1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,430 The following content is provided under a Creative 2 00:00:02,430 --> 00:00:03,810 Commons license. 3 00:00:03,810 --> 00:00:06,060 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare 4 00:00:06,060 --> 00:00:10,150 continue to offer high quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:10,150 --> 00:00:12,700 To make a donation or to view additional materials 6 00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:16,600 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 7 00:00:16,600 --> 00:00:17,255 at ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:26,320 --> 00:00:29,180 CHRIS BOEBEL: So anyway, I'm Chris Boebel and, as I said, 9 00:00:29,180 --> 00:00:31,480 I'm the Media Development Director 10 00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:33,480 at the Office of Digital Learning, which 11 00:00:33,480 --> 00:00:36,800 is what the K-12 video project is part of. 12 00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:40,700 As well as MITx, and OCW, and a bunch of other initiatives 13 00:00:40,700 --> 00:00:43,950 on campus, I also teach a documentary video class-- 14 00:00:43,950 --> 00:00:46,890 a science documentary class-- here at MIT that Elizabeth 15 00:00:46,890 --> 00:00:49,340 took a few years ago. 16 00:00:49,340 --> 00:00:52,390 And what I'm going to talk about is storytelling. 17 00:00:52,390 --> 00:00:54,640 And specifically, visual storytelling, 18 00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:58,640 and how that can relate-- or hopefully will 19 00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:01,190 relate-- to the work you do in this class 20 00:01:01,190 --> 00:01:03,780 and to online video in general. 21 00:01:03,780 --> 00:01:08,034 I'm going to start out just by taking maybe-- I 22 00:01:08,034 --> 00:01:09,950 don't know if it's exception-- but just having 23 00:01:09,950 --> 00:01:11,908 a slightly different perspective than something 24 00:01:11,908 --> 00:01:14,080 that Elizabeth said. 25 00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:17,970 I would say that almost all videos that are successful, 26 00:01:17,970 --> 00:01:20,450 almost all viral videos, have some element 27 00:01:20,450 --> 00:01:21,920 of a story to them. 28 00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:24,210 Even a five second Vine video. 29 00:01:24,210 --> 00:01:25,130 Just about everything. 30 00:01:25,130 --> 00:01:27,710 And I actually was thinking about that, 31 00:01:27,710 --> 00:01:29,990 and I went looking for what is probably 32 00:01:29,990 --> 00:01:34,820 one of the dumbest viral videos to come out recently. 33 00:01:34,820 --> 00:01:36,970 Just a few days ago. 34 00:01:36,970 --> 00:01:39,380 You may have seen it. 35 00:01:39,380 --> 00:01:46,590 This is a fan at Ohio State who was caught on the Jumbotron 36 00:01:46,590 --> 00:01:49,590 basically scratching her boyfriend's head 37 00:01:49,590 --> 00:01:51,580 and then picking her nose. 38 00:01:51,580 --> 00:01:55,180 And this thing got-- I just, it's 39 00:01:55,180 --> 00:01:58,450 ridiculous how much play this got in about a 12 hour, 20 hour 40 00:01:58,450 --> 00:01:59,169 period. 41 00:01:59,169 --> 00:02:00,210 Very ephemeral, you know. 42 00:02:00,210 --> 00:02:01,850 It's absolutely not going to last. 43 00:02:01,850 --> 00:02:04,650 It's not going to change anyone's life, 44 00:02:04,650 --> 00:02:08,220 but the reason it took off is that it has a story. 45 00:02:08,220 --> 00:02:10,780 And the story was created and invented 46 00:02:10,780 --> 00:02:12,260 by the people who watched it. 47 00:02:12,260 --> 00:02:14,369 You know, it's not really-- yeah, go ahead. 48 00:02:14,369 --> 00:02:16,244 AUDIENCE: I thought the point of that video-- 49 00:02:16,244 --> 00:02:18,714 I saw the same thing that she was with-- 50 00:02:18,714 --> 00:02:21,256 that's like the guy she was seeing on the side-- 51 00:02:21,256 --> 00:02:22,172 CHRIS BOEBEL: Exactly. 52 00:02:22,172 --> 00:02:22,670 AUDIENCE: --that's not her boyfriend. 53 00:02:22,670 --> 00:02:24,294 CHRIS BOEBEL: That's actually not true. 54 00:02:24,294 --> 00:02:26,870 That was the story that was completely created 55 00:02:26,870 --> 00:02:29,120 by people who watched it. 56 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:30,750 They've been together for a long time, 57 00:02:30,750 --> 00:02:32,791 and she didn't even know she was on the Jumbotron 58 00:02:32,791 --> 00:02:34,590 actually, apparently. 59 00:02:34,590 --> 00:02:37,910 But it just happens to be this kind of little moment 60 00:02:37,910 --> 00:02:40,280 that tells a story, and because it told a story 61 00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:45,210 that people related to, suddenly it turned into a giant thing. 62 00:02:45,210 --> 00:02:48,050 One thing that's hilarious is somebody actually reversed it, 63 00:02:48,050 --> 00:02:50,730 so she picks her nose and then sort of leaves 64 00:02:50,730 --> 00:02:53,327 a deposit on his neck, and that became another story. 65 00:02:53,327 --> 00:02:54,910 AUDIENCE: There's something disturbing 66 00:02:54,910 --> 00:02:55,800 about her facial expression. 67 00:02:55,800 --> 00:02:56,560 CHRIS BOEBEL: Yeah exactly. 68 00:02:56,560 --> 00:02:57,470 She looks guilty. 69 00:02:57,470 --> 00:03:00,080 She looks guilty, and that's why that's part of the story. 70 00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:04,360 Like, oh my god, I've been caught rubbing his neck. 71 00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:06,560 So anyway, I think this has got to be 72 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:10,840 the dumbest viral video of all time, 73 00:03:10,840 --> 00:03:13,280 but I think it's also a story. 74 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:15,080 Never think you're not telling a story. 75 00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:17,960 If you forget everything else that I say in the next 30, 40 76 00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:20,652 minutes, I would remember this. 77 00:03:20,652 --> 00:03:22,610 There's some element of a story in what you do. 78 00:03:22,610 --> 00:03:25,930 I don't care if you're making an FDA approval 79 00:03:25,930 --> 00:03:27,592 video, as one of you mentioned you 80 00:03:27,592 --> 00:03:29,050 are interested in doing-- something 81 00:03:29,050 --> 00:03:31,707 I've actually done personally. 82 00:03:31,707 --> 00:03:33,540 I don't care if you're making a 30 second TV 83 00:03:33,540 --> 00:03:37,880 commercial, a 10 second TV commercial, a 12 minute physics 84 00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:39,140 demonstration. 85 00:03:39,140 --> 00:03:41,160 There is an element of story to it. 86 00:03:41,160 --> 00:03:44,330 And it may not be the sort of conventional, traditional, 87 00:03:44,330 --> 00:03:47,590 "television" story that we would see on an HBO show. 88 00:03:47,590 --> 00:03:50,150 It may not be a Hollywood movie story. 89 00:03:50,150 --> 00:03:51,580 But there is an element of story, 90 00:03:51,580 --> 00:03:53,496 and one of the things that you want to do here 91 00:03:53,496 --> 00:03:57,780 is find what those elements are. 92 00:03:57,780 --> 00:04:00,302 Now, let's unpack that a little bit. 93 00:04:00,302 --> 00:04:01,760 Let's talk about what is the story, 94 00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:03,718 and how might it relate to what you're actually 95 00:04:03,718 --> 00:04:05,504 going to be doing here. 96 00:04:05,504 --> 00:04:06,920 And then secondly, we'll also talk 97 00:04:06,920 --> 00:04:08,430 about what are some of the specific techniques 98 00:04:08,430 --> 00:04:10,763 of visual storytelling that you might be able to employ. 99 00:04:12,986 --> 00:04:14,360 So first of all, what is a story? 100 00:04:16,959 --> 00:04:17,860 Full confession. 101 00:04:17,860 --> 00:04:20,320 I went to film school and I worked 102 00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:23,320 in that sort of ancient medium that Elizabeth talked to, 103 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:25,140 television and film. 104 00:04:25,140 --> 00:04:29,180 And the classic and traditional way of talking about a story 105 00:04:29,180 --> 00:04:30,430 is that it's got these things. 106 00:04:30,430 --> 00:04:32,960 It's got a protagonist, a hero. 107 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:34,430 It's got an inciting incident. 108 00:04:34,430 --> 00:04:37,830 It's got something that happens that sets everything in motion. 109 00:04:37,830 --> 00:04:40,229 Then there are barriers along the way, problems 110 00:04:40,229 --> 00:04:41,770 that the protagonist has to overcome, 111 00:04:41,770 --> 00:04:43,700 and then there's a resolution. 112 00:04:43,700 --> 00:04:48,460 So you do that in a kind of traditional, classic way, 113 00:04:48,460 --> 00:04:52,010 and you end up with connections, or worse, right? 114 00:04:52,010 --> 00:04:53,440 It's not going to work, obviously, 115 00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:56,224 in the genre that you're talking about. 116 00:04:56,224 --> 00:04:58,140 Another way of looking at this traditional way 117 00:04:58,140 --> 00:05:00,990 is that you've got act one, which is the set up, 118 00:05:00,990 --> 00:05:03,960 you've got act two, the barriers, the plot. 119 00:05:03,960 --> 00:05:06,050 You've got act three, the resolution. 120 00:05:06,050 --> 00:05:09,430 The three-act structure is kind of the classic screenwriter 121 00:05:09,430 --> 00:05:12,450 mode that you see over and over again. 122 00:05:12,450 --> 00:05:14,730 So how does that relate to what we're actually doing? 123 00:05:14,730 --> 00:05:17,210 Well, this is going to be somewhat 124 00:05:17,210 --> 00:05:20,400 repetitive to some of the things Elizabeth talked about. 125 00:05:20,400 --> 00:05:22,340 First thing, clearly, that you need 126 00:05:22,340 --> 00:05:25,220 to do in this very short form is engage your audience 127 00:05:25,220 --> 00:05:26,070 immediately. 128 00:05:26,070 --> 00:05:30,220 I mean you've got maybe, like, five, six seconds, maybe eight 129 00:05:30,220 --> 00:05:34,160 or ten, to engage them on some level. 130 00:05:34,160 --> 00:05:35,670 That's the beginning of your story. 131 00:05:35,670 --> 00:05:36,890 That's the inciting incident. 132 00:05:39,157 --> 00:05:41,490 And then this is something that I find very interesting, 133 00:05:41,490 --> 00:05:44,600 and you know when I talk about web video, 134 00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:46,880 this is something that is a paradox, 135 00:05:46,880 --> 00:05:48,970 that I think is really, really true. 136 00:05:48,970 --> 00:05:51,450 You want to surprise your audience, while also 137 00:05:51,450 --> 00:05:53,880 showing them exactly what they want to see. 138 00:05:53,880 --> 00:05:56,530 And this can be really a challenge. 139 00:05:56,530 --> 00:05:57,720 Surprise your audience. 140 00:05:57,720 --> 00:06:00,520 In other words, you want to take them somewhere, show them 141 00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:02,997 something that's fresh, that's new, 142 00:06:02,997 --> 00:06:05,330 that they haven't seen before-- something Elizabeth just 143 00:06:05,330 --> 00:06:06,189 mentioned. 144 00:06:06,189 --> 00:06:07,730 But at the same time, you really want 145 00:06:07,730 --> 00:06:10,360 to-- you need to sort of feed into their expectations, 146 00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:13,290 because otherwise they're going to shut down. 147 00:06:13,290 --> 00:06:17,900 And that is why a lot of the YouTube channels, 148 00:06:17,900 --> 00:06:21,750 and a lot of the people who do this work for a living, 149 00:06:21,750 --> 00:06:26,170 have a genre that they stick to. 150 00:06:26,170 --> 00:06:29,966 Smarter Every Day, ASAP, Vsauce. 151 00:06:29,966 --> 00:06:33,340 You know-- hey, I always jump up from beneath the frame. 152 00:06:33,340 --> 00:06:35,470 That's my thing, you know? 153 00:06:35,470 --> 00:06:37,177 So you're showing people what they want. 154 00:06:37,177 --> 00:06:39,510 At the same time, you're surprising them and taking them 155 00:06:39,510 --> 00:06:41,060 somewhere they've never been. 156 00:06:41,060 --> 00:06:43,350 And it's kind of a paradox, but I think 157 00:06:43,350 --> 00:06:45,982 it's kind of a key paradox. 158 00:06:45,982 --> 00:06:47,940 And then the last thing is, leave your audience 159 00:06:47,940 --> 00:06:50,300 wanting more. 160 00:06:50,300 --> 00:06:54,780 Shortness, brevity, is a very important thing, particularly 161 00:06:54,780 --> 00:06:56,690 for this. 162 00:06:56,690 --> 00:06:59,360 I mean, this is a series, Science Out Loud. 163 00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:00,860 The nicest thing for Elizabeth would 164 00:07:00,860 --> 00:07:02,950 be if somebody said, oh my god, that was so great. 165 00:07:02,950 --> 00:07:06,294 Click, next one. 166 00:07:06,294 --> 00:07:07,710 Now if you think about it, this is 167 00:07:07,710 --> 00:07:09,340 very similar to a three-act structure, 168 00:07:09,340 --> 00:07:12,320 it's just a really compressed three-act structure. 169 00:07:12,320 --> 00:07:16,550 Engage your audience-- the inciting incident. 170 00:07:16,550 --> 00:07:18,684 Surprise your audience, and also showing them 171 00:07:18,684 --> 00:07:19,600 what they want to see. 172 00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:21,260 This is sort of the development, which 173 00:07:21,260 --> 00:07:22,839 might only take 30 seconds. 174 00:07:22,839 --> 00:07:24,380 And then, leave your audience wanting 175 00:07:24,380 --> 00:07:27,870 more-- some kind of resolution that 176 00:07:27,870 --> 00:07:30,680 takes them to the next thing. 177 00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:32,440 The other element of all of this that's 178 00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:35,020 very important to just briefly mention-- 179 00:07:35,020 --> 00:07:36,620 and Elizabeth mentioned this earlier-- 180 00:07:36,620 --> 00:07:40,430 is that in online video, just as we saw with the Ohio State 181 00:07:40,430 --> 00:07:43,160 clip, a lot of the storytelling happens outside the frame 182 00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:44,380 of your video. 183 00:07:44,380 --> 00:07:48,770 You want to, basically, be able to leverage that. 184 00:07:48,770 --> 00:07:53,030 So people's expectations before they see your video play 185 00:07:53,030 --> 00:07:57,010 into how they perceive your story, their experience during, 186 00:07:57,010 --> 00:07:58,710 and then what they do after. 187 00:07:58,710 --> 00:08:00,830 All of those are part of the story, as well. 188 00:08:00,830 --> 00:08:03,750 So, you know, the naked celebrity picture-- well, 189 00:08:03,750 --> 00:08:06,320 that's kind of a story too, because you 190 00:08:06,320 --> 00:08:10,820 have an experience of Brad Pitt in one context, 191 00:08:10,820 --> 00:08:13,880 and then suddenly, wow, is that his butt? 192 00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:16,160 That's a story. 193 00:08:16,160 --> 00:08:18,290 Not a very good one, necessarily, but. 194 00:08:18,290 --> 00:08:20,450 I also want to talk a little bit about protagonist. 195 00:08:20,450 --> 00:08:22,324 I started out talking about one of the things 196 00:08:22,324 --> 00:08:23,520 you need is a protagonist. 197 00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:26,020 Well, on one level, the protagonist 198 00:08:26,020 --> 00:08:28,970 is you, if you are the host of this video. 199 00:08:28,970 --> 00:08:34,210 And if you think about the sort of videos Elizabeth showed, 200 00:08:34,210 --> 00:08:37,000 all of them, pretty much on one level or another, 201 00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:38,039 have a protagonist. 202 00:08:38,039 --> 00:08:41,020 It's a very strong character, a very strong protagonist, 203 00:08:41,020 --> 00:08:43,909 whether it's crazy Russian science guy, or the Smarter 204 00:08:43,909 --> 00:08:49,530 Every Day sort of down-home but super-smart science guy, 205 00:08:49,530 --> 00:08:53,140 or Vsauce. 206 00:08:53,140 --> 00:08:56,740 Love him or hate him, he's a very strong character. 207 00:08:56,740 --> 00:08:58,770 So having a protagonist is really, really, 208 00:08:58,770 --> 00:08:59,885 really important. 209 00:08:59,885 --> 00:09:02,860 That protects is going to be you in this particular instance, 210 00:09:02,860 --> 00:09:04,400 but there's also another protagonist 211 00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:06,829 that we should talk about, and that's your audience. 212 00:09:06,829 --> 00:09:09,120 Because what you're doing is taking people on a journey 213 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:13,370 through this learning, and some of the barriers that 214 00:09:13,370 --> 00:09:16,300 are going to be thrown up are barriers 215 00:09:16,300 --> 00:09:18,400 to their understanding. 216 00:09:18,400 --> 00:09:23,880 Think about Smarter Every Day and the cat clip. 217 00:09:23,880 --> 00:09:27,980 The whole thing is structured around, oh hey, now we know, 218 00:09:27,980 --> 00:09:28,690 it's the tail. 219 00:09:28,690 --> 00:09:29,950 Oh-- no it's not. 220 00:09:29,950 --> 00:09:31,692 No it's not, it's something else. 221 00:09:31,692 --> 00:09:33,150 And that happens two or three times 222 00:09:33,150 --> 00:09:35,140 over the course of the clip. 223 00:09:35,140 --> 00:09:37,330 That is, basically, a story. 224 00:09:37,330 --> 00:09:38,390 That's storytelling. 225 00:09:38,390 --> 00:09:40,470 There's a barrier to understanding-- oh, 226 00:09:40,470 --> 00:09:43,770 we think we've solved it-- no, we haven't. 227 00:09:43,770 --> 00:09:44,860 It's like a car chase. 228 00:09:44,860 --> 00:09:47,990 It's like breaking into a safe. 229 00:09:47,990 --> 00:09:49,910 It's like a lot of things that you would 230 00:09:49,910 --> 00:09:53,610 see in a conventional movie. 231 00:09:53,610 --> 00:09:55,580 So there are actually kind of-- in some ways, 232 00:09:55,580 --> 00:09:58,070 you can think of it as a dual protagonist. 233 00:09:58,070 --> 00:10:02,030 You, the trusted guide, are taking your buddy, 234 00:10:02,030 --> 00:10:04,080 the audience, on this journey. 235 00:10:04,080 --> 00:10:06,410 On a story. 236 00:10:06,410 --> 00:10:08,520 To return to what I said earlier, 237 00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:12,047 I think of web videos-- great web videos 238 00:10:12,047 --> 00:10:13,130 are like great snack food. 239 00:10:16,510 --> 00:10:18,430 They're very familiar, yet they're also 240 00:10:18,430 --> 00:10:21,330 sort of spicy and enticing, and after you have one 241 00:10:21,330 --> 00:10:23,575 you just want to have another. 242 00:10:23,575 --> 00:10:24,950 And then you have the second one, 243 00:10:24,950 --> 00:10:28,470 and you just think, maybe I should have a third. 244 00:10:28,470 --> 00:10:31,660 Hopefully the videos you make won't leave people 245 00:10:31,660 --> 00:10:34,360 with heartburn, which is what happens when you eat too 246 00:10:34,360 --> 00:10:39,250 many of these, but that is, to me, kind 247 00:10:39,250 --> 00:10:40,500 of an interesting analogy. 248 00:10:40,500 --> 00:10:42,550 And if Interstellar, or some three hour 249 00:10:42,550 --> 00:10:46,420 opus that you pay $10 to sit in the dark to watch, 250 00:10:46,420 --> 00:10:50,242 is a seven course meal at a four star restaurant, 251 00:10:50,242 --> 00:10:51,700 you're making something that's just 252 00:10:51,700 --> 00:10:55,740 got to be really tasty and delightful for just a moment, 253 00:10:55,740 --> 00:10:57,490 and leave people wanting another one. 254 00:10:57,490 --> 00:11:00,686 Just exactly like that, but somehow subtly different, too. 255 00:11:03,820 --> 00:11:05,715 I'm not going to show any video, because I'm 256 00:11:05,715 --> 00:11:08,340 going to try to just talk about the videos you've already seen, 257 00:11:08,340 --> 00:11:11,200 rather than show. 258 00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:14,882 So let's unpack stories just a little bit more. 259 00:11:14,882 --> 00:11:16,840 I've made the case that you're telling a story, 260 00:11:16,840 --> 00:11:20,520 and you should never forget that you're telling a story when 261 00:11:20,520 --> 00:11:21,820 you do this kind of work. 262 00:11:21,820 --> 00:11:24,410 Well, what are stories actually built on? 263 00:11:24,410 --> 00:11:26,690 There's a whole list of things, and Elizabeth 264 00:11:26,690 --> 00:11:29,060 has mentioned a couple of them. 265 00:11:29,060 --> 00:11:31,040 Emotion. 266 00:11:31,040 --> 00:11:33,480 Now, I'm not necessarily talking about Gone With the Wind 267 00:11:33,480 --> 00:11:40,170 emotion, but certainly curiosity, identification, 268 00:11:40,170 --> 00:11:42,230 humor, which is an emotion. 269 00:11:42,230 --> 00:11:44,380 All of those things really are going 270 00:11:44,380 --> 00:11:47,190 to play into what you do and are very, very important. 271 00:11:47,190 --> 00:11:47,690 Character. 272 00:11:47,690 --> 00:11:49,160 We've talked about character. 273 00:11:49,160 --> 00:11:51,710 Conflict. 274 00:11:51,710 --> 00:11:58,000 Again, not necessarily high drama, but there's 275 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:00,410 often some kind of conflict. 276 00:12:00,410 --> 00:12:02,770 The conflict may be, oh, you thought 277 00:12:02,770 --> 00:12:08,970 the cat was using his tail to spin, that's not the case. 278 00:12:08,970 --> 00:12:13,140 But some kind of conflict, barriers to understanding, 279 00:12:13,140 --> 00:12:15,180 I think are very, very important. 280 00:12:15,180 --> 00:12:16,940 Spectacle. 281 00:12:16,940 --> 00:12:20,330 Again, you're not going to do Interstellar, 282 00:12:20,330 --> 00:12:25,150 you're not going to spend $100 million on CGI, 283 00:12:25,150 --> 00:12:27,950 you're not going to do The Hobbit. 284 00:12:27,950 --> 00:12:32,410 But often-- it's another word for taking people 285 00:12:32,410 --> 00:12:33,670 a place they've never been. 286 00:12:33,670 --> 00:12:36,770 Maybe you can get into the nuclear reactor here. 287 00:12:36,770 --> 00:12:37,800 Intellectual engagement. 288 00:12:37,800 --> 00:12:40,260 I think that's kind of the obvious one, the easy one 289 00:12:40,260 --> 00:12:43,254 that we can all think about when we're talking 290 00:12:43,254 --> 00:12:44,295 about educational videos. 291 00:12:47,551 --> 00:12:49,790 In and of itself, I don't think it's enough, 292 00:12:49,790 --> 00:12:52,970 but it's certainly an important one. 293 00:12:52,970 --> 00:12:57,220 And there are plenty of videos out there-- plenty of lecture 294 00:12:57,220 --> 00:13:01,830 videos-- that basically just depend on that. 295 00:13:01,830 --> 00:13:04,090 And then the last two are two of my favorite ones. 296 00:13:04,090 --> 00:13:05,730 The unfamiliar becoming familiar, 297 00:13:05,730 --> 00:13:10,000 which is kind of the classic science video. 298 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:12,130 But the familiar becoming unfamiliar, as well. 299 00:13:12,130 --> 00:13:15,510 In other words, you think you know farts, 300 00:13:15,510 --> 00:13:19,430 but you don't, despite all you know about farts. 301 00:13:19,430 --> 00:13:23,290 And in one context, you don't know that much, and here's why. 302 00:13:23,290 --> 00:13:27,160 So I think both of those are really 303 00:13:27,160 --> 00:13:32,350 interesting structures for you to use to hang a story on. 304 00:13:32,350 --> 00:13:33,729 Again, the first one, obviously. 305 00:13:33,729 --> 00:13:36,020 I'm going to take this thing that you don't understand, 306 00:13:36,020 --> 00:13:39,400 and I'm going to make it completely-- 307 00:13:39,400 --> 00:13:41,040 I'm going to demystify it. 308 00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:44,030 But a lot of science education is also 309 00:13:44,030 --> 00:13:46,710 about kind of taking something that seems really simple 310 00:13:46,710 --> 00:13:51,010 and showing just how complex, and intriguing, 311 00:13:51,010 --> 00:13:52,510 and unfamiliar it really is. 312 00:13:55,940 --> 00:13:58,190 Now let's talk a little bit about visual storytelling, 313 00:13:58,190 --> 00:14:03,030 because that's obviously what you want to do here. 314 00:14:03,030 --> 00:14:05,130 Lecture videos-- again, intellectual 315 00:14:05,130 --> 00:14:09,290 engagement certainly one way to go. 316 00:14:09,290 --> 00:14:11,760 If you use OCW, as a couple of you mentioned, 317 00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:16,190 you know very well that lecture videos can be effective. 318 00:14:16,190 --> 00:14:18,850 And in fact, lectures can be great stories. 319 00:14:18,850 --> 00:14:21,730 We all have had experiences of people 320 00:14:21,730 --> 00:14:24,800 who are great lecturers, who tell great stories. 321 00:14:24,800 --> 00:14:27,095 And those stories may or may not be visual, 322 00:14:27,095 --> 00:14:28,720 but I think there's certain things that 323 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:31,920 distinguish visual storytelling that are worth talking about. 324 00:14:35,140 --> 00:14:38,570 And this is a concept that I often 325 00:14:38,570 --> 00:14:43,520 use to just kind of get into to this whole idea, which 326 00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:46,800 Elizabeth will probably remember. 327 00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:51,080 This is what we sometimes call the plastic elements 328 00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:52,230 of video or a film. 329 00:14:52,230 --> 00:14:54,420 And sometimes I use film and video indistinguishably 330 00:14:54,420 --> 00:14:58,890 because-- it betrays my age-- video is film, 331 00:14:58,890 --> 00:15:01,900 film is video now, at this point. 332 00:15:01,900 --> 00:15:04,500 What I mean by the plastic elements of video 333 00:15:04,500 --> 00:15:07,420 are, just simply, all of the things 334 00:15:07,420 --> 00:15:12,080 that we have control over when we make a video. 335 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:14,827 And that could be the casting of the actors, 336 00:15:14,827 --> 00:15:16,660 it could be where we put the camera-- that's 337 00:15:16,660 --> 00:15:19,670 kind of the obvious one-- the lighting, 338 00:15:19,670 --> 00:15:21,890 there's an endless list of things. 339 00:15:21,890 --> 00:15:25,850 And, in fact, here are just a few of them. 340 00:15:25,850 --> 00:15:28,550 Again, most people would list the camera right away, 341 00:15:28,550 --> 00:15:31,540 since that's kind of the "paint brush", quote unquote. 342 00:15:31,540 --> 00:15:34,320 The lighting, how we choose to light something, 343 00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:37,190 or whether we're actually literally using lights or just 344 00:15:37,190 --> 00:15:39,700 using the sun or existing room lights. 345 00:15:39,700 --> 00:15:44,140 Editing, sound, music, characters, the actors, 346 00:15:44,140 --> 00:15:48,000 locations, props, costumes, the list is really endless. 347 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:49,930 It goes back to the decisions. 348 00:15:49,930 --> 00:15:52,530 Elizabeth mentioned decision-making. 349 00:15:52,530 --> 00:15:55,120 All of these things are things you need to think about 350 00:15:55,120 --> 00:15:56,620 and you can control. 351 00:15:56,620 --> 00:16:01,020 And they can work for you, or they can work against you. 352 00:16:01,020 --> 00:16:03,870 Think about in Smarter Every Day, props. 353 00:16:03,870 --> 00:16:06,080 The cat itself, of course, is a great prop. 354 00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:08,340 Think about the stuffed cat at the beginning, 355 00:16:08,340 --> 00:16:11,430 which is that sort of fun moment of, oh my god, he's 356 00:16:11,430 --> 00:16:14,210 really going to drop a real cat. 357 00:16:14,210 --> 00:16:15,440 That was a choice. 358 00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:18,820 That was a choice, to add that stuffed cat, 359 00:16:18,820 --> 00:16:21,160 and it sort of made a fun little moment that brought you 360 00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:23,520 in for just a second. 361 00:16:23,520 --> 00:16:24,250 Locations. 362 00:16:24,250 --> 00:16:25,360 Very, very important. 363 00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:29,120 I mean, the sort of lowest common denominator location is 364 00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:31,140 a chalk board or a white board for something 365 00:16:31,140 --> 00:16:34,570 like an educational video, but there are all sorts 366 00:16:34,570 --> 00:16:36,990 of other possibilities. 367 00:16:36,990 --> 00:16:37,570 Costumes. 368 00:16:37,570 --> 00:16:40,170 Again, doesn't have to be clown costumes or silly hats, 369 00:16:40,170 --> 00:16:42,880 or things like that-- although it could be. 370 00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:47,420 But all of the other things that you can, or might be able to, 371 00:16:47,420 --> 00:16:52,610 bring to your video by making these choices. 372 00:16:52,610 --> 00:16:55,570 Camera, of course, is a crucial one, 373 00:16:55,570 --> 00:16:57,320 and I'm going to unpack that just a little 374 00:16:57,320 --> 00:17:00,780 bit as well, although we could spend hours 375 00:17:00,780 --> 00:17:05,180 talking about film grammar. 376 00:17:05,180 --> 00:17:08,130 So I'm going to just go through a few other tips 377 00:17:08,130 --> 00:17:10,579 to think about. 378 00:17:10,579 --> 00:17:13,915 The first one-- and this is kind of like the bible 379 00:17:13,915 --> 00:17:17,670 of visual storytelling-- show, don't tell. 380 00:17:17,670 --> 00:17:24,030 And it sounds kind of obvious, but it isn't necessarily 381 00:17:24,030 --> 00:17:25,720 that easy to do. 382 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:29,530 If we think about the sleep video, 383 00:17:29,530 --> 00:17:35,077 I think one of the things that I responded to in that video, 384 00:17:35,077 --> 00:17:36,660 that I thought could have been better, 385 00:17:36,660 --> 00:17:40,340 is that it's actually not showing us much. 386 00:17:40,340 --> 00:17:42,430 It's telling us. 387 00:17:42,430 --> 00:17:46,760 Elizabeth talked about the fact that the voiceover just 388 00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:49,030 read, like, a web article. 389 00:17:49,030 --> 00:17:52,000 Like, a sort of "10 Facts About Sleep", 390 00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:53,400 and that's basically the case. 391 00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:55,540 I mean, there is some really cool animation, 392 00:17:55,540 --> 00:17:58,730 and the animation is fun, and it helps, and it definitely 393 00:17:58,730 --> 00:18:01,810 supports the words, but together, 394 00:18:01,810 --> 00:18:04,690 it's really just this thing-- you know, 395 00:18:04,690 --> 00:18:06,420 I could have listened to it on my iPod. 396 00:18:06,420 --> 00:18:08,630 I could have listen to it in my car. 397 00:18:08,630 --> 00:18:11,944 The visuals helped a little bit, but it didn't really 398 00:18:11,944 --> 00:18:13,830 add anything to it. 399 00:18:18,250 --> 00:18:21,890 The other way to do it, of course, is Smarter Every Day. 400 00:18:21,890 --> 00:18:24,769 Which again, you may or may not have liked that. 401 00:18:24,769 --> 00:18:26,810 You may have thought that it dragged on too long, 402 00:18:26,810 --> 00:18:28,610 and I agree with that certainly. 403 00:18:28,610 --> 00:18:31,310 I think there were things that could've been improved, 404 00:18:31,310 --> 00:18:34,070 but there's nothing like dropping a cat, 405 00:18:34,070 --> 00:18:39,736 and showing it in super-slow motion, to get my attention. 406 00:18:39,736 --> 00:18:42,110 So I think that was a great example of showing something. 407 00:18:45,580 --> 00:18:48,080 This is just something that I wanted to mention. 408 00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:52,380 Having worked in television, there 409 00:18:52,380 --> 00:18:58,910 was a saying that went around a lot 410 00:18:58,910 --> 00:19:01,840 when people were talking about a script, which was, "Oh, this 411 00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:03,446 is kind of a wolfpack deal." 412 00:19:03,446 --> 00:19:04,820 And what was meant by that-- this 413 00:19:04,820 --> 00:19:07,550 was sort of an infamous situation from, I don't know, 414 00:19:07,550 --> 00:19:09,380 God knows when. 415 00:19:09,380 --> 00:19:12,230 Somebody who's scripting a nature documentary 416 00:19:12,230 --> 00:19:17,030 had written this long, very beautiful, kind 417 00:19:17,030 --> 00:19:20,940 of flowery narration about "the ravenous pack, lopped 418 00:19:20,940 --> 00:19:24,590 across the frozen tundra in search of its prey"-- 419 00:19:24,590 --> 00:19:25,290 blah blah blah. 420 00:19:25,290 --> 00:19:28,150 Like two pages of sort of beautiful prose, 421 00:19:28,150 --> 00:19:32,480 and at some point in the editing process, 422 00:19:32,480 --> 00:19:38,155 somebody was like, because they had that. 423 00:19:38,155 --> 00:19:42,070 They didn't need to say all that stuff. 424 00:19:42,070 --> 00:19:45,840 This picture was worth endless amounts of stuff. 425 00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:48,820 So avoid your pack moments. 426 00:19:48,820 --> 00:19:53,510 If you don't need to say something, you can show it. 427 00:19:53,510 --> 00:19:55,770 There may be plenty of things to say, 428 00:19:55,770 --> 00:19:59,380 and I'm not saying that it should be all visual, 429 00:19:59,380 --> 00:20:02,570 but you don't need to say certain things if you're 430 00:20:02,570 --> 00:20:04,130 already showing those things. 431 00:20:04,130 --> 00:20:05,800 Use your language, use your words, 432 00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:08,110 which are very important to do other things. 433 00:20:08,110 --> 00:20:11,950 To reinforce, to bring your own perspective, 434 00:20:11,950 --> 00:20:15,000 to embellish the story, to bring people 435 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:17,330 into your own mind, your own character. 436 00:20:17,330 --> 00:20:19,650 You don't need to say the obvious stuff. 437 00:20:19,650 --> 00:20:21,705 You don't need to do the wolfpack description. 438 00:20:25,110 --> 00:20:27,570 So that's show, don't tell. 439 00:20:27,570 --> 00:20:30,760 The other thing that's just sort of a fundamental tip 440 00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:34,000 is, video loves motion. 441 00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:36,400 Moving pictures. 442 00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:39,210 And Josh is going to talk about storyboarding and animation 443 00:20:39,210 --> 00:20:40,940 later in the week. 444 00:20:40,940 --> 00:20:44,690 Clearly, animated pictures, moving 445 00:20:44,690 --> 00:20:47,930 things, things that reveal one thing or another in animation, 446 00:20:47,930 --> 00:20:50,090 are really important. 447 00:20:50,090 --> 00:20:51,920 Same with cameras. 448 00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:55,370 If you look at Science Out Loud, some of the other episodes, 449 00:20:55,370 --> 00:21:00,130 you'll see some really terrific moves with the camera, dollies. 450 00:21:00,130 --> 00:21:02,920 All of those things add visual interest 451 00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:06,260 and improve your storytelling. 452 00:21:06,260 --> 00:21:09,150 Locking down a tripod can also be very effective, 453 00:21:09,150 --> 00:21:11,475 but again, think of it as a plastic element 454 00:21:11,475 --> 00:21:12,350 that you can control. 455 00:21:12,350 --> 00:21:14,760 Don't do it just because you didn't think about it, 456 00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:18,320 do it after thinking about what you're doing by either moving 457 00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:18,910 or not moving. 458 00:21:22,456 --> 00:21:23,580 So the camera loves motion. 459 00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:28,260 This is kind of the corollary to that. 460 00:21:28,260 --> 00:21:31,490 And I don't know if people have a lot of shooting experience 461 00:21:31,490 --> 00:21:33,430 or not, and this isn't really strictly 462 00:21:33,430 --> 00:21:37,140 a class on the production techniques, 463 00:21:37,140 --> 00:21:40,560 but this is something I really wanted to mention. 464 00:21:40,560 --> 00:21:43,160 Motion for the sake of motion is also not 465 00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:45,630 terrific, not fantastic. 466 00:21:45,630 --> 00:21:48,320 Hosing down the room is that tendency 467 00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:50,900 that your uncle or your grandfather 468 00:21:50,900 --> 00:21:55,900 has when you give them a camera to just do this all the time. 469 00:21:55,900 --> 00:21:58,190 And you're going, oh, hey, I'm getting everything. 470 00:21:58,190 --> 00:22:00,500 I'm just getting everything here. 471 00:22:00,500 --> 00:22:02,010 This is fantastic. 472 00:22:02,010 --> 00:22:04,170 And in fact, what you get is absolutely nothing, 473 00:22:04,170 --> 00:22:06,670 because there's no intentionality. 474 00:22:06,670 --> 00:22:08,920 There's no sort of thought to what's 475 00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:10,187 happening with the camera. 476 00:22:10,187 --> 00:22:12,020 All you're doing is making everybody seasick 477 00:22:12,020 --> 00:22:16,360 and really pissed that you're not focusing on anything. 478 00:22:16,360 --> 00:22:20,600 Motion is actually-- I think a better way 479 00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:25,980 to talk about it, in story terms, is reveals. 480 00:22:25,980 --> 00:22:27,610 When you're moving things, you're 481 00:22:27,610 --> 00:22:29,820 revealing the next story element. 482 00:22:29,820 --> 00:22:34,790 So if I pan from our camera person over to Josh, 483 00:22:34,790 --> 00:22:38,310 and Josh is looking over at the camera person, is going like, 484 00:22:38,310 --> 00:22:40,240 why is he doing what he's doing? 485 00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:41,530 That's a story element. 486 00:22:41,530 --> 00:22:46,660 Whereas if I do this, I'm not telling a story at all. 487 00:22:46,660 --> 00:22:49,459 Same with animation, and I'm sure Josh thinks 488 00:22:49,459 --> 00:22:50,500 about this night and day. 489 00:22:50,500 --> 00:22:52,977 I mean, how do you reveal your next thing 490 00:22:52,977 --> 00:22:54,060 from the thing you've got? 491 00:22:54,060 --> 00:22:57,300 How you go from this idea to that idea? 492 00:22:57,300 --> 00:22:59,790 How do you reveal using motion? 493 00:22:59,790 --> 00:23:03,020 Because it is moving pictures. 494 00:23:03,020 --> 00:23:05,340 So that's maybe a more pointed way 495 00:23:05,340 --> 00:23:10,130 of talking about motion in story terms. 496 00:23:10,130 --> 00:23:12,900 Revealing things. 497 00:23:12,900 --> 00:23:15,030 I'm going to talk just a little tiny bit 498 00:23:15,030 --> 00:23:23,740 about grammar, and framing, and stuff like that, very quickly. 499 00:23:23,740 --> 00:23:26,750 This is just a still from an interview 500 00:23:26,750 --> 00:23:29,380 that I did a couple of years ago here at MIT. 501 00:23:29,380 --> 00:23:32,420 Joel Dawson, a professor here. 502 00:23:32,420 --> 00:23:35,710 And just a couple of things to just point out 503 00:23:35,710 --> 00:23:40,965 about it in terms of, sort of, just the way 504 00:23:40,965 --> 00:23:42,270 it's visually set up. 505 00:23:42,270 --> 00:23:47,050 First of all, you'll see that the background 506 00:23:47,050 --> 00:23:50,710 and the foreground are very distinct. 507 00:23:50,710 --> 00:23:52,750 We shot it so that the background is completely 508 00:23:52,750 --> 00:23:56,932 out of focus, and that's so that you know what to focus on. 509 00:23:56,932 --> 00:23:57,890 That's the other thing. 510 00:23:57,890 --> 00:23:59,530 So we talked about reveal. 511 00:23:59,530 --> 00:24:02,150 The other sort of key crucial thing 512 00:24:02,150 --> 00:24:05,230 to think about when you're storyboarding, or creating 513 00:24:05,230 --> 00:24:08,900 animation, or directing is, how do you 514 00:24:08,900 --> 00:24:10,460 get people to look at what you want 515 00:24:10,460 --> 00:24:12,940 them to look at in the frame? 516 00:24:12,940 --> 00:24:16,610 One way is to foreground the foreground 517 00:24:16,610 --> 00:24:19,460 and let the background drop off, either through lighting 518 00:24:19,460 --> 00:24:21,930 or through the focus, in this case. 519 00:24:21,930 --> 00:24:25,950 Or through art direction-- there are all sorts of ways to do it, 520 00:24:25,950 --> 00:24:30,340 but doing it is really important. 521 00:24:30,340 --> 00:24:33,610 The other thing is that this is a close up. 522 00:24:33,610 --> 00:24:35,670 Sounds kind of simple, sounds kind of obvious, 523 00:24:35,670 --> 00:24:38,340 but it's making a choice to go in 524 00:24:38,340 --> 00:24:41,520 and to find out about this guy, this person. 525 00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:43,590 It's not about the lab. 526 00:24:43,590 --> 00:24:45,520 It's not just sort of this wishy-washy, 527 00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,850 moving shot of him wandering around his lab doing something. 528 00:24:49,850 --> 00:24:51,710 We want to hear what this person is saying, 529 00:24:51,710 --> 00:24:55,620 what he's thinking, right now. 530 00:24:55,620 --> 00:24:59,450 Just another quick thing to just talk about. 531 00:24:59,450 --> 00:25:05,070 When you're shooting in this particular format, 16x9, 532 00:25:05,070 --> 00:25:06,900 there are a couple of really powerful parts 533 00:25:06,900 --> 00:25:09,760 of the frame that you can use, whether you're doing animation 534 00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:12,640 or shooting, and they tend to be where 535 00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:15,400 the thirds cross each other. 536 00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,890 So that's a very powerful part of the frame. 537 00:25:17,890 --> 00:25:20,210 That's also powerful. 538 00:25:20,210 --> 00:25:23,100 These are powerful in slightly different ways. 539 00:25:23,100 --> 00:25:28,060 And you'll see his eyes, like, dead-on in the crosshairs. 540 00:25:28,060 --> 00:25:34,320 If we're people who read left to right, in sort 541 00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:38,130 of the Euro, European tradition of writing, 542 00:25:38,130 --> 00:25:39,880 this tends to be the most powerful point, 543 00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:42,560 because we read frames left to right, because we're 544 00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:45,720 used to our eyes used to going that way. 545 00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:47,700 Not saying you have to follow this rule. 546 00:25:47,700 --> 00:25:50,970 You can break it, but it's just an interesting thing for you 547 00:25:50,970 --> 00:25:51,590 to know. 548 00:25:51,590 --> 00:25:55,564 When you're framing things, when you're creating animations, 549 00:25:55,564 --> 00:25:57,980 there's a tendency when you start to think oh, dead-center 550 00:25:57,980 --> 00:25:59,530 will be really great. 551 00:25:59,530 --> 00:26:01,680 But it's actually not the case. 552 00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:05,990 A little off-center and in sort of the thirds of the frame 553 00:26:05,990 --> 00:26:09,319 is a good way to go. 554 00:26:09,319 --> 00:26:11,110 The other thing just to talk about quickly, 555 00:26:11,110 --> 00:26:17,170 in terms of making choices, think about-- 556 00:26:17,170 --> 00:26:20,200 and this will really come up when you do your storyboarding 557 00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,580 exercises with Josh-- think about what 558 00:26:23,580 --> 00:26:28,870 the kinds of shots you choose are doing. 559 00:26:28,870 --> 00:26:33,240 Wide shots say one thing, close-ups say other. 560 00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:35,240 Starting with a wide shot and coming in, 561 00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:37,260 that's a reveal of something. 562 00:26:37,260 --> 00:26:39,140 But starting in a close-up and going wide 563 00:26:39,140 --> 00:26:42,750 could also be a reveal of something else. 564 00:26:42,750 --> 00:26:47,290 I think we can imagine what kinds of stories 565 00:26:47,290 --> 00:26:49,480 might come out of these two frames, 566 00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:50,980 and how the story might be different 567 00:26:50,980 --> 00:26:52,770 if we started here and went here, 568 00:26:52,770 --> 00:26:56,100 and if we started hear and came out. 569 00:26:56,100 --> 00:26:59,740 So make choices, and think about what your choices are actually 570 00:26:59,740 --> 00:27:01,740 going to do in terms of the story. 571 00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,830 Another example of that. 572 00:27:06,830 --> 00:27:09,150 Camera angles framing. 573 00:27:09,150 --> 00:27:12,940 Low angles looking up, that gives you a certain feeling, 574 00:27:12,940 --> 00:27:15,710 it gives you a certain kind of power. 575 00:27:15,710 --> 00:27:20,270 A sort of master of my domain feel. 576 00:27:20,270 --> 00:27:23,824 The opposite, looking down, kind of the opposite. 577 00:27:23,824 --> 00:27:25,490 These are just two examples, and I'm not 578 00:27:25,490 --> 00:27:29,110 going to go on and on and on and talk about others, although we 579 00:27:29,110 --> 00:27:32,650 may get into it later in the week. 580 00:27:32,650 --> 00:27:37,860 The point is that the camera is one of the key plastic elements 581 00:27:37,860 --> 00:27:41,380 that you have at your disposal to tell your story. 582 00:27:41,380 --> 00:27:47,810 And the medium shot, just kind of center frame, 583 00:27:47,810 --> 00:27:51,040 doing your thing, is kind of the fall-back. 584 00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:52,460 You don't have to do that. 585 00:27:52,460 --> 00:27:55,260 There are any number of other choices you can make. 586 00:27:55,260 --> 00:28:00,100 And when you start to go and choose locations, and choose 587 00:28:00,100 --> 00:28:03,840 props, and choose elements like that, 588 00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:07,820 how you shoot those things and how you shoot your characters 589 00:28:07,820 --> 00:28:09,360 becomes very, very, very important. 590 00:28:11,980 --> 00:28:14,574 And then the last thing that I'm going to talk about-- 591 00:28:14,574 --> 00:28:16,990 and I'm kind of racing through this because I want to just 592 00:28:16,990 --> 00:28:20,140 make sure we have time for questions and stuff-- 593 00:28:20,140 --> 00:28:22,140 I'm just going to be a little counter-intuitive. 594 00:28:22,140 --> 00:28:24,090 We've been talking about visual storytelling, 595 00:28:24,090 --> 00:28:27,040 but just don't short change your sound. 596 00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:31,120 Sound is often more important than the picture. 597 00:28:31,120 --> 00:28:35,380 And one of the other things that I think-- 598 00:28:35,380 --> 00:28:37,860 Elizabeth talked a little bit about production technique, 599 00:28:37,860 --> 00:28:41,030 and quote unquote "bad technique" or rough videos, 600 00:28:41,030 --> 00:28:46,170 versus slicker TV-style videos. 601 00:28:46,170 --> 00:28:49,060 One thing that's very, very, very hard to overcome 602 00:28:49,060 --> 00:28:51,220 is poor sound. 603 00:28:51,220 --> 00:28:53,190 And even if your video is a little out 604 00:28:53,190 --> 00:28:57,210 of focus and its shaky, if it's really compelling, 605 00:28:57,210 --> 00:28:59,810 that's fine, as long as the sound is good. 606 00:28:59,810 --> 00:29:03,630 But as soon as the sound is bad and hard to listen to, 607 00:29:03,630 --> 00:29:08,000 you're going to have a really hard time pulling people back. 608 00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,340 So even though this is mostly about visual storytelling, 609 00:29:12,340 --> 00:29:14,406 I just want to point that out, that that 610 00:29:14,406 --> 00:29:16,280 doesn't mean that the sound is not important. 611 00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,060 In fact, the sound is extraordinarily important. 612 00:29:19,060 --> 00:29:23,330 And it's both a technical thing but also a plastic element 613 00:29:23,330 --> 00:29:24,610 that you can use. 614 00:29:24,610 --> 00:29:27,860 Whether it's music, or sound effects, 615 00:29:27,860 --> 00:29:31,350 or the way you treat dialogue, all of those things 616 00:29:31,350 --> 00:29:34,380 are really important. 617 00:29:34,380 --> 00:29:36,800 So just to contextualize this a little bit, 618 00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:39,620 I know that Elizabeth's co-instructor, George, 619 00:29:39,620 --> 00:29:43,290 is going to be doing a scripting workshop with you, 620 00:29:43,290 --> 00:29:46,884 and he's going to be focusing a lot on finding your voice. 621 00:29:46,884 --> 00:29:48,300 Which is really, really important, 622 00:29:48,300 --> 00:29:50,720 and goes back to the idea of character, 623 00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:54,110 and the protagonist, and authenticity, 624 00:29:54,110 --> 00:29:57,410 and a lot of the things Elizabeth was talking about. 625 00:29:57,410 --> 00:30:00,460 But as you do that, as you do all of those things, 626 00:30:00,460 --> 00:30:05,880 remember that ultimately you're telling a visual story. 627 00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:13,550 And that once you, sort of, hone your story, hone your voice, 628 00:30:13,550 --> 00:30:15,740 you want to put that in a visual context. 629 00:30:15,740 --> 00:30:19,630 You don't have to have the words carry everything. 630 00:30:19,630 --> 00:30:23,850 And in fact, the words may end up 631 00:30:23,850 --> 00:30:27,890 doing other things than conveying the core of what 632 00:30:27,890 --> 00:30:30,030 you need to do. 633 00:30:30,030 --> 00:30:30,580 So that's it. 634 00:30:30,580 --> 00:30:32,040 I kind of tried to race through it, 635 00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:38,260 because I didn't want to keep people for too long. 636 00:30:38,260 --> 00:30:41,655 First of all, any questions or thoughts? 637 00:30:44,425 --> 00:30:47,876 AUDIENCE: I just had a thought, just a question. 638 00:30:47,876 --> 00:30:52,806 It was interesting, you mentioned that the-- I'm sorry, 639 00:30:52,806 --> 00:30:55,780 the name's escaping me-- the whiteboard video that you were 640 00:30:55,780 --> 00:30:56,870 critiquing earlier-- 641 00:30:56,870 --> 00:30:57,870 PROFESSOR: ASAP Science. 642 00:30:57,870 --> 00:30:59,791 CHRIS BOEBEL: Oh, the ASAP Science, yeah. 643 00:30:59,791 --> 00:31:01,457 I liked it, I didn't mean to dump on it. 644 00:31:01,457 --> 00:31:03,331 AUDIENCE: No, I think it was really important 645 00:31:03,331 --> 00:31:05,353 and a really interesting point. 646 00:31:05,353 --> 00:31:06,814 So then I was thinking, okay, what 647 00:31:06,814 --> 00:31:08,275 would have been more effective? 648 00:31:08,275 --> 00:31:11,197 How could that have been turned into some sort of more 649 00:31:11,197 --> 00:31:14,606 storytelling exercise, or something 650 00:31:14,606 --> 00:31:16,090 that was more engaging? 651 00:31:16,090 --> 00:31:21,030 And I think it would be an interesting question, just, 652 00:31:21,030 --> 00:31:23,140 how could that be better? 653 00:31:23,140 --> 00:31:27,920 And my feeling was, would it be better to do something 654 00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:29,880 where you actually had someone not 655 00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:32,150 sleep for overnight, or for two days-- 656 00:31:32,150 --> 00:31:34,720 CHRIS BOEBEL: Well I think that's-- yeah, no, go ahead, 657 00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:35,330 yeah. 658 00:31:35,330 --> 00:31:37,986 AUDIENCE: Something like Supersize Me, 659 00:31:37,986 --> 00:31:40,854 where you have someone actually engaged in this thing, 660 00:31:40,854 --> 00:31:42,766 and it's more experiential, as opposed 661 00:31:42,766 --> 00:31:48,040 to being didactic I guess would be the distinction there. 662 00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:49,400 So that was just one idea. 663 00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:51,607 CHRIS BOEBEL: I think that's a really good point. 664 00:31:51,607 --> 00:31:53,440 I mean, that's kind of the Smarter Every Day 665 00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:57,950 approach, which I respond to personally better. 666 00:31:57,950 --> 00:32:01,610 On the other hand I think that there are graphics 667 00:32:01,610 --> 00:32:03,500 that tell amazing stories. 668 00:32:03,500 --> 00:32:07,320 I think data visualizations that I've seen recently, 669 00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:12,655 in particular, just can be extraordinary storytelling 670 00:32:12,655 --> 00:32:13,155 devices. 671 00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:19,450 So it's not so much that I think that it was animated, 672 00:32:19,450 --> 00:32:22,540 and somehow that was not as effective. 673 00:32:22,540 --> 00:32:28,300 It's that I think the process was write script, and then come 674 00:32:28,300 --> 00:32:31,920 up with stuff to fill in space. 675 00:32:35,904 --> 00:32:37,320 So yeah, I personally respond more 676 00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:39,740 to the ones that are more experiential, where 677 00:32:39,740 --> 00:32:44,820 you have people-- that may also be supported by animation-- 678 00:32:44,820 --> 00:32:49,660 but there is someone taking you through the experience. 679 00:32:49,660 --> 00:32:53,740 But I do think that there are lots and lots of ways 680 00:32:53,740 --> 00:32:57,480 to tell really, really dynamic and really interesting, 681 00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:01,940 good stories with animation. 682 00:33:01,940 --> 00:33:04,810 AUDIENCE: That's good to hear. 683 00:33:04,810 --> 00:33:06,140 CHRIS BOEBEL: Oh no, totally. 684 00:33:06,140 --> 00:33:09,370 And you know, we've all been there. 685 00:33:09,370 --> 00:33:10,300 I've been there, too. 686 00:33:10,300 --> 00:33:12,662 You have something that you have to make come alive. 687 00:33:12,662 --> 00:33:14,870 I think they did a great job of making it come alive. 688 00:33:14,870 --> 00:33:17,180 I think the animation was really effective. 689 00:33:17,180 --> 00:33:21,480 It's just that I think the approach was 690 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,690 to write a script without necessarily thinking 691 00:33:24,690 --> 00:33:28,370 about the visual medium, and then to take the visuals 692 00:33:28,370 --> 00:33:30,755 and layer them on top as a separate part of the process. 693 00:33:36,370 --> 00:33:40,006 So anybody else have any-- I mean again, I know 694 00:33:40,006 --> 00:33:41,130 I kind of raced through it. 695 00:33:46,180 --> 00:33:48,960 How many people-- I mean, do you have video experience? 696 00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,397 How many people have some kind of video experience? 697 00:33:52,397 --> 00:33:54,230 That's always a really good question to ask. 698 00:33:57,680 --> 00:33:59,400 No? 699 00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:00,861 Nobody? 700 00:34:00,861 --> 00:34:01,669 Well that's cool. 701 00:34:01,669 --> 00:34:02,210 That's great. 702 00:34:04,700 --> 00:34:05,950 AUDIENCE: You have bad habits. 703 00:34:05,950 --> 00:34:06,866 PROFESSOR: Absolutely. 704 00:34:06,866 --> 00:34:08,590 Absolutely. 705 00:34:08,590 --> 00:34:13,290 I think, just to go back a little bit, 706 00:34:13,290 --> 00:34:18,830 I think that whole relationship between web video and TV 707 00:34:18,830 --> 00:34:20,040 is a really interesting one. 708 00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:23,830 It's a really interesting one to unpack, 709 00:34:23,830 --> 00:34:27,389 because again, the sort of conventional storytelling 710 00:34:27,389 --> 00:34:32,020 techniques that we're used to seeing on TV 711 00:34:32,020 --> 00:34:34,886 are not going to be effective for all sorts of reasons. 712 00:34:34,886 --> 00:34:36,719 It's also worth mentioning that of course TV 713 00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,710 has changed too, radically, since connections. 714 00:34:40,710 --> 00:34:43,389 Game of Thrones doesn't open that way, 715 00:34:43,389 --> 00:34:47,639 two minutes of somebody wandering around a house. 716 00:34:47,639 --> 00:34:53,230 But at the same time, it is a different genre, 717 00:34:53,230 --> 00:34:57,320 and really a crucial thing is the thing that Elizabeth 718 00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:59,270 alluded to, and I mentioned at the beginning, 719 00:34:59,270 --> 00:35:00,880 that I think you're telling a story, 720 00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:04,434 but your story extends beyond the bounds of your video, 721 00:35:04,434 --> 00:35:06,350 or can extend beyond the bounds of your video. 722 00:35:06,350 --> 00:35:12,260 It basically can begin with what people's preconceptions are 723 00:35:12,260 --> 00:35:15,010 before they start watching, and it continues on 724 00:35:15,010 --> 00:35:17,560 after the video is done. 725 00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:20,860 And I think that is a really crucial difference. 726 00:35:20,860 --> 00:35:24,590 One suggestion that I would make, 727 00:35:24,590 --> 00:35:26,450 whenever you write something this week-- 728 00:35:26,450 --> 00:35:28,200 and you're going to be writing treatments, 729 00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:32,930 and pitches, and scripts-- think about it 730 00:35:32,930 --> 00:35:35,040 in purely visual terms. 731 00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,760 One of the early exercises that I had to do, 732 00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:43,930 when I was in grad school, were silent films, 733 00:35:43,930 --> 00:35:49,280 and films or versions of scripts that had no dialogue, had 734 00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:50,712 no sound at all. 735 00:35:50,712 --> 00:35:53,170 And I think that's-- I'm not saying that you should do that 736 00:35:53,170 --> 00:35:57,480 as a technique in your finished piece, 737 00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:02,620 but it's a way of bringing up stuff that you can then apply 738 00:36:02,620 --> 00:36:04,490 to your video later. 739 00:36:04,490 --> 00:36:07,080 So if you were going to do something 740 00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:10,610 that was purely visual, that was going to convey what wanted 741 00:36:10,610 --> 00:36:13,440 to convey, how would you do it? 742 00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:18,816 And what might you create, or invent, or think about, 743 00:36:18,816 --> 00:36:20,440 through that process, that you can then 744 00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:21,890 use to inform your script. 745 00:36:24,590 --> 00:36:26,990 So just a way of thinking about what you're 746 00:36:26,990 --> 00:36:28,970 going to be doing this week.