers, while asking new questions. Here's Ira Glass talking more about the process:

Well, this post has gone on far too long. My main overall point is that we need to stress the limitations and affordances of moving-image storytelling. Digital narratives have a unique set of aesthetics and medium specific potentials that are just as important for students to understand as iMovie. I will continue to keep blogging about specific types of digital stories and provide more information about how the creative process works from conception to execution. In the meantime, thanks for reading!