A Compelling Argument for Visual Storytelling
Some stories require visual narratives beyond the written word
Think about your favorite book you’ve ever read. Too hard? Ok.
Think about your favorite book you’ve ever read that was made into a movie. The movie was bad, right? (‘The Girl on the Train’ I’m looking at you.) The book was so much better. Of course it was. You most likely spent many hours reading it. You engulfed yourself in the presumably beautiful language and colorful descriptions that helped you become a part of the story. Your imagination took hold and it became more than a book, it became an EXPERIENCE. This is the right way to do a book. This is an unrealistic way to do social engagement and marketing.
More than a tweet or a soundbite
We are living in a world of immediacy and 280-character tweets. It’s so hard to engage someone in 280 characters and make those words an EXPERIENCE for whomever is reading them. There are a select few who do a pretty good job. (Parents – check out @xplodingunicorn for some daily laughs and comradery.) But how many tweets/headline notifications/social media ads make you REALLY feel something about what you’re seeing? If you’re like me, probably not very many. Enter the power of video. The video of that tiny little dog that uses a wheelchair to get around is going to get you. (Link: TurboRoo the two-legged chihuahua) It just is – you don’t even have to like dogs, or any animals, for that matter. That clip is going to give you some sort of feels over what USA Today just tweeted out about the economy. Don’t feel bad about it, it’s ok to be human.
As a video producer, I know this is true. (It’s what keeps me in business.) So it’s nice to see so many others recognize it’s power recently. The video played by the impeachment managers was hailed by the New York Times as ‘gut-wrenching.’ (Graphic Video at Impeachment Trial Shows Riot and Trump's Comments - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Even Sen. Roy Blunt acknowledged the footage captured what was a ‘horrendous day.’ Reporters held back tears, Senators gasped, the media talked and wrote and talked about it some more. In 13 minutes, that video made people feel more than what many had felt in watching the actual live feeds on January 6th Even lawmakers who were literally at the Capitol on January 6th were moved by what they saw on that screen more than a month later.
The power of a complete picture
This is because visual storytelling is powerful. I’m not talking about live feeds from CNN. I’m talking about powerful images and audio that someone strategically pieces together to make you feel something about what you are watching. Because, it goes so far beyond just the content itself. We’ve been seeing that content play out over and over again since January 6th. But this trial video was different. When producing a video, the timing, the camera angle, the order at which you’re seeing those images, the music (for sure the music) all play a part in reaching you, the viewer, and leaving an impact.
Maybe making these choices about what to show sounds obvious, but a lot of times it’s not. In news, when I was covering a city council meeting, it wasn’t obvious. When you have 120 seconds of incredible footage but you know in your cold, black producer heart that you’ll lose people after 10 seconds, it’s not always obvious what to cut. In the many, many, hours of footage those impeachment managers had at their disposal – I guarantee it wasn’t obvious which 13 minutes to show. But they picked the best images and the best sound and they laid it out in a way that reached people on a different level than all of the content they’d seen before. This video may not have given the impeachment managers the outcome they’d hoped for from the trial. But, without a doubt it made people really think about the reality of the situation. And really, wasn’t that part of the point anyway?
There will almost certainly be a book - or many books - written about what happened at the Capitol. Those books will paint a picture for the people who take the time to read them. But when you have 13 minutes and a room full of people who disagree on a lot of things, a video was the right choice in trying to help all of those people feel the impact of what happened that day.
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