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Storytelling – The Primary Skill of Video Professionals
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[greg janza] “If I answer those questions in a positive way then the filmmaker has successfully taken me on an emotional journey and in my mind that journey occurs through the art of storytelling.”
I’d go along with everything you say … except the last part of this sentence. I just don’t agree that this is the right way to use the word “storytelling”.
The things you describe are very important and we need to be aware of them and work towards achieving them in order to make effective pieces of communication … but we need a different word to describe them.
In fact, perhaps that’s exactly the right word.
“Communication” is the exactly thing you’re describing – those processes by which we connect with our audience and make our message vivid to them.
“Story” can certainly be a specific subset of “communication”, of course, not not all “communication” is “story”.
Does that make sense?
Simon Ubsdell
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Maybe calling it a “vignette” is more accurate? It has a “setup” and a “punchline”, like a joke does. It advances a premise. It makes an argument. It reveals a bit of character. You could perhaps assume in the light of the revelation of the various characters’ priorities, those couples are going to sit down and re-assess their values and priorities. When you put that all together, then I think maybe Simon would find it satisfies his criteria. But I don’t presume to speak for him.
I will say that in whatever I do, even in a 30-second spot, I try to incorporate a Campbellian “Hero’s Journey” into even such a short narrative, as well as giving it the equivalent of a three-act structure, even though those “acts” might be only two sentences or ten seconds long.
That’s a lot to try to communicate in 30 seconds, so you want the Photography, music, sound, and especially the art direction and editing to help take some of the narrative load off of your actors and dialogue.
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My point is simply this:
Story is an incredibly precious concept.
It requires all our critical faculties to understand what it is and how it works.
Let’s please not devalue it by applying it to things that aren’t stories.
Usage has already bruised and battered the concept of story:
Newspapers tell us that they give us “stories” – but they rarely do. Instagram has “stories” – but they really aren’t. Marketeers want to tell “stories” about their products – but it’s just empty cliché.
I’m fighting back because story is too important a concept to use idly.
As editors we do a disservice to our craft when we use “story” in an imprecise sense. It’s a concept we really, really, really need – and we need to expend all our efforts in understanding how it works because understanding it is anything but easy.
If we’ve already bought into the notion that pretty much anything can be “story”, we’ve lost the battle, not just for ourselves but for those who come after us.
Let’s not twist “story” to mean anything and everything – let’s try harder to understand it and how it works. I’m at the end of my career and every day I’m still learning how little I really know about it.
Any film can be a story. Most are not, even though they claim to be.
Simon Ubsdell
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[Mark Suszko] “I will say that in whatever I do, even in a 30-second spot, I try to incorporate a Campbellian “Hero’s Journey” into even such a short narrative, as well as giving it the equivalent of a three-act structure, even though those “acts” might be only two sentences or ten seconds long.”
I think this is a very good point.
It’s a great idea to use what we know of story structure to help us structure pieces that aren’t themselves stories. The 3-act structure is exceptionally useful as a device – even when there aren’t any “acts” as such. But using it as reference point doesn’t automatically turn our film into a story – we’re just using the device metaphorically.
Simon Ubsdell
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