Dive Into Your Imagination

Create your story, keeping your audience in mind.

For your first attempt at shooting and editing, why not start with something easy, like: Why I Like to Dive. Or if you have kids, What happens when my children take a bath? You might have footage from a past shoot, or you might create and write the story before you shoot.

These are easy stories to tell if you are creating your first project! As you sit here reading, stop and take a look around at your surroundings, what is the story you can tell right now? How would you tell this story? Think about how you would VISUALLY represent your story.

In order to tell the story you write visually, you need to understand the basic types of visual storytelling.

1. Documentary: A documentary documents reality, a non-fiction account of how you view your subject and the world. You create the style and decide the venue. You can tell the story as a narration with a voice-over, through a series of interviews or even with someone acting as an on camera host. The Blue Planet or Planet Earth are examples of documentary filmmaking.

2. Narrative: A narrative film can be either fiction or non-fiction but the key is there is a written story first, which you film and edit. Steve Zissou and The Life Aquatic is an example of narrative filmmaking.

3. Reality Television: This is a new area of television, internet and feature films in which the cameras document what is happening in people’s lives as it occurs. Survivor put reality television onto the map.

4. This is a sequence of shots edited together, usually to music that takes viewers from one scene to the next. Sometimes the images themselves become the stories. This type of piece can be the easiest to start out with. If you are using it for home viewing, you can use a popular song. If you upload to the internet, submit to film festivals, show your film for financial gain, or display it outside of your household you need to secure music rights or use copyright free music. There are a number of websites available, google copyright free music, I recommend www.studiocutz.com or www.BlueFuseMusic.com

Once you decide the style of film you want to produce, you need to choose the components you will use to construct your story. The more you practice, the easier these steps become. The more you research and learn about your subject, the more natural the story unfolds before the camera. If you have a purpose and develop a simple story before you film, you can create an outline for when you are actually filming. Creating a story will ensure that you will not roll hours and hours of unnecessary footage that may just sit on your shelf.

Our personal experiences, knowledge, and insight influence what we see. So it is up to you to decide, “What is YOUR story? Who is your audience? And what will your film be about?”

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