Summary of my teaching points I had for Lisbon Multimedia Workshop

I just returned a week ago from Lisbon, Portugal where I was teaching a Storytelling Workshop with Jeff Raymond of ABWE and James Dockery, coordinating editor for ESPN.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 800, ƒ/9, 1.3 sec

I taught the students the elements of a storyline, which then they used as they interviewed their subjects.

I have written a blog on storyline and breaking down each of these components if you want to know more about it here.

You can then break down this storyline into a shot list, which all the students worked on to put together their multimedia package.

• Opener: Sets the scene for the story
• Decisive moment: The one moment that can by itself tell the story
• Details: Besides being like visual candy to the story, help often with transitions--especially in multimedia packages
• Sequences: give a little variety to a situation
• High overall shot: Gives a good perspective to how the elements all fit together
• Closer: Besides the classic shot of the cowboy riding off into the sunset there are other visual ways to help bring the story to a close
• Portraits: These photos are great for introducing the characters of the story

Before they even started we had them tell us who the audience is for the story. We want them to reach into the audience and pull on the experiences of that “specific” audience.

Audience

When I was telling the story on the coffee cooperative I was keeping the audience broad. I could have easily just targeted the Presbyterian Church who gave money to support the missionary who was instrumental in funding the cooperative. I could have also targeted the Catholic Church because they too had a role in starting the cooperative.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 12800, ƒ/2.8, 1/50

I chose to keep it broad enough, but yet I had those audiences in mind. I told the story with those people who are concerned about immigration and looking for a solution. The story was to establish the conflict of illegal immigration with the resolution being the cooperative. 

I have worked on stories for mission organizations many times through the years. The goal of those stories was to get the audience to: Give; Go; or Pray for missions. 

Who, What, Where, Why, When & How

In Journalism 101 the five Ws and H are taught as the questions whose answers are considered basic in information-gathering. Importantly, none of these questions can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no".

Before the formal interview each person was interviewed to gather and determine the story. If you didn’t do this you would be editing forever your project.

B-Roll

B-roll is the supplemental or alternative footage intercut with the main shot in an interview. People are generally not going to sit and watch a person talking in a video for very long. This is why you shoot lot of B-roll so you can show this while the subject is talking.

Our students quickly discovered the story needed to revolve around the now and not the past or future or you couldn’t shoot much B-roll. 

Here is a photo of me doing an interview in Lisbon.

photo by Jeff Raymond

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

PhotogenX DTS

In a couple weeks I am teaching another Visual Storytelling Workshop in Kona, Hawaii. I will be teaching students Visual Storytelling before they head out for coverages around the world: orphanage in Cambodia; poor in India; working with prostitutes in Thailand; and finally coverage on the street children in the Philippines. Go here to read more about the program.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .