What Art Historical Movement Influenced the Cinematic and Visual Storytelling Aspects of the Film?
Visual Storytelling in Film and Television
by Ken Aguado
Note: The following is the transcript from a lecture I gave at the Create Modify Forum in Beijing, Prc. The audience was mostly immature film and television professionals. Many of those attention did not speak English language, so the lecture was presented with a simultaneous live translation into Mandarin. Information technology was a great experience. -Ken
INTRODUCTION
Hello, my name is Ken Aguado. I live in Los Angeles, California where I am a film and television producer, educator, and author.
Because of my work I am ofttimes asked to speak at flick festivals, and other movie events, and teach at moving-picture show schools around the world. I notice didactics especially rewarding and information technology is ever my hope that I can share some of the knowledge and information that I wish someone had shared with me when I was only starting my career. As some of yous know, we have many Chinese film students in America, and I enjoy talking to them and learning about their knowledge of film and telly, what they similar, and nigh their ambitions to work in the pic and television businesses.
And of course, this is how I ended upwards here, talking to you. Hopefully, I can teach you a few of the things I have learned over the form of my career. And maybe someday I volition produce a film in China. That would be cracking.
I also co-wrote the textbook called The Hollywood Pitching Bible. In the book, nosotros talk about the art of pitching film and tv projects, and how pitching can help yous to understand stories and how to present them verbally to buyers. Although the book teaches you lot how to talk about your story ideas, ultimately the goal is to get your listener to visualize your project in their mind. If the listener can't visualize your story, at that place is nearly no chance they will buy information technology.
So that is a bully time to first talking about visual storytelling.
Fade in:
In the pre-dawn light we are close up on a sign that hangs on a chain-link contend that says "No Trespassing." Ominous music plays in the background.
The photographic camera slowly cranes upwardly a fence that never seems to end; slowly, slowly, upward, keeping the argue in crisp focus, while the background is a hazy mystery.
At the superlative of a wrought fe gate is an imposing initial — the alphabetic character "M". Far in the altitude, a castle mansion looms darkly on a hilltop.
Two monkeys cling to their confined in an abandoned zoo on the grounds of the great estate. The castle is however in the distance, only now closer. A single, small, lighted window can be seen high up in the otherwise darkened castle.
Two small, empty boats are docked on a individual lake — a ghostly mist hovers over the h2o.
We run across a rock bridge over a moat that leads to the great mansion — which now looms fifty-fifty closer.
A private golf course can be seen in the dim calorie-free — abandoned and unused for years, overgrown with weeds.
Closer to the castle — the unmarried light still burns from a high window.
Finally, the dark, towering castle itself becomes clearly visible in the pre-dawn calorie-free. It stands silently, like an ancient tombstone:
This is Xanadu.
Now we motion towards the lighted window, closer and closer — and through it, and into the great principal bedroom.
Although the room lighting is dimly lit, we can run into the silhouette of a large Man lying in the bed — deathly still.
Now, strangely, we run into falling snowflakes, as if we are in a snowstorm.
The Camera pulls back and reveals that the "snowstorm" we are seeing is simply the globe within a snow-globe — the kind they sell in novelty shops.
The snow-globe is loosely held in the Homo's manus, well-nigh besides weak to grasp it.
Deliquesce to the elderly Man's lips, framed by a bushy mustache, every bit he utters a single word: "Rosebud".
The Homo lets the snow-earth fall from his fingers. It falls to the flooring past his bed, where it smashes into glass pieces.
A Nurse enters the master bedroom, her entrance only visible in the reflection of the snow-globe's broken drinking glass. She approaches the bed.
Cloaked in shadows, she crosses the Human being'due south lifeless arms over his chest and then pulls a white sheet over his head. He is expressionless.
The morning time lord's day rises through the window simply across the Man's deathbed. A solar day the Homo will never see…
Fade to black.
And so begins the 1941 film "Citizen Kane," one of the greatest examples of visual storytelling, and one of the greatest films, of all fourth dimension. The film, co-written and directed by 24-year-old Orson Wells, is probably the most studied film in cinema history.
"Denizen Kane" begins with an ending — the erstwhile man named Charles Foster Kane, lone in his in one case majestic kingdom, uttering just ane word — "Rosebud" — equally he takes his terminal breath.
In just the first 3 minutes of the film, using only images and ane word of dialog, Wells shows us a human who lived a lonely life, full of mystery and regret.
Welles also introduces us to Xanadu — Kane'south "private pleasure palace" — about as if information technology were a graphic symbol in the motion picture. It is a decadent, abandoned estate, with few signs of life, reflecting the faded grandeur of its mysterious owner.
Nosotros sympathise that Kane's concluding years were spent locked abroad in his castle, on a distant mountain, backside towering gates, and marked with an imposing sign — "No Trespassing" — well-nigh as if the filmmaker was maxim "the truth about Kane's life will never be known."
Anyone who has seen this masterpiece moving-picture show will almost surely remember where they were when they showtime saw information technology. (For the record, I was at the Prytania Theater in New Orleans.)
Welcome to the art of visual storytelling.
Visual Storytelling in Motion picture and Telly
Visual storytelling in film and television receiver is the art of conveying a narrative journey with the images that are possible because of the astonishing technology of this art course.
Of all the animals in the world, man beings are uniquely capable of understanding stories. It is our visual ability and our wonderful brains that allow united states to instinctively try to put images together and make sense of what we run into. It is in our nature to desire to sympathise the earth effectually us, and our eyes are the primary way nosotros exercise so.
Everyday in the world nosotros are bombarded past images. Simply it is through the arrangement of images in film and television that all of those images transform from just existence "dissonance" or "data" and into something we call a story. And based on the success of film and television programming around the earth, we cannot seem to get enough of it.
It is amazing when you realize that this has just been true for a tiny fraction of the time that homo beings have lived on planet earth. By this standard, the art of visual storytelling is still in its infancy! I will talk more about the history of visual storytelling in a moment, but for the at present permit u.s. all accept, and exist humbled, that one solar day our descendants will look back at us, and at our films and television shows, in the same style nosotros look dorsum at the era of silent filmmaking. For example, information technology has only been a decade or two since the widespread utilise of figurer-made special effects has allowed filmmakers to visualize new worlds and events, limited only past the time and money it takes to create this magic. Does anyone here doubt that the future of visual storytelling will exist fifty-fifty more astonishing?
If you desire to run into how visual storytelling works and why our brains are so special, try this experiment: Turn your television receiver to a movie that you have never seen, and then plow the sound off. Without hearing a single sound, can you tell what is happening? This is an experiment in how skillful the filmmakers were at visual storytelling. Merely it is as well an experiment in the manner the human heed works and instinctively tries to empathise stories.
As you lookout the film and try to figure it out, you may not be completely correct, just your mind will want to try to make sense of the story. How speedily do you begin to tell yourself the story? Now effort to understand why y'all think what you retrieve. Was it the activeness? The lighting? The way the camera moves? Is it the style the actors collaborate? How did the filmmaker communicate with you?
Of course, visual storytelling is non just the domain of moving picture and tv set. Comic books, motion-picture show books, fine artists and photographers often use some aspect of visual storytelling. Advertisers have long understood the power of visual storytelling as a ways to sell their products. Visual storytelling has the ability to accomplish consumers in ways that are both efficient and effective. And if you are doing a print ad or a 15 2nd television receiver commercial, it better be efficient! The visual appeal of a idiot box commercial can have an effect on us that we exercise non always understand, and for an advertiser, that is often what they desire. They want the consumer to connect with their product in a deeply psychological fashion. And they accept ways of getting into our minds that can compel usa profoundly.
Simply with a typical running time of thirty minutes to 2 hours, films and television shows are a course of storytelling where we routinely surrender ourselves for long periods of time. I think information technology is condom to say that, of all the art forms that utilise visual storytelling, film and television are at the top of the pyramid.
Screenwriter Bill Wittliff, who wrote "The Perfect Storm" and "Legends of the Autumn," once said: "You do not want to explain to the audience, because that makes them observers. You want to reveal to them little by trivial, and that makes them participants, because then they feel the story in the same way the characters feel it."
Information technology is a elementary thought: Practise not explain — instead, reveal.
Different most other storytelling art forms, motion picture and television rely heavily on visual information to tell a story.
Only what is visual storytelling? Where did it come up from, and why does information technology concord such ability over united states?
The History of Storytelling
Before there was written language, history was passed forth from generation to generation through the spoken word, gestures, and facial expressions. For maybe 300,000 years before written language, this was the way our ancestors communicated with each other.
But when one of these ancestors intentionally (or peradventure unintentionally) changed the story from the truth into something more interesting — art was probably born. In that moment, the literal truth of a story became less of import than the entertainment value, or the meaning of the story. Nobody knows exactly when the starting time story was told, only it is non hard to imagine a primitive man or woman, afterward a long, hard mean solar day of hunting for survival, in a cave, lit only past the flickering glow of a camp burn, telling stories to their children and each other: Stories of their brave battles and triumphs, stories of their gods, perhaps stories about their own ancestors and their experiences. Stories to brand people laugh or cry. Stories that, today, we would call "myths," "fables," or "folk tales." Sometimes spoken, sometimes sung, these things would become the centerpiece of cultures around the world.
And surely these stories were passed along to the children's children, and those children changed the stories and fabricated the stories their own, and the history and culture of the human race was told, by i person at a time — for hundreds of thousands of years. This is sometimes referred to as the "oral tradition."
However else humans are different from animals, surely our ability to create art and tells stories is one of the things that makes us unique. And surely information technology is the universal beloved of storytelling that is one of the things that binds the human race together.
Visual Storytelling
As far as we know, humans have merely 5 senses: Sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. But it is our ability to meet that we all rely upon more than whatsoever other. Sure at that place are animals that have senses that are far more developed than ours, but, more than any other of our senses, our ability to see is the important mode we come to experience and empathise the globe around united states. And — maybe more importantly — the way we interact with our world and alter our earth.
But when information technology comes to our experience of storytelling, the two senses nosotros rely upon the most are sight and hearing. Merely in reality, our five senses do not reside in our eyes, or our ears. When you realize that the eyes and the ears merely the biological tools we utilise to assemble the story information and transmit it all to our brains — well — information technology is really our brain where all the fun happens. Our brains put all this information together, and that is where the "visualization" really happens. So actually, when you call up of it this mode, it ways that all storytelling is visual!
The History of the Visual Storytelling
Thirty four k years ago, in a large cavern in France, an creative person used pigment to create some of the beginning known paintings: herds of bison, charging rhinos, leaping gazelle. The animals — some of them now extinct — were rendered in startling item. However, these were not just simply portraits. The animals were interacting with one another — and that interaction is a story. The artist was a storyteller, and a very talented painter likewise. Starting with that moment in time, nosotros tin draw a line between the caves of France and the gimmicky stories we come across unfolding all around us today.
In that location is bear witness that those early on painters struggled with the limitations of their chosen "canvas," but also found means to accept advantage of it. The primitive painters in the French caves sanded down the walls to give it a lighter, smoother surface, and then afterwards the paintings were done, they etched outlines into the stone so that fire-light would cast shadows that fabricated the images stand out. In other places, rather than attempt to change the cave wall, the artists actually used these found qualities in their work. For example, a jagged function of the wall could be used to correspond fauna fur. Or, the uneven lines of a rock could become office of the mural portrayed in a painting. In other words, a rock or cavern wall was part of their technology of creative expression!
So what else tin can we say well-nigh these get-go examples of recorded visual storytelling? Well, starting time of all, they were as well the beginning works of fine art with congenital-in, anti-piracy protection — you cannot copy a cave wall. Only it also means, if you lot want to see it, yous must become to the cave — the cavern is not coming to you lot. While today this might seem similar a limitation, at that place is likewise something wonderful about it. It is one of a kind, and it has stood the test of time for 34,000 years.
Written Language and the Printing Press
The outset evidence of writing appeared well-nigh 6000 years ago, perhaps in Mesopotamia — what we now call the Heart Eastward. These were non words or letters but rather small visual images — pictograms, every bit nosotros telephone call them today. Sometime afterward, hieroglyphics started to announced. Over again, visual images told the story. Scientists now believe that information technology was nigh 4000 years ago that the showtime alphabet was created, simply information technology would be another 2000 years before someone invented a form of newspaper hither in China, around the year 105 Advertisement. Suddenly, stories and the visual arts could be recorded in a ways that was very portable — and this was a big step frontwards.
It would be some other one thousand years earlier paper copies of documents were made by hand blocks, and so a few hundred more years before the mechanical press press was invented in middle of the 15th century. All of a sudden, art, stories, and the printed word could exist mass-produced, and the world would never be the same. Information technology was truly i of the milestones of human history. In that moment, nosotros no longer needed to rely on the oral tradition. The identical course of a story, or some other form of printed data, could be accurately and apace replicated and distributed widely. Prior to this it was more often than not washed by hand copying. That all inverse with the invention of the printing press. It would be another 300 years before the adjacent breakthrough in visual communication occurred — when photography was invented.
Photography
The first photographs were taken in 1827. They were called Heliographs — named for Helio, the Greek Sun God — considering rays of sunlight were used to compose the images. Later, photography would capture an image on a celluloid material — called a negative — that immune for the precise duplication of images, whether the lord's day was shining or non.
Of course, the beginning photographic images were black and white. This lasted another 75 years, until color photography was introduced to the public in 1903. Really, not very long agone in the history of the globe!
But when photography was introduced it was unique in many means: it produced a visual image that precisely replicated the epitome of the subject, unlike the subjective interpretations of a painting or drawing. Also, a photographic prototype could be produced speedily — the image was captured in a fraction of a second, and the chemical developing and press could be done in a matter of hours. Its speed and potential for accurate reproduction made photography the almost important development in the history of visual expression since the press press was invented. Photography'south striking ability to capture and reproduce what we would consider "life-like" imagery, at a remarkable speed, would change the world of visual storytelling forever.
Motility Pictures & Goggle box
The kickoff movement picture device that captured a moving photographic epitome is credited to Eadweard Muybridge, who used a series of still cameras to report the motion of horses in 1877. Interestingly, Eadweard Muybridge's photographic arrangement has some resemblance to the technique used in the hit pic "The Matrix." "The Matrix" used their system to aggrandize time and space — what the filmmakers chosen "bullet time." Two movies separated past 122 years that used a similar technique!
Soon, more sophisticated film cameras were built, based upon the still-image camera's ability to capture visual reality. The combination of photographic likeness with the appearance of moving images, and the evolution of a system of editing, would effect in an art form that engaged viewers in a way that they had never experienced before. Today, for us, information technology is hard to imagine the touch on that these early moving pictures had on the general public. Today nosotros accept it for granted. It is all effectually u.s.a.. But in the belatedly 1800s silent movement pictures of visual images overwhelmed the senses of moviegoers. To them it was a miracle.
At first, however, visual storytelling was not considered the role of the movement film camera. Early on films were basically long-format withal photographs — footage of a babe eating, a train arriving at the station, people leaving a factory after a long day at work. In the aforementioned way that today we meet the internet as simply a ameliorate version of other media, the first motion moving-picture show cameras were seen as just a better version of the still photographic camera, rather than its own unique course of artistic expression. What we would consider modern film language — close upwardly shots, opposite shots, continuity editing, cantankerous-cutting between different stories, and some simple special effects — would develop over the post-obit decade. And this is really where modernistic filmmaking begins.
In 1903 the silent moving picture "The Dandy Train Robbery" treated audience to what many consider to be the offset groovy picture. From its opening scene of a depository financial institution robbery, to the final scene of a bandit firing his pistol directly at the viewers, the filmmaker began to manipulate the image to entertain and tell a story. Remember, at this time there was no sound in movies, except possibly a piano actor who would play live; accompanying the picture show while it was beingness projected.
By 1914, thanks to filmmakers similar D.Due west. Griffith, motion pictures had become something we would recognize equally familiar in today's film theaters. Griffith developed many of the visual storytelling film techniques we accept for granted today — what we sometimes phone call the "grammar" of motion-picture show. Now that the fine art grade was established, this unique class of entertainment would presently become the dominant grade of visual storytelling (and amusement) on our planet.
As time past, the technology of cinema improved and filmmakers found means to utilise this new engineering science to heighten their piece of work. For this is truly the way it always happens: Scientists and technicians invent new technologies, and artists find new ways to have advantage of these technological advances and tell ameliorate stories. Silent films gave fashion to films with audio, blackness and white films gave style to colour films, and analog gave manner to digital.
However, for much of the history of filmmaking, the equipment was cumbersome and very expensive, limiting what was visually (and economically) possible. For example, the moving picture cameras that managing director Alfred Hitchcock had to utilize in the 1940s and 50s were the size of a big suitcase! Compare that to today where some people are making films that were shot with their cellphones. Amazing!
As filmmaking equipment became more affordable, accessible, and smaller in the 1960s and 70s, artists were liberated to pursue personal and stylistic storytelling. The apply of low-cal weight 16mm movie cameras — which were also cheaper than the professional 35mm cameras (which likewise became smaller and lighter) — became widespread, and this opened the door to an influential generation of filmmakers, as they were able to experiment with the cinematic techniques that the smaller, lighter equipment allowed them. Because of this, many film historians consider the 1960s and 70s to be one of the golden ages of filmmaking. It is not an blow that famous filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, François Truffaut, George Lucas, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Milos Forman, and Jean-Luc Godard, all got their starting time during this period.
The Rise of Television
A conversation about visual storytelling would not be complete without discussing the idiot box revolution. The kickoff usable form of television was presented in 1926, and so later introduced commercially in Germany in 1935. Television came to America around 1941, and by 1959 there were 50 one thousand thousand telly sets in America. It was an amazing success story. Until the ascension of the Cyberspace in the 1990s, no other media technology would become then widespread, so speedily.
While the visual style of storytelling in television shared much of the style of film, there were some important differences — mostly limitations, for much of tv set history.
Beginning of all, with telly you could alter the channel! The closest matter a filmgoer could come to irresolute the aqueduct was walking out of one theater and into another. (Although, I take to admit, I have done this many times in my life if I was watching a bad film.) Truthful, in the early days of television, there were but iii channels, so in that location wasn't much pick. But for television broadcasters, this besides meant their programming had to hold the viewer's attention. Also, until the late 1970s, almost all television shows ran advertizement meaning the broadcasters had to notice a way to accept the viewer keep watching after they used the commercial break to get a snack from the kitchen.
Making things even tougher, the remote control became commonplace in the 1960s. The remote control fabricated information technology possible to change channels without getting off the sofa, and men and women have been fighting over who gets to employ information technology always since! Ha ha.
Early tv also offered live broadcasts, replacing radio as the ascendant technology for this purpose. Videotape was not widely used until the tardily 1950s. Before videotape, cinematic storytelling and style became less of import than the immediacy of the alive circulate. Alive comedies, alive sports and live news. And live television broadcasting is still a major aspect of television today. This is very different than film. New, sports political debates, and the starting time man walked on the moon! And you saw information technology all live, while it happened.
But tv also limited visual storytelling. While a 1950s CinemaScope movie theatre screen might be 15 meters wide, the typical television screen size up until in the tardily 1980s was usually less than one meter in size — frequently a lot smaller. And boob tube broadcasts are always restricted to a and so-called "safety zone" — a smaller area of the idiot box screen where the visible on-screen activeness can safely occur.
Mayhap even worse than the small size of the early television screens: until very recently, television broadcasters would well-nigh e'er cull to fit the big format of a widescreen movie onto a television screen past but chopping off the right and the left side of the picture movie. It is called "cropping." The broadcasters would just eliminate half the visual image! Poof! Gone!
It would be many decades before big-format, widescreen television sets — at present commonplace — would let the television viewers experience anything close to the visual experience of a movie theater. When you add a Dolby seven.one environment sound dwelling house theater organisation, why carp to leave your business firm anymore?
But the good news is that these larger, widescreen television sets take allowed filmmakers of tv set programs to compose many of their visual images in mode that were previously only possible in the movies.
The Tools of Visual Filmmaking
Now that I take talked about the history of visual storytelling, let us discuss the 4 primary tools a filmmaker uses to actually nowadays visual storytelling in film and telly.
There are iv technical tools a filmmaker uses to convey visual storytelling. Of course, each of these is more complicated than I am presenting, but I want to brand sure you empathise the 4 tools that filmmakers utilize on their most basic level. They are Framing, Lighting, Photographic camera Motility, and Editing.
Framing:
Director Martin Scorsese one time said that, "Movie house is a affair of what is in the frame, and what is out."
That quote ever reminds me of the famous quote past Michelangelo, the 15th century painter and sculptor, when he said, "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and information technology is the work of the sculptor to detect it."
No 1 knows what kind of filmmaker Michelangelo would take been, but I bet he would have been awesome!
Framing — as Mr. Scorsese said — is the almost important visual element; non only because it reveals certain and particular information to the viewer, but because what fills the frame of the shot (and what does not) is the most bones visual decision a filmmaker can brand.
What is in frame? What is out of frame? If the entire world is your sail, visual storytelling ways we will merely run across a pocket-size amount of it. And how a shot is framed can have a big touch. Framing is the most basic level of artistic choice in films and television set.
So for example, a tightly framed shot tin can create a sense of solitude and mystery — or create a bail with the audience to a character. A widely framed shot can give the viewer a sense of freedom, or give the scene a sense of grandeur or scope.
If all your viewer knows is what you evidence them, then framing is visual storytelling at its near basic.
Lighting:
Lighting is crucial in visual storytelling. What is lit and not lit is a cardinal decision! Cinematography and lighting go hand-in-hand when it comes to telling a story. Lighting can create stark, contrast and shadows that can reveal the psychology of a character or even the genre of film. Lighting tin forcefulness the audience to focus on whatever detail the filmmaker wants them to see. Colored low-cal can betoken a character's mood, the time of day, or even the theme of the film.
Camera Movement:
Knowing when and how to move the camera can be a powerful element of visual storytelling. Pans and tilts can be used to reveal certain data, or create a sense of mystery and build tension as your audience learns what volition enter the frame. Using a dolly to push in on a subject area can add together intimacy to the story. The movement of a handheld camera tin add a documentary-like reality to a story. In real life we rarely see the earth effectually us sitting yet, so photographic camera movement is the mode a filmmaker get their audition to experience the a motion picture as if they are in that location.
Editing:
Of course, visual storytelling does non cease after the film is shot. The various bits of film or video must exist assembled in a way that makes sense, and the editor is responsible for the way the story is told and understood by audiences. This is very important: Think, almost all films and television series are shot out of gild. For example, the ending of a motion picture might exist the first part that is shot! The editor, along with the managing director, must know how all the parts fit together, and how they fit together in a manner that serves the story best. The editing too effects the pacing of the story; the choices can practise things like crusade tension within the scene or building suspense or excitement, or reveal information to the viewer.
There are other visual elements in film and television receiver I did not mention: things like set dressing and costumes, but from a technical betoken of view, really that is it — those 4 tools are the things filmmakers utilize to define the "visual" part of "visual storytelling."
Just look — I left out the most of import attribute of visual storytelling. Can anyone guess what information technology is? I will give you a hint: It is the most important word in the phrase "Visual Storytelling."
That is correct: STORY.
It is all about the story.
Now nosotros get to the center of the matter. After all, in order to visually tell a story, in that location has to be a story to tell. Audiences want to see stories that grabs their attending and captivates their imagination. A good story is where the audience really cares about the characters and what will happen to them.
In Hollywood it is oftentimes said that cypher else matters simply the story. We all know this is not exactly true, but it is surely the about significant office of the experience of a film or television show. Equally I said, without the story, there can exist no visual storytelling.
If you want proof, try this: Next time y'all run into a film and a friend asks how you liked it, start talking to them most the framing, or the lighting, or the camera movements, or the editing. (I know people who talk similar this.)
Your friend volition probably wait at yous like yous are crazy and inquire, "uh, aye, but how was the story"?
And that is the important point I am trying to make. While the visual parts of storytelling are important, they should always be based on the content of the story!
But what is a story? Why do people care nigh stories?
Philosophers take debated and discussed what a story really is for over 2000 years. It is a branch of philosophy called "Aesthetics."
It is a complicated subject, simply fortunately we have a narrower focus today — nosotros will only talk about storytelling in moving picture and television.
So lets talk most it.
While the post-obit story principles are presented in a particular order, a storyteller tin can come at these problems from many directions. There is no inherently right or wrong way to understand them. Every storyteller makes a story his or her own. Also, of class, all of these elements volition overlap in a good story.
In most narrative films and television stories, there are 5 main elements:
Concept, Character, Theme, Plot, and Dialog.
In reality, there are many more elements than the ones just I listed, but most of these other elements can usually be grouped into one of the 5 I just listed. For example, things like tone (comedy or drama), setting or location, genre, conflict — and so on. But I am trying to simplify things for clarity.
Permit the states talk about them i by 1.
Concept.
The concept of a story (sometimes also called "the premise") is the most basic level of a moving picture or television set story. It is the respond to the question, "so, what is it about"?
A good answer to that question will usually contain ii or 3 of the basic elements of a story that I mentioned previously.
Remember what I said earlier? That all stories are about people we care about not getting the things they desire. Even though I was kind of joking, the concept of a story usually describes just that! Who is the chief grapheme and what problem is he or she trying to solve.
So, for example, the pic "Gravity" is about an astronaut, stranded in infinite, who is trying to survive and return domicile.
Do you see what I mean? Someone we like — an astronaut — not getting the thing she wants — in this case, to live! In one case she gets the matter she wants — the flick is over!
Or let us take an instance from television. Do y'all picket the television series "The Big Blindside Theory" over here? We could describe its concept every bit the story of two nerdy geniuses who meet an contained woman, and realize they the smartest guys in the world simply they know nothing about real life or honey.
Meet? Again: people nosotros similar — geniuses — non getting the things they want — finding dear and fitting into the world around them!
Concept (sometimes called premise) is of import because information technology is the fundamental mode an audition will sympathize the story.
Graphic symbol
If there is one element of proficient stories that is mutual through all ages and narrative forms, and if there is one unbroken rule of successful storytelling, it is this — create compelling characters of interest to an audience.
Characters in films and tv set connect u.s. to the story. It is the way nosotros feel the events we are watching. In fact, we ordinarily only care virtually the events in film and goggle box to the extent that they effect the characters nosotros are watching. Nosotros feel the events of the story through their eyes.
This does not mean that all movie and tv set characters have to be perfect people. In many of the corking stories, they are not. Charles Foster Kane in "Citizen Kane" is not perfect. Flawed characters tin exist interesting likewise. Just in a practiced story at that place is ever some reason want to keep watching them!
Plot
A story is e'er a journey that the characters accept. Whether it is a drama or a comedy, an activity film, or fix in outer space, the characters volition undertake an emotional or physical journeying that causes them to larn things or change by the finish. The course of this journey is marked past events — incidents and experiences that the main characters face. The plot is the series of these events — from the beginning, through the middle, until the cease — that gives u.s.a. the feeling of the forwards motion in a story.
The almost important events of the plot are often significant irreversible incidents that change the course of the plot and push button it further ahead. These events are called Plot Points. For example, in "The Matrix," when Neo decides to takes the cerise pill (instead of the bluish ane) and decides he wants to understand what is wrong with him, and the world around him. Or in "Titanic," when Jack Dawson saves Rose from committing suicide over the back of the mighty ship — we know their stories have come up together and their fate together will take the rest of the film to resolve.
If graphic symbol is our way into a story, then plot (every bit it happens to the characters) is what keeps usa in our seats!
Theme
If plot is what keeps united states in our seats watching a story, then theme is what it all means to us. The theme of a film or boob tube story is the mode nosotros make sense of what we are seeing. It is the layer beneath the plot — the bulletin, the significance. Theme is continued to why stories are dissimilar than real life. Real life rarely has a theme — unless you lot consider "endless frustration" a theme! Theme in stories is the way we want the world to work. That it will make sense to us. It is what we desire; it is what we wish were true.
So in "Titanic" you could say that the theme is "love conquers all, and forever!"
Or that "The Matrix" is really about the demand to overcome slavery and be gratis.
If yous get back and spotter these movies again with these themes in heed, I think yous will see how each of these themes play out over the course of each movie — almost from start to finish.
It is sometimes said that in that location are really only 7 themes: things like the need for justice, or the demand for dear, or the need for guild. But really I do not remember there is any reason to limit the number or simplify things. Let the theme be any the storyteller wants it to be!
In any case, most adept stories will have a theme, even if yous cannot e'er say exactly what it is. You lot will know it when yous experience it and see it.
Dialogue
In some ways picture and goggle box dialog is the trickiest chemical element of storytelling. And personally I retrieve we would all be better off if we just included it in the aforementioned category as audio and music — but for some reason it never is.
Dialog is just characters talking. That is it. Sometimes they talk on camera and we call it "chat." Sometimes dialog occurs off camera and nosotros call it "vox over." But either way, dialog in movie and television storytelling exists because people really do talk! And fifty-fifty when the people in the movie are non really people (as in an blithe film similar "Finding Nemo"), well, nosotros all know that the voices were performed by actors — nigh of whom actually are people! Ha ha.
Dialog is a tricky aspect of visual storytelling because most people recollect it can run counter to the goals of visual storytelling. Later all, information technology is but people talking, telling each other things, what they think, and revealing information to the viewer. For example, if you watch television sit down coms you lot know that many of them are very dialog heavy. These tv set series are often no more than than but filmed plays, shot with four cameras running at all times. But call back near why this is so. They say comedy is all about timing, and sit coms use editing (from what the iv camera shot) to get the well-nigh from a joke. So one time once more, even here there is a visual element.
Also, keep in mind that when actors read the dialog they are e'er performing — using movement, gestures and facial expressions (all visual elements) to "sell" their words to the viewers. So at that place is besides a visual component in the performance of dialog.
A few last thoughts.
There have been some amazing examples of visual storytelling in motion-picture show and television.
For example, the first 10 minutes of Clint Eastwood'southward "Dirty Harry" has no dialog at all. The last xx minutes of the Tom Hanks film "Road to Perdition" has about no dialog. The Stanley Kubrick film "2001: A Infinite Odyssey" has nil only silence on screen for about 45 minutes of its total running fourth dimension!
1 of my favorites visual sequences is in another Orson Wells moving picture chosen "Touch of Evil." In "Affect of Evil," Wells' opening shot is one long unbroken take that follows a time flop after it has been placed in the torso of a car. This ane shot runs about iii minutes and twenty seconds and it took Wells all night to become it correct in 1 take. There is some dialog in the shot, just it is visual, suspenseful, and wonderful.
And information technology is not merely the movies. In that location is a wonderful sequence in the American hitting telly series chosen "Breaking Bad." If y'all have not seen the series, actor Bryan Cranston plays a humble chemistry teacher who finds out he is dying of cancer. So that his family unit will be provided for after he is gone, he begins a career every bit a drug manufacturer to make money for them. In season iii, episode 10, in an episode call "Wing," an insect — a firm fly in this example — has invaded the sterile environment of Cranston's drug lab. In a sequence that runs iv minutes, Cranston's character — without a discussion of dialog — decides that the fly must die. Only the fly is tougher than he idea and Cranston's grapheme becomes more than and more frustrated, taking greater and greater risks to kill it. It is very funny and a great case of the possibilities of visual storytelling in television.
In all these examples, it is the visual aspect that carries the storytelling. Merely why does it matter? Can we also bask films and television set shows that are not primarily visual? Of form! In that location is a pic I similar called "My Dinner with Andre" that is about two men having dinner. That is it! Simply two onetime friends having a meal together. At that place is certainly a trivial visual mode in the moving-picture show, merely the film is about just two guys talking and eating! So no one should tell y'all what films and idiot box shows yous should savour or non savor.
Yet, I would never deny the power that visual images have over us, or their power to make a lasting impression. Recollect nearly it — if you have a precious memory — perhaps from your childhood — is it a memory of something that someone said or something y'all read? Or is it a memory of something you lot saw? I volition bet most of your memories, especially the oldest ones, are things you remember seeing.
I take read that the homo mind is able to understand visual images 60,000 times faster than it can sympathize written text. I really have no thought how someone measured this, simply I as well have no trouble believing it is generally true.
There is an former maxim in America. People say, "I will believe information technology when I see it." It is supposed to be an expression of skepticism, but if you read that quote in another way it perfectly sums upwardly why visual storytelling is so important, why it holds so much power over usa, and why it volition keep to exercise then forever. "You will believe information technology when you see it."
Ken Aguado is a an Emmy-winning producer, screenwriter and author. His near contempo films are the award-winning PBS documentary "Phenomenon on 42nd Street" and "An Interview with God," which he wrote and produced. He is besides the co-author of The Hollywood Pitching Bible and Based On. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kagaudo.
Source: https://ken-aguado.medium.com/visual-storytelling-in-film-and-television-4f2d176c17cf