WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:02.430 The following content is provided under a Creative 00:00:02.430 --> 00:00:03.810 Commons license. 00:00:03.810 --> 00:00:06.060 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare 00:00:06.060 --> 00:00:10.150 continue to offer high quality educational resources for free. 00:00:10.150 --> 00:00:12.700 To make a donation or to view additional materials 00:00:12.700 --> 00:00:16.600 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 00:00:16.600 --> 00:00:17.255 at ocw.mit.edu. 00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:29.180 CHRIS BOEBEL: So anyway, I'm Chris Boebel and, as I said, 00:00:29.180 --> 00:00:31.480 I'm the Media Development Director 00:00:31.480 --> 00:00:33.480 at the Office of Digital Learning, which 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:36.800 is what the K-12 video project is part of. 00:00:36.800 --> 00:00:40.700 As well as MITx, and OCW, and a bunch of other initiatives 00:00:40.700 --> 00:00:43.950 on campus, I also teach a documentary video class-- 00:00:43.950 --> 00:00:46.890 a science documentary class-- here at MIT that Elizabeth 00:00:46.890 --> 00:00:49.340 took a few years ago. 00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:52.390 And what I'm going to talk about is storytelling. 00:00:52.390 --> 00:00:54.640 And specifically, visual storytelling, 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:58.640 and how that can relate-- or hopefully will 00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:01.190 relate-- to the work you do in this class 00:01:01.190 --> 00:01:03.780 and to online video in general. 00:01:03.780 --> 00:01:08.034 I'm going to start out just by taking maybe-- I 00:01:08.034 --> 00:01:09.950 don't know if it's exception-- but just having 00:01:09.950 --> 00:01:11.908 a slightly different perspective than something 00:01:11.908 --> 00:01:14.080 that Elizabeth said. 00:01:14.080 --> 00:01:17.970 I would say that almost all videos that are successful, 00:01:17.970 --> 00:01:20.450 almost all viral videos, have some element 00:01:20.450 --> 00:01:21.920 of a story to them. 00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:24.210 Even a five second Vine video. 00:01:24.210 --> 00:01:25.130 Just about everything. 00:01:25.130 --> 00:01:27.710 And I actually was thinking about that, 00:01:27.710 --> 00:01:29.990 and I went looking for what is probably 00:01:29.990 --> 00:01:34.820 one of the dumbest viral videos to come out recently. 00:01:34.820 --> 00:01:36.970 Just a few days ago. 00:01:36.970 --> 00:01:39.380 You may have seen it. 00:01:39.380 --> 00:01:46.590 This is a fan at Ohio State who was caught on the Jumbotron 00:01:46.590 --> 00:01:49.590 basically scratching her boyfriend's head 00:01:49.590 --> 00:01:51.580 and then picking her nose. 00:01:51.580 --> 00:01:55.180 And this thing got-- I just, it's 00:01:55.180 --> 00:01:58.450 ridiculous how much play this got in about a 12 hour, 20 hour 00:01:58.450 --> 00:01:59.169 period. 00:01:59.169 --> 00:02:00.210 Very ephemeral, you know. 00:02:00.210 --> 00:02:01.850 It's absolutely not going to last. 00:02:01.850 --> 00:02:04.650 It's not going to change anyone's life, 00:02:04.650 --> 00:02:08.220 but the reason it took off is that it has a story. 00:02:08.220 --> 00:02:10.780 And the story was created and invented 00:02:10.780 --> 00:02:12.260 by the people who watched it. 00:02:12.260 --> 00:02:14.369 You know, it's not really-- yeah, go ahead. 00:02:14.369 --> 00:02:16.244 AUDIENCE: I thought the point of that video-- 00:02:16.244 --> 00:02:18.714 I saw the same thing that she was with-- 00:02:18.714 --> 00:02:21.256 that's like the guy she was seeing on the side-- 00:02:21.256 --> 00:02:22.172 CHRIS BOEBEL: Exactly. 00:02:22.172 --> 00:02:22.670 AUDIENCE: --that's not her boyfriend. 00:02:22.670 --> 00:02:24.294 CHRIS BOEBEL: That's actually not true. 00:02:24.294 --> 00:02:26.870 That was the story that was completely created 00:02:26.870 --> 00:02:29.120 by people who watched it. 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:30.750 They've been together for a long time, 00:02:30.750 --> 00:02:32.791 and she didn't even know she was on the Jumbotron 00:02:32.791 --> 00:02:34.590 actually, apparently. 00:02:34.590 --> 00:02:37.910 But it just happens to be this kind of little moment 00:02:37.910 --> 00:02:40.280 that tells a story, and because it told a story 00:02:40.280 --> 00:02:45.210 that people related to, suddenly it turned into a giant thing. 00:02:45.210 --> 00:02:48.050 One thing that's hilarious is somebody actually reversed it, 00:02:48.050 --> 00:02:50.730 so she picks her nose and then sort of leaves 00:02:50.730 --> 00:02:53.327 a deposit on his neck, and that became another story. 00:02:53.327 --> 00:02:54.910 AUDIENCE: There's something disturbing 00:02:54.910 --> 00:02:55.800 about her facial expression. 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:56.560 CHRIS BOEBEL: Yeah exactly. 00:02:56.560 --> 00:02:57.470 She looks guilty. 00:02:57.470 --> 00:03:00.080 She looks guilty, and that's why that's part of the story. 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:04.360 Like, oh my god, I've been caught rubbing his neck. 00:03:04.360 --> 00:03:06.560 So anyway, I think this has got to be 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:10.840 the dumbest viral video of all time, 00:03:10.840 --> 00:03:13.280 but I think it's also a story. 00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:15.080 Never think you're not telling a story. 00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:17.960 If you forget everything else that I say in the next 30, 40 00:03:17.960 --> 00:03:20.652 minutes, I would remember this. 00:03:20.652 --> 00:03:22.610 There's some element of a story in what you do. 00:03:22.610 --> 00:03:25.930 I don't care if you're making an FDA approval 00:03:25.930 --> 00:03:27.592 video, as one of you mentioned you 00:03:27.592 --> 00:03:29.050 are interested in doing-- something 00:03:29.050 --> 00:03:31.707 I've actually done personally. 00:03:31.707 --> 00:03:33.540 I don't care if you're making a 30 second TV 00:03:33.540 --> 00:03:37.880 commercial, a 10 second TV commercial, a 12 minute physics 00:03:37.880 --> 00:03:39.140 demonstration. 00:03:39.140 --> 00:03:41.160 There is an element of story to it. 00:03:41.160 --> 00:03:44.330 And it may not be the sort of conventional, traditional, 00:03:44.330 --> 00:03:47.590 "television" story that we would see on an HBO show. 00:03:47.590 --> 00:03:50.150 It may not be a Hollywood movie story. 00:03:50.150 --> 00:03:51.580 But there is an element of story, 00:03:51.580 --> 00:03:53.496 and one of the things that you want to do here 00:03:53.496 --> 00:03:57.780 is find what those elements are. 00:03:57.780 --> 00:04:00.302 Now, let's unpack that a little bit. 00:04:00.302 --> 00:04:01.760 Let's talk about what is the story, 00:04:01.760 --> 00:04:03.718 and how might it relate to what you're actually 00:04:03.718 --> 00:04:05.504 going to be doing here. 00:04:05.504 --> 00:04:06.920 And then secondly, we'll also talk 00:04:06.920 --> 00:04:08.430 about what are some of the specific techniques 00:04:08.430 --> 00:04:10.763 of visual storytelling that you might be able to employ. 00:04:12.986 --> 00:04:14.360 So first of all, what is a story? 00:04:16.959 --> 00:04:17.860 Full confession. 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:20.320 I went to film school and I worked 00:04:20.320 --> 00:04:23.320 in that sort of ancient medium that Elizabeth talked to, 00:04:23.320 --> 00:04:25.140 television and film. 00:04:25.140 --> 00:04:29.180 And the classic and traditional way of talking about a story 00:04:29.180 --> 00:04:30.430 is that it's got these things. 00:04:30.430 --> 00:04:32.960 It's got a protagonist, a hero. 00:04:32.960 --> 00:04:34.430 It's got an inciting incident. 00:04:34.430 --> 00:04:37.830 It's got something that happens that sets everything in motion. 00:04:37.830 --> 00:04:40.229 Then there are barriers along the way, problems 00:04:40.229 --> 00:04:41.770 that the protagonist has to overcome, 00:04:41.770 --> 00:04:43.700 and then there's a resolution. 00:04:43.700 --> 00:04:48.460 So you do that in a kind of traditional, classic way, 00:04:48.460 --> 00:04:52.010 and you end up with connections, or worse, right? 00:04:52.010 --> 00:04:53.440 It's not going to work, obviously, 00:04:53.440 --> 00:04:56.224 in the genre that you're talking about. 00:04:56.224 --> 00:04:58.140 Another way of looking at this traditional way 00:04:58.140 --> 00:05:00.990 is that you've got act one, which is the set up, 00:05:00.990 --> 00:05:03.960 you've got act two, the barriers, the plot. 00:05:03.960 --> 00:05:06.050 You've got act three, the resolution. 00:05:06.050 --> 00:05:09.430 The three-act structure is kind of the classic screenwriter 00:05:09.430 --> 00:05:12.450 mode that you see over and over again. 00:05:12.450 --> 00:05:14.730 So how does that relate to what we're actually doing? 00:05:14.730 --> 00:05:17.210 Well, this is going to be somewhat 00:05:17.210 --> 00:05:20.400 repetitive to some of the things Elizabeth talked about. 00:05:20.400 --> 00:05:22.340 First thing, clearly, that you need 00:05:22.340 --> 00:05:25.220 to do in this very short form is engage your audience 00:05:25.220 --> 00:05:26.070 immediately. 00:05:26.070 --> 00:05:30.220 I mean you've got maybe, like, five, six seconds, maybe eight 00:05:30.220 --> 00:05:34.160 or ten, to engage them on some level. 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:35.670 That's the beginning of your story. 00:05:35.670 --> 00:05:36.890 That's the inciting incident. 00:05:39.157 --> 00:05:41.490 And then this is something that I find very interesting, 00:05:41.490 --> 00:05:44.600 and you know when I talk about web video, 00:05:44.600 --> 00:05:46.880 this is something that is a paradox, 00:05:46.880 --> 00:05:48.970 that I think is really, really true. 00:05:48.970 --> 00:05:51.450 You want to surprise your audience, while also 00:05:51.450 --> 00:05:53.880 showing them exactly what they want to see. 00:05:53.880 --> 00:05:56.530 And this can be really a challenge. 00:05:56.530 --> 00:05:57.720 Surprise your audience. 00:05:57.720 --> 00:06:00.520 In other words, you want to take them somewhere, show them 00:06:00.520 --> 00:06:02.997 something that's fresh, that's new, 00:06:02.997 --> 00:06:05.330 that they haven't seen before-- something Elizabeth just 00:06:05.330 --> 00:06:06.189 mentioned. 00:06:06.189 --> 00:06:07.730 But at the same time, you really want 00:06:07.730 --> 00:06:10.360 to-- you need to sort of feed into their expectations, 00:06:10.360 --> 00:06:13.290 because otherwise they're going to shut down. 00:06:13.290 --> 00:06:17.900 And that is why a lot of the YouTube channels, 00:06:17.900 --> 00:06:21.750 and a lot of the people who do this work for a living, 00:06:21.750 --> 00:06:26.170 have a genre that they stick to. 00:06:26.170 --> 00:06:29.966 Smarter Every Day, ASAP, Vsauce. 00:06:29.966 --> 00:06:33.340 You know-- hey, I always jump up from beneath the frame. 00:06:33.340 --> 00:06:35.470 That's my thing, you know? 00:06:35.470 --> 00:06:37.177 So you're showing people what they want. 00:06:37.177 --> 00:06:39.510 At the same time, you're surprising them and taking them 00:06:39.510 --> 00:06:41.060 somewhere they've never been. 00:06:41.060 --> 00:06:43.350 And it's kind of a paradox, but I think 00:06:43.350 --> 00:06:45.982 it's kind of a key paradox. 00:06:45.982 --> 00:06:47.940 And then the last thing is, leave your audience 00:06:47.940 --> 00:06:50.300 wanting more. 00:06:50.300 --> 00:06:54.780 Shortness, brevity, is a very important thing, particularly 00:06:54.780 --> 00:06:56.690 for this. 00:06:56.690 --> 00:06:59.360 I mean, this is a series, Science Out Loud. 00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:00.860 The nicest thing for Elizabeth would 00:07:00.860 --> 00:07:02.950 be if somebody said, oh my god, that was so great. 00:07:02.950 --> 00:07:06.294 Click, next one. 00:07:06.294 --> 00:07:07.710 Now if you think about it, this is 00:07:07.710 --> 00:07:09.340 very similar to a three-act structure, 00:07:09.340 --> 00:07:12.320 it's just a really compressed three-act structure. 00:07:12.320 --> 00:07:16.550 Engage your audience-- the inciting incident. 00:07:16.550 --> 00:07:18.684 Surprise your audience, and also showing them 00:07:18.684 --> 00:07:19.600 what they want to see. 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:21.260 This is sort of the development, which 00:07:21.260 --> 00:07:22.839 might only take 30 seconds. 00:07:22.839 --> 00:07:24.380 And then, leave your audience wanting 00:07:24.380 --> 00:07:27.870 more-- some kind of resolution that 00:07:27.870 --> 00:07:30.680 takes them to the next thing. 00:07:30.680 --> 00:07:32.440 The other element of all of this that's 00:07:32.440 --> 00:07:35.020 very important to just briefly mention-- 00:07:35.020 --> 00:07:36.620 and Elizabeth mentioned this earlier-- 00:07:36.620 --> 00:07:40.430 is that in online video, just as we saw with the Ohio State 00:07:40.430 --> 00:07:43.160 clip, a lot of the storytelling happens outside the frame 00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:44.380 of your video. 00:07:44.380 --> 00:07:48.770 You want to, basically, be able to leverage that. 00:07:48.770 --> 00:07:53.030 So people's expectations before they see your video play 00:07:53.030 --> 00:07:57.010 into how they perceive your story, their experience during, 00:07:57.010 --> 00:07:58.710 and then what they do after. 00:07:58.710 --> 00:08:00.830 All of those are part of the story, as well. 00:08:00.830 --> 00:08:03.750 So, you know, the naked celebrity picture-- well, 00:08:03.750 --> 00:08:06.320 that's kind of a story too, because you 00:08:06.320 --> 00:08:10.820 have an experience of Brad Pitt in one context, 00:08:10.820 --> 00:08:13.880 and then suddenly, wow, is that his butt? 00:08:13.880 --> 00:08:16.160 That's a story. 00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:18.290 Not a very good one, necessarily, but. 00:08:18.290 --> 00:08:20.450 I also want to talk a little bit about protagonist. 00:08:20.450 --> 00:08:22.324 I started out talking about one of the things 00:08:22.324 --> 00:08:23.520 you need is a protagonist. 00:08:23.520 --> 00:08:26.020 Well, on one level, the protagonist 00:08:26.020 --> 00:08:28.970 is you, if you are the host of this video. 00:08:28.970 --> 00:08:34.210 And if you think about the sort of videos Elizabeth showed, 00:08:34.210 --> 00:08:37.000 all of them, pretty much on one level or another, 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:38.039 have a protagonist. 00:08:38.039 --> 00:08:41.020 It's a very strong character, a very strong protagonist, 00:08:41.020 --> 00:08:43.909 whether it's crazy Russian science guy, or the Smarter 00:08:43.909 --> 00:08:49.530 Every Day sort of down-home but super-smart science guy, 00:08:49.530 --> 00:08:53.140 or Vsauce. 00:08:53.140 --> 00:08:56.740 Love him or hate him, he's a very strong character. 00:08:56.740 --> 00:08:58.770 So having a protagonist is really, really, 00:08:58.770 --> 00:08:59.885 really important. 00:08:59.885 --> 00:09:02.860 That protects is going to be you in this particular instance, 00:09:02.860 --> 00:09:04.400 but there's also another protagonist 00:09:04.400 --> 00:09:06.829 that we should talk about, and that's your audience. 00:09:06.829 --> 00:09:09.120 Because what you're doing is taking people on a journey 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:13.370 through this learning, and some of the barriers that 00:09:13.370 --> 00:09:16.300 are going to be thrown up are barriers 00:09:16.300 --> 00:09:18.400 to their understanding. 00:09:18.400 --> 00:09:23.880 Think about Smarter Every Day and the cat clip. 00:09:23.880 --> 00:09:27.980 The whole thing is structured around, oh hey, now we know, 00:09:27.980 --> 00:09:28.690 it's the tail. 00:09:28.690 --> 00:09:29.950 Oh-- no it's not. 00:09:29.950 --> 00:09:31.692 No it's not, it's something else. 00:09:31.692 --> 00:09:33.150 And that happens two or three times 00:09:33.150 --> 00:09:35.140 over the course of the clip. 00:09:35.140 --> 00:09:37.330 That is, basically, a story. 00:09:37.330 --> 00:09:38.390 That's storytelling. 00:09:38.390 --> 00:09:40.470 There's a barrier to understanding-- oh, 00:09:40.470 --> 00:09:43.770 we think we've solved it-- no, we haven't. 00:09:43.770 --> 00:09:44.860 It's like a car chase. 00:09:44.860 --> 00:09:47.990 It's like breaking into a safe. 00:09:47.990 --> 00:09:49.910 It's like a lot of things that you would 00:09:49.910 --> 00:09:53.610 see in a conventional movie. 00:09:53.610 --> 00:09:55.580 So there are actually kind of-- in some ways, 00:09:55.580 --> 00:09:58.070 you can think of it as a dual protagonist. 00:09:58.070 --> 00:10:02.030 You, the trusted guide, are taking your buddy, 00:10:02.030 --> 00:10:04.080 the audience, on this journey. 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:06.410 On a story. 00:10:06.410 --> 00:10:08.520 To return to what I said earlier, 00:10:08.520 --> 00:10:12.047 I think of web videos-- great web videos 00:10:12.047 --> 00:10:13.130 are like great snack food. 00:10:16.510 --> 00:10:18.430 They're very familiar, yet they're also 00:10:18.430 --> 00:10:21.330 sort of spicy and enticing, and after you have one 00:10:21.330 --> 00:10:23.575 you just want to have another. 00:10:23.575 --> 00:10:24.950 And then you have the second one, 00:10:24.950 --> 00:10:28.470 and you just think, maybe I should have a third. 00:10:28.470 --> 00:10:31.660 Hopefully the videos you make won't leave people 00:10:31.660 --> 00:10:34.360 with heartburn, which is what happens when you eat too 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:39.250 many of these, but that is, to me, kind 00:10:39.250 --> 00:10:40.500 of an interesting analogy. 00:10:40.500 --> 00:10:42.550 And if Interstellar, or some three hour 00:10:42.550 --> 00:10:46.420 opus that you pay $10 to sit in the dark to watch, 00:10:46.420 --> 00:10:50.242 is a seven course meal at a four star restaurant, 00:10:50.242 --> 00:10:51.700 you're making something that's just 00:10:51.700 --> 00:10:55.740 got to be really tasty and delightful for just a moment, 00:10:55.740 --> 00:10:57.490 and leave people wanting another one. 00:10:57.490 --> 00:11:00.686 Just exactly like that, but somehow subtly different, too. 00:11:03.820 --> 00:11:05.715 I'm not going to show any video, because I'm 00:11:05.715 --> 00:11:08.340 going to try to just talk about the videos you've already seen, 00:11:08.340 --> 00:11:11.200 rather than show. 00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:14.882 So let's unpack stories just a little bit more. 00:11:14.882 --> 00:11:16.840 I've made the case that you're telling a story, 00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:20.520 and you should never forget that you're telling a story when 00:11:20.520 --> 00:11:21.820 you do this kind of work. 00:11:21.820 --> 00:11:24.410 Well, what are stories actually built on? 00:11:24.410 --> 00:11:26.690 There's a whole list of things, and Elizabeth 00:11:26.690 --> 00:11:29.060 has mentioned a couple of them. 00:11:29.060 --> 00:11:31.040 Emotion. 00:11:31.040 --> 00:11:33.480 Now, I'm not necessarily talking about Gone With the Wind 00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:40.170 emotion, but certainly curiosity, identification, 00:11:40.170 --> 00:11:42.230 humor, which is an emotion. 00:11:42.230 --> 00:11:44.380 All of those things really are going 00:11:44.380 --> 00:11:47.190 to play into what you do and are very, very important. 00:11:47.190 --> 00:11:47.690 Character. 00:11:47.690 --> 00:11:49.160 We've talked about character. 00:11:49.160 --> 00:11:51.710 Conflict. 00:11:51.710 --> 00:11:58.000 Again, not necessarily high drama, but there's 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:00.410 often some kind of conflict. 00:12:00.410 --> 00:12:02.770 The conflict may be, oh, you thought 00:12:02.770 --> 00:12:08.970 the cat was using his tail to spin, that's not the case. 00:12:08.970 --> 00:12:13.140 But some kind of conflict, barriers to understanding, 00:12:13.140 --> 00:12:15.180 I think are very, very important. 00:12:15.180 --> 00:12:16.940 Spectacle. 00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:20.330 Again, you're not going to do Interstellar, 00:12:20.330 --> 00:12:25.150 you're not going to spend $100 million on CGI, 00:12:25.150 --> 00:12:27.950 you're not going to do The Hobbit. 00:12:27.950 --> 00:12:32.410 But often-- it's another word for taking people 00:12:32.410 --> 00:12:33.670 a place they've never been. 00:12:33.670 --> 00:12:36.770 Maybe you can get into the nuclear reactor here. 00:12:36.770 --> 00:12:37.800 Intellectual engagement. 00:12:37.800 --> 00:12:40.260 I think that's kind of the obvious one, the easy one 00:12:40.260 --> 00:12:43.254 that we can all think about when we're talking 00:12:43.254 --> 00:12:44.295 about educational videos. 00:12:47.551 --> 00:12:49.790 In and of itself, I don't think it's enough, 00:12:49.790 --> 00:12:52.970 but it's certainly an important one. 00:12:52.970 --> 00:12:57.220 And there are plenty of videos out there-- plenty of lecture 00:12:57.220 --> 00:13:01.830 videos-- that basically just depend on that. 00:13:01.830 --> 00:13:04.090 And then the last two are two of my favorite ones. 00:13:04.090 --> 00:13:05.730 The unfamiliar becoming familiar, 00:13:05.730 --> 00:13:10.000 which is kind of the classic science video. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:12.130 But the familiar becoming unfamiliar, as well. 00:13:12.130 --> 00:13:15.510 In other words, you think you know farts, 00:13:15.510 --> 00:13:19.430 but you don't, despite all you know about farts. 00:13:19.430 --> 00:13:23.290 And in one context, you don't know that much, and here's why. 00:13:23.290 --> 00:13:27.160 So I think both of those are really 00:13:27.160 --> 00:13:32.350 interesting structures for you to use to hang a story on. 00:13:32.350 --> 00:13:33.729 Again, the first one, obviously. 00:13:33.729 --> 00:13:36.020 I'm going to take this thing that you don't understand, 00:13:36.020 --> 00:13:39.400 and I'm going to make it completely-- 00:13:39.400 --> 00:13:41.040 I'm going to demystify it. 00:13:41.040 --> 00:13:44.030 But a lot of science education is also 00:13:44.030 --> 00:13:46.710 about kind of taking something that seems really simple 00:13:46.710 --> 00:13:51.010 and showing just how complex, and intriguing, 00:13:51.010 --> 00:13:52.510 and unfamiliar it really is. 00:13:55.940 --> 00:13:58.190 Now let's talk a little bit about visual storytelling, 00:13:58.190 --> 00:14:03.030 because that's obviously what you want to do here. 00:14:03.030 --> 00:14:05.130 Lecture videos-- again, intellectual 00:14:05.130 --> 00:14:09.290 engagement certainly one way to go. 00:14:09.290 --> 00:14:11.760 If you use OCW, as a couple of you mentioned, 00:14:11.760 --> 00:14:16.190 you know very well that lecture videos can be effective. 00:14:16.190 --> 00:14:18.850 And in fact, lectures can be great stories. 00:14:18.850 --> 00:14:21.730 We all have had experiences of people 00:14:21.730 --> 00:14:24.800 who are great lecturers, who tell great stories. 00:14:24.800 --> 00:14:27.095 And those stories may or may not be visual, 00:14:27.095 --> 00:14:28.720 but I think there's certain things that 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:31.920 distinguish visual storytelling that are worth talking about. 00:14:35.140 --> 00:14:38.570 And this is a concept that I often 00:14:38.570 --> 00:14:43.520 use to just kind of get into to this whole idea, which 00:14:43.520 --> 00:14:46.800 Elizabeth will probably remember. 00:14:46.800 --> 00:14:51.080 This is what we sometimes call the plastic elements 00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:52.230 of video or a film. 00:14:52.230 --> 00:14:54.420 And sometimes I use film and video indistinguishably 00:14:54.420 --> 00:14:58.890 because-- it betrays my age-- video is film, 00:14:58.890 --> 00:15:01.900 film is video now, at this point. 00:15:01.900 --> 00:15:04.500 What I mean by the plastic elements of video 00:15:04.500 --> 00:15:07.420 are, just simply, all of the things 00:15:07.420 --> 00:15:12.080 that we have control over when we make a video. 00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:14.827 And that could be the casting of the actors, 00:15:14.827 --> 00:15:16.660 it could be where we put the camera-- that's 00:15:16.660 --> 00:15:19.670 kind of the obvious one-- the lighting, 00:15:19.670 --> 00:15:21.890 there's an endless list of things. 00:15:21.890 --> 00:15:25.850 And, in fact, here are just a few of them. 00:15:25.850 --> 00:15:28.550 Again, most people would list the camera right away, 00:15:28.550 --> 00:15:31.540 since that's kind of the "paint brush", quote unquote. 00:15:31.540 --> 00:15:34.320 The lighting, how we choose to light something, 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:37.190 or whether we're actually literally using lights or just 00:15:37.190 --> 00:15:39.700 using the sun or existing room lights. 00:15:39.700 --> 00:15:44.140 Editing, sound, music, characters, the actors, 00:15:44.140 --> 00:15:48.000 locations, props, costumes, the list is really endless. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:49.930 It goes back to the decisions. 00:15:49.930 --> 00:15:52.530 Elizabeth mentioned decision-making. 00:15:52.530 --> 00:15:55.120 All of these things are things you need to think about 00:15:55.120 --> 00:15:56.620 and you can control. 00:15:56.620 --> 00:16:01.020 And they can work for you, or they can work against you. 00:16:01.020 --> 00:16:03.870 Think about in Smarter Every Day, props. 00:16:03.870 --> 00:16:06.080 The cat itself, of course, is a great prop. 00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:08.340 Think about the stuffed cat at the beginning, 00:16:08.340 --> 00:16:11.430 which is that sort of fun moment of, oh my god, he's 00:16:11.430 --> 00:16:14.210 really going to drop a real cat. 00:16:14.210 --> 00:16:15.440 That was a choice. 00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:18.820 That was a choice, to add that stuffed cat, 00:16:18.820 --> 00:16:21.160 and it sort of made a fun little moment that brought you 00:16:21.160 --> 00:16:23.520 in for just a second. 00:16:23.520 --> 00:16:24.250 Locations. 00:16:24.250 --> 00:16:25.360 Very, very important. 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:29.120 I mean, the sort of lowest common denominator location is 00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:31.140 a chalk board or a white board for something 00:16:31.140 --> 00:16:34.570 like an educational video, but there are all sorts 00:16:34.570 --> 00:16:36.990 of other possibilities. 00:16:36.990 --> 00:16:37.570 Costumes. 00:16:37.570 --> 00:16:40.170 Again, doesn't have to be clown costumes or silly hats, 00:16:40.170 --> 00:16:42.880 or things like that-- although it could be. 00:16:42.880 --> 00:16:47.420 But all of the other things that you can, or might be able to, 00:16:47.420 --> 00:16:52.610 bring to your video by making these choices. 00:16:52.610 --> 00:16:55.570 Camera, of course, is a crucial one, 00:16:55.570 --> 00:16:57.320 and I'm going to unpack that just a little 00:16:57.320 --> 00:17:00.780 bit as well, although we could spend hours 00:17:00.780 --> 00:17:05.180 talking about film grammar. 00:17:05.180 --> 00:17:08.130 So I'm going to just go through a few other tips 00:17:08.130 --> 00:17:10.579 to think about. 00:17:10.579 --> 00:17:13.915 The first one-- and this is kind of like the bible 00:17:13.915 --> 00:17:17.670 of visual storytelling-- show, don't tell. 00:17:17.670 --> 00:17:24.030 And it sounds kind of obvious, but it isn't necessarily 00:17:24.030 --> 00:17:25.720 that easy to do. 00:17:25.720 --> 00:17:29.530 If we think about the sleep video, 00:17:29.530 --> 00:17:35.077 I think one of the things that I responded to in that video, 00:17:35.077 --> 00:17:36.660 that I thought could have been better, 00:17:36.660 --> 00:17:40.340 is that it's actually not showing us much. 00:17:40.340 --> 00:17:42.430 It's telling us. 00:17:42.430 --> 00:17:46.760 Elizabeth talked about the fact that the voiceover just 00:17:46.760 --> 00:17:49.030 read, like, a web article. 00:17:49.030 --> 00:17:52.000 Like, a sort of "10 Facts About Sleep", 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:53.400 and that's basically the case. 00:17:53.400 --> 00:17:55.540 I mean, there is some really cool animation, 00:17:55.540 --> 00:17:58.730 and the animation is fun, and it helps, and it definitely 00:17:58.730 --> 00:18:01.810 supports the words, but together, 00:18:01.810 --> 00:18:04.690 it's really just this thing-- you know, 00:18:04.690 --> 00:18:06.420 I could have listened to it on my iPod. 00:18:06.420 --> 00:18:08.630 I could have listen to it in my car. 00:18:08.630 --> 00:18:11.944 The visuals helped a little bit, but it didn't really 00:18:11.944 --> 00:18:13.830 add anything to it. 00:18:18.250 --> 00:18:21.890 The other way to do it, of course, is Smarter Every Day. 00:18:21.890 --> 00:18:24.769 Which again, you may or may not have liked that. 00:18:24.769 --> 00:18:26.810 You may have thought that it dragged on too long, 00:18:26.810 --> 00:18:28.610 and I agree with that certainly. 00:18:28.610 --> 00:18:31.310 I think there were things that could've been improved, 00:18:31.310 --> 00:18:34.070 but there's nothing like dropping a cat, 00:18:34.070 --> 00:18:39.736 and showing it in super-slow motion, to get my attention. 00:18:39.736 --> 00:18:42.110 So I think that was a great example of showing something. 00:18:45.580 --> 00:18:48.080 This is just something that I wanted to mention. 00:18:48.080 --> 00:18:52.380 Having worked in television, there 00:18:52.380 --> 00:18:58.910 was a saying that went around a lot 00:18:58.910 --> 00:19:01.840 when people were talking about a script, which was, "Oh, this 00:19:01.840 --> 00:19:03.446 is kind of a wolfpack deal." 00:19:03.446 --> 00:19:04.820 And what was meant by that-- this 00:19:04.820 --> 00:19:07.550 was sort of an infamous situation from, I don't know, 00:19:07.550 --> 00:19:09.380 God knows when. 00:19:09.380 --> 00:19:12.230 Somebody who's scripting a nature documentary 00:19:12.230 --> 00:19:17.030 had written this long, very beautiful, kind 00:19:17.030 --> 00:19:20.940 of flowery narration about "the ravenous pack, lopped 00:19:20.940 --> 00:19:24.590 across the frozen tundra in search of its prey"-- 00:19:24.590 --> 00:19:25.290 blah blah blah. 00:19:25.290 --> 00:19:28.150 Like two pages of sort of beautiful prose, 00:19:28.150 --> 00:19:32.480 and at some point in the editing process, 00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:38.155 somebody was like, because they had that. 00:19:38.155 --> 00:19:42.070 They didn't need to say all that stuff. 00:19:42.070 --> 00:19:45.840 This picture was worth endless amounts of stuff. 00:19:45.840 --> 00:19:48.820 So avoid your pack moments. 00:19:48.820 --> 00:19:53.510 If you don't need to say something, you can show it. 00:19:53.510 --> 00:19:55.770 There may be plenty of things to say, 00:19:55.770 --> 00:19:59.380 and I'm not saying that it should be all visual, 00:19:59.380 --> 00:20:02.570 but you don't need to say certain things if you're 00:20:02.570 --> 00:20:04.130 already showing those things. 00:20:04.130 --> 00:20:05.800 Use your language, use your words, 00:20:05.800 --> 00:20:08.110 which are very important to do other things. 00:20:08.110 --> 00:20:11.950 To reinforce, to bring your own perspective, 00:20:11.950 --> 00:20:15.000 to embellish the story, to bring people 00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:17.330 into your own mind, your own character. 00:20:17.330 --> 00:20:19.650 You don't need to say the obvious stuff. 00:20:19.650 --> 00:20:21.705 You don't need to do the wolfpack description. 00:20:25.110 --> 00:20:27.570 So that's show, don't tell. 00:20:27.570 --> 00:20:30.760 The other thing that's just sort of a fundamental tip 00:20:30.760 --> 00:20:34.000 is, video loves motion. 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:36.400 Moving pictures. 00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:39.210 And Josh is going to talk about storyboarding and animation 00:20:39.210 --> 00:20:40.940 later in the week. 00:20:40.940 --> 00:20:44.690 Clearly, animated pictures, moving 00:20:44.690 --> 00:20:47.930 things, things that reveal one thing or another in animation, 00:20:47.930 --> 00:20:50.090 are really important. 00:20:50.090 --> 00:20:51.920 Same with cameras. 00:20:51.920 --> 00:20:55.370 If you look at Science Out Loud, some of the other episodes, 00:20:55.370 --> 00:21:00.130 you'll see some really terrific moves with the camera, dollies. 00:21:00.130 --> 00:21:02.920 All of those things add visual interest 00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:06.260 and improve your storytelling. 00:21:06.260 --> 00:21:09.150 Locking down a tripod can also be very effective, 00:21:09.150 --> 00:21:11.475 but again, think of it as a plastic element 00:21:11.475 --> 00:21:12.350 that you can control. 00:21:12.350 --> 00:21:14.760 Don't do it just because you didn't think about it, 00:21:14.760 --> 00:21:18.320 do it after thinking about what you're doing by either moving 00:21:18.320 --> 00:21:18.910 or not moving. 00:21:22.456 --> 00:21:23.580 So the camera loves motion. 00:21:26.280 --> 00:21:28.260 This is kind of the corollary to that. 00:21:28.260 --> 00:21:31.490 And I don't know if people have a lot of shooting experience 00:21:31.490 --> 00:21:33.430 or not, and this isn't really strictly 00:21:33.430 --> 00:21:37.140 a class on the production techniques, 00:21:37.140 --> 00:21:40.560 but this is something I really wanted to mention. 00:21:40.560 --> 00:21:43.160 Motion for the sake of motion is also not 00:21:43.160 --> 00:21:45.630 terrific, not fantastic. 00:21:45.630 --> 00:21:48.320 Hosing down the room is that tendency 00:21:48.320 --> 00:21:50.900 that your uncle or your grandfather 00:21:50.900 --> 00:21:55.900 has when you give them a camera to just do this all the time. 00:21:55.900 --> 00:21:58.190 And you're going, oh, hey, I'm getting everything. 00:21:58.190 --> 00:22:00.500 I'm just getting everything here. 00:22:00.500 --> 00:22:02.010 This is fantastic. 00:22:02.010 --> 00:22:04.170 And in fact, what you get is absolutely nothing, 00:22:04.170 --> 00:22:06.670 because there's no intentionality. 00:22:06.670 --> 00:22:08.920 There's no sort of thought to what's 00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:10.187 happening with the camera. 00:22:10.187 --> 00:22:12.020 All you're doing is making everybody seasick 00:22:12.020 --> 00:22:16.360 and really pissed that you're not focusing on anything. 00:22:16.360 --> 00:22:20.600 Motion is actually-- I think a better way 00:22:20.600 --> 00:22:25.980 to talk about it, in story terms, is reveals. 00:22:25.980 --> 00:22:27.610 When you're moving things, you're 00:22:27.610 --> 00:22:29.820 revealing the next story element. 00:22:29.820 --> 00:22:34.790 So if I pan from our camera person over to Josh, 00:22:34.790 --> 00:22:38.310 and Josh is looking over at the camera person, is going like, 00:22:38.310 --> 00:22:40.240 why is he doing what he's doing? 00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:41.530 That's a story element. 00:22:41.530 --> 00:22:46.660 Whereas if I do this, I'm not telling a story at all. 00:22:46.660 --> 00:22:49.459 Same with animation, and I'm sure Josh thinks 00:22:49.459 --> 00:22:50.500 about this night and day. 00:22:50.500 --> 00:22:52.977 I mean, how do you reveal your next thing 00:22:52.977 --> 00:22:54.060 from the thing you've got? 00:22:54.060 --> 00:22:57.300 How you go from this idea to that idea? 00:22:57.300 --> 00:22:59.790 How do you reveal using motion? 00:22:59.790 --> 00:23:03.020 Because it is moving pictures. 00:23:03.020 --> 00:23:05.340 So that's maybe a more pointed way 00:23:05.340 --> 00:23:10.130 of talking about motion in story terms. 00:23:10.130 --> 00:23:12.900 Revealing things. 00:23:12.900 --> 00:23:15.030 I'm going to talk just a little tiny bit 00:23:15.030 --> 00:23:23.740 about grammar, and framing, and stuff like that, very quickly. 00:23:23.740 --> 00:23:26.750 This is just a still from an interview 00:23:26.750 --> 00:23:29.380 that I did a couple of years ago here at MIT. 00:23:29.380 --> 00:23:32.420 Joel Dawson, a professor here. 00:23:32.420 --> 00:23:35.710 And just a couple of things to just point out 00:23:35.710 --> 00:23:40.965 about it in terms of, sort of, just the way 00:23:40.965 --> 00:23:42.270 it's visually set up. 00:23:42.270 --> 00:23:47.050 First of all, you'll see that the background 00:23:47.050 --> 00:23:50.710 and the foreground are very distinct. 00:23:50.710 --> 00:23:52.750 We shot it so that the background is completely 00:23:52.750 --> 00:23:56.932 out of focus, and that's so that you know what to focus on. 00:23:56.932 --> 00:23:57.890 That's the other thing. 00:23:57.890 --> 00:23:59.530 So we talked about reveal. 00:23:59.530 --> 00:24:02.150 The other sort of key crucial thing 00:24:02.150 --> 00:24:05.230 to think about when you're storyboarding, or creating 00:24:05.230 --> 00:24:08.900 animation, or directing is, how do you 00:24:08.900 --> 00:24:10.460 get people to look at what you want 00:24:10.460 --> 00:24:12.940 them to look at in the frame? 00:24:12.940 --> 00:24:16.610 One way is to foreground the foreground 00:24:16.610 --> 00:24:19.460 and let the background drop off, either through lighting 00:24:19.460 --> 00:24:21.930 or through the focus, in this case. 00:24:21.930 --> 00:24:25.950 Or through art direction-- there are all sorts of ways to do it, 00:24:25.950 --> 00:24:30.340 but doing it is really important. 00:24:30.340 --> 00:24:33.610 The other thing is that this is a close up. 00:24:33.610 --> 00:24:35.670 Sounds kind of simple, sounds kind of obvious, 00:24:35.670 --> 00:24:38.340 but it's making a choice to go in 00:24:38.340 --> 00:24:41.520 and to find out about this guy, this person. 00:24:41.520 --> 00:24:43.590 It's not about the lab. 00:24:43.590 --> 00:24:45.520 It's not just sort of this wishy-washy, 00:24:45.520 --> 00:24:49.850 moving shot of him wandering around his lab doing something. 00:24:49.850 --> 00:24:51.710 We want to hear what this person is saying, 00:24:51.710 --> 00:24:55.620 what he's thinking, right now. 00:24:55.620 --> 00:24:59.450 Just another quick thing to just talk about. 00:24:59.450 --> 00:25:05.070 When you're shooting in this particular format, 16x9, 00:25:05.070 --> 00:25:06.900 there are a couple of really powerful parts 00:25:06.900 --> 00:25:09.760 of the frame that you can use, whether you're doing animation 00:25:09.760 --> 00:25:12.640 or shooting, and they tend to be where 00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:15.400 the thirds cross each other. 00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:17.890 So that's a very powerful part of the frame. 00:25:17.890 --> 00:25:20.210 That's also powerful. 00:25:20.210 --> 00:25:23.100 These are powerful in slightly different ways. 00:25:23.100 --> 00:25:28.060 And you'll see his eyes, like, dead-on in the crosshairs. 00:25:28.060 --> 00:25:34.320 If we're people who read left to right, in sort 00:25:34.320 --> 00:25:38.130 of the Euro, European tradition of writing, 00:25:38.130 --> 00:25:39.880 this tends to be the most powerful point, 00:25:39.880 --> 00:25:42.560 because we read frames left to right, because we're 00:25:42.560 --> 00:25:45.720 used to our eyes used to going that way. 00:25:45.720 --> 00:25:47.700 Not saying you have to follow this rule. 00:25:47.700 --> 00:25:50.970 You can break it, but it's just an interesting thing for you 00:25:50.970 --> 00:25:51.590 to know. 00:25:51.590 --> 00:25:55.564 When you're framing things, when you're creating animations, 00:25:55.564 --> 00:25:57.980 there's a tendency when you start to think oh, dead-center 00:25:57.980 --> 00:25:59.530 will be really great. 00:25:59.530 --> 00:26:01.680 But it's actually not the case. 00:26:01.680 --> 00:26:05.990 A little off-center and in sort of the thirds of the frame 00:26:05.990 --> 00:26:09.319 is a good way to go. 00:26:09.319 --> 00:26:11.110 The other thing just to talk about quickly, 00:26:11.110 --> 00:26:17.170 in terms of making choices, think about-- 00:26:17.170 --> 00:26:20.200 and this will really come up when you do your storyboarding 00:26:20.200 --> 00:26:23.580 exercises with Josh-- think about what 00:26:23.580 --> 00:26:28.870 the kinds of shots you choose are doing. 00:26:28.870 --> 00:26:33.240 Wide shots say one thing, close-ups say other. 00:26:33.240 --> 00:26:35.240 Starting with a wide shot and coming in, 00:26:35.240 --> 00:26:37.260 that's a reveal of something. 00:26:37.260 --> 00:26:39.140 But starting in a close-up and going wide 00:26:39.140 --> 00:26:42.750 could also be a reveal of something else. 00:26:42.750 --> 00:26:47.290 I think we can imagine what kinds of stories 00:26:47.290 --> 00:26:49.480 might come out of these two frames, 00:26:49.480 --> 00:26:50.980 and how the story might be different 00:26:50.980 --> 00:26:52.770 if we started here and went here, 00:26:52.770 --> 00:26:56.100 and if we started hear and came out. 00:26:56.100 --> 00:26:59.740 So make choices, and think about what your choices are actually 00:26:59.740 --> 00:27:01.740 going to do in terms of the story. 00:27:04.280 --> 00:27:06.830 Another example of that. 00:27:06.830 --> 00:27:09.150 Camera angles framing. 00:27:09.150 --> 00:27:12.940 Low angles looking up, that gives you a certain feeling, 00:27:12.940 --> 00:27:15.710 it gives you a certain kind of power. 00:27:15.710 --> 00:27:20.270 A sort of master of my domain feel. 00:27:20.270 --> 00:27:23.824 The opposite, looking down, kind of the opposite. 00:27:23.824 --> 00:27:25.490 These are just two examples, and I'm not 00:27:25.490 --> 00:27:29.110 going to go on and on and on and talk about others, although we 00:27:29.110 --> 00:27:32.650 may get into it later in the week. 00:27:32.650 --> 00:27:37.860 The point is that the camera is one of the key plastic elements 00:27:37.860 --> 00:27:41.380 that you have at your disposal to tell your story. 00:27:41.380 --> 00:27:47.810 And the medium shot, just kind of center frame, 00:27:47.810 --> 00:27:51.040 doing your thing, is kind of the fall-back. 00:27:51.040 --> 00:27:52.460 You don't have to do that. 00:27:52.460 --> 00:27:55.260 There are any number of other choices you can make. 00:27:55.260 --> 00:28:00.100 And when you start to go and choose locations, and choose 00:28:00.100 --> 00:28:03.840 props, and choose elements like that, 00:28:03.840 --> 00:28:07.820 how you shoot those things and how you shoot your characters 00:28:07.820 --> 00:28:09.360 becomes very, very, very important. 00:28:11.980 --> 00:28:14.574 And then the last thing that I'm going to talk about-- 00:28:14.574 --> 00:28:16.990 and I'm kind of racing through this because I want to just 00:28:16.990 --> 00:28:20.140 make sure we have time for questions and stuff-- 00:28:20.140 --> 00:28:22.140 I'm just going to be a little counter-intuitive. 00:28:22.140 --> 00:28:24.090 We've been talking about visual storytelling, 00:28:24.090 --> 00:28:27.040 but just don't short change your sound. 00:28:27.040 --> 00:28:31.120 Sound is often more important than the picture. 00:28:31.120 --> 00:28:35.380 And one of the other things that I think-- 00:28:35.380 --> 00:28:37.860 Elizabeth talked a little bit about production technique, 00:28:37.860 --> 00:28:41.030 and quote unquote "bad technique" or rough videos, 00:28:41.030 --> 00:28:46.170 versus slicker TV-style videos. 00:28:46.170 --> 00:28:49.060 One thing that's very, very, very hard to overcome 00:28:49.060 --> 00:28:51.220 is poor sound. 00:28:51.220 --> 00:28:53.190 And even if your video is a little out 00:28:53.190 --> 00:28:57.210 of focus and its shaky, if it's really compelling, 00:28:57.210 --> 00:28:59.810 that's fine, as long as the sound is good. 00:28:59.810 --> 00:29:03.630 But as soon as the sound is bad and hard to listen to, 00:29:03.630 --> 00:29:08.000 you're going to have a really hard time pulling people back. 00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:12.340 So even though this is mostly about visual storytelling, 00:29:12.340 --> 00:29:14.406 I just want to point that out, that that 00:29:14.406 --> 00:29:16.280 doesn't mean that the sound is not important. 00:29:16.280 --> 00:29:19.060 In fact, the sound is extraordinarily important. 00:29:19.060 --> 00:29:23.330 And it's both a technical thing but also a plastic element 00:29:23.330 --> 00:29:24.610 that you can use. 00:29:24.610 --> 00:29:27.860 Whether it's music, or sound effects, 00:29:27.860 --> 00:29:31.350 or the way you treat dialogue, all of those things 00:29:31.350 --> 00:29:34.380 are really important. 00:29:34.380 --> 00:29:36.800 So just to contextualize this a little bit, 00:29:36.800 --> 00:29:39.620 I know that Elizabeth's co-instructor, George, 00:29:39.620 --> 00:29:43.290 is going to be doing a scripting workshop with you, 00:29:43.290 --> 00:29:46.884 and he's going to be focusing a lot on finding your voice. 00:29:46.884 --> 00:29:48.300 Which is really, really important, 00:29:48.300 --> 00:29:50.720 and goes back to the idea of character, 00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:54.110 and the protagonist, and authenticity, 00:29:54.110 --> 00:29:57.410 and a lot of the things Elizabeth was talking about. 00:29:57.410 --> 00:30:00.460 But as you do that, as you do all of those things, 00:30:00.460 --> 00:30:05.880 remember that ultimately you're telling a visual story. 00:30:05.880 --> 00:30:13.550 And that once you, sort of, hone your story, hone your voice, 00:30:13.550 --> 00:30:15.740 you want to put that in a visual context. 00:30:15.740 --> 00:30:19.630 You don't have to have the words carry everything. 00:30:19.630 --> 00:30:23.850 And in fact, the words may end up 00:30:23.850 --> 00:30:27.890 doing other things than conveying the core of what 00:30:27.890 --> 00:30:30.030 you need to do. 00:30:30.030 --> 00:30:30.580 So that's it. 00:30:30.580 --> 00:30:32.040 I kind of tried to race through it, 00:30:32.040 --> 00:30:38.260 because I didn't want to keep people for too long. 00:30:38.260 --> 00:30:41.655 First of all, any questions or thoughts? 00:30:44.425 --> 00:30:47.876 AUDIENCE: I just had a thought, just a question. 00:30:47.876 --> 00:30:52.806 It was interesting, you mentioned that the-- I'm sorry, 00:30:52.806 --> 00:30:55.780 the name's escaping me-- the whiteboard video that you were 00:30:55.780 --> 00:30:56.870 critiquing earlier-- 00:30:56.870 --> 00:30:57.870 PROFESSOR: ASAP Science. 00:30:57.870 --> 00:30:59.791 CHRIS BOEBEL: Oh, the ASAP Science, yeah. 00:30:59.791 --> 00:31:01.457 I liked it, I didn't mean to dump on it. 00:31:01.457 --> 00:31:03.331 AUDIENCE: No, I think it was really important 00:31:03.331 --> 00:31:05.353 and a really interesting point. 00:31:05.353 --> 00:31:06.814 So then I was thinking, okay, what 00:31:06.814 --> 00:31:08.275 would have been more effective? 00:31:08.275 --> 00:31:11.197 How could that have been turned into some sort of more 00:31:11.197 --> 00:31:14.606 storytelling exercise, or something 00:31:14.606 --> 00:31:16.090 that was more engaging? 00:31:16.090 --> 00:31:21.030 And I think it would be an interesting question, just, 00:31:21.030 --> 00:31:23.140 how could that be better? 00:31:23.140 --> 00:31:27.920 And my feeling was, would it be better to do something 00:31:27.920 --> 00:31:29.880 where you actually had someone not 00:31:29.880 --> 00:31:32.150 sleep for overnight, or for two days-- 00:31:32.150 --> 00:31:34.720 CHRIS BOEBEL: Well I think that's-- yeah, no, go ahead, 00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:35.330 yeah. 00:31:35.330 --> 00:31:37.986 AUDIENCE: Something like Supersize Me, 00:31:37.986 --> 00:31:40.854 where you have someone actually engaged in this thing, 00:31:40.854 --> 00:31:42.766 and it's more experiential, as opposed 00:31:42.766 --> 00:31:48.040 to being didactic I guess would be the distinction there. 00:31:48.040 --> 00:31:49.400 So that was just one idea. 00:31:49.400 --> 00:31:51.607 CHRIS BOEBEL: I think that's a really good point. 00:31:51.607 --> 00:31:53.440 I mean, that's kind of the Smarter Every Day 00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:57.950 approach, which I respond to personally better. 00:31:57.950 --> 00:32:01.610 On the other hand I think that there are graphics 00:32:01.610 --> 00:32:03.500 that tell amazing stories. 00:32:03.500 --> 00:32:07.320 I think data visualizations that I've seen recently, 00:32:07.320 --> 00:32:12.655 in particular, just can be extraordinary storytelling 00:32:12.655 --> 00:32:13.155 devices. 00:32:16.400 --> 00:32:19.450 So it's not so much that I think that it was animated, 00:32:19.450 --> 00:32:22.540 and somehow that was not as effective. 00:32:22.540 --> 00:32:28.300 It's that I think the process was write script, and then come 00:32:28.300 --> 00:32:31.920 up with stuff to fill in space. 00:32:35.904 --> 00:32:37.320 So yeah, I personally respond more 00:32:37.320 --> 00:32:39.740 to the ones that are more experiential, where 00:32:39.740 --> 00:32:44.820 you have people-- that may also be supported by animation-- 00:32:44.820 --> 00:32:49.660 but there is someone taking you through the experience. 00:32:49.660 --> 00:32:53.740 But I do think that there are lots and lots of ways 00:32:53.740 --> 00:32:57.480 to tell really, really dynamic and really interesting, 00:32:57.480 --> 00:33:01.940 good stories with animation. 00:33:01.940 --> 00:33:04.810 AUDIENCE: That's good to hear. 00:33:04.810 --> 00:33:06.140 CHRIS BOEBEL: Oh no, totally. 00:33:06.140 --> 00:33:09.370 And you know, we've all been there. 00:33:09.370 --> 00:33:10.300 I've been there, too. 00:33:10.300 --> 00:33:12.662 You have something that you have to make come alive. 00:33:12.662 --> 00:33:14.870 I think they did a great job of making it come alive. 00:33:14.870 --> 00:33:17.180 I think the animation was really effective. 00:33:17.180 --> 00:33:21.480 It's just that I think the approach was 00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:24.690 to write a script without necessarily thinking 00:33:24.690 --> 00:33:28.370 about the visual medium, and then to take the visuals 00:33:28.370 --> 00:33:30.755 and layer them on top as a separate part of the process. 00:33:36.370 --> 00:33:40.006 So anybody else have any-- I mean again, I know 00:33:40.006 --> 00:33:41.130 I kind of raced through it. 00:33:46.180 --> 00:33:48.960 How many people-- I mean, do you have video experience? 00:33:48.960 --> 00:33:52.397 How many people have some kind of video experience? 00:33:52.397 --> 00:33:54.230 That's always a really good question to ask. 00:33:57.680 --> 00:33:59.400 No? 00:33:59.400 --> 00:34:00.861 Nobody? 00:34:00.861 --> 00:34:01.669 Well that's cool. 00:34:01.669 --> 00:34:02.210 That's great. 00:34:04.700 --> 00:34:05.950 AUDIENCE: You have bad habits. 00:34:05.950 --> 00:34:06.866 PROFESSOR: Absolutely. 00:34:06.866 --> 00:34:08.590 Absolutely. 00:34:08.590 --> 00:34:13.290 I think, just to go back a little bit, 00:34:13.290 --> 00:34:18.830 I think that whole relationship between web video and TV 00:34:18.830 --> 00:34:20.040 is a really interesting one. 00:34:20.040 --> 00:34:23.830 It's a really interesting one to unpack, 00:34:23.830 --> 00:34:27.389 because again, the sort of conventional storytelling 00:34:27.389 --> 00:34:32.020 techniques that we're used to seeing on TV 00:34:32.020 --> 00:34:34.886 are not going to be effective for all sorts of reasons. 00:34:34.886 --> 00:34:36.719 It's also worth mentioning that of course TV 00:34:36.719 --> 00:34:40.710 has changed too, radically, since connections. 00:34:40.710 --> 00:34:43.389 Game of Thrones doesn't open that way, 00:34:43.389 --> 00:34:47.639 two minutes of somebody wandering around a house. 00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:53.230 But at the same time, it is a different genre, 00:34:53.230 --> 00:34:57.320 and really a crucial thing is the thing that Elizabeth 00:34:57.320 --> 00:34:59.270 alluded to, and I mentioned at the beginning, 00:34:59.270 --> 00:35:00.880 that I think you're telling a story, 00:35:00.880 --> 00:35:04.434 but your story extends beyond the bounds of your video, 00:35:04.434 --> 00:35:06.350 or can extend beyond the bounds of your video. 00:35:06.350 --> 00:35:12.260 It basically can begin with what people's preconceptions are 00:35:12.260 --> 00:35:15.010 before they start watching, and it continues on 00:35:15.010 --> 00:35:17.560 after the video is done. 00:35:17.560 --> 00:35:20.860 And I think that is a really crucial difference. 00:35:20.860 --> 00:35:24.590 One suggestion that I would make, 00:35:24.590 --> 00:35:26.450 whenever you write something this week-- 00:35:26.450 --> 00:35:28.200 and you're going to be writing treatments, 00:35:28.200 --> 00:35:32.930 and pitches, and scripts-- think about it 00:35:32.930 --> 00:35:35.040 in purely visual terms. 00:35:35.040 --> 00:35:38.760 One of the early exercises that I had to do, 00:35:38.760 --> 00:35:43.930 when I was in grad school, were silent films, 00:35:43.930 --> 00:35:49.280 and films or versions of scripts that had no dialogue, had 00:35:49.280 --> 00:35:50.712 no sound at all. 00:35:50.712 --> 00:35:53.170 And I think that's-- I'm not saying that you should do that 00:35:53.170 --> 00:35:57.480 as a technique in your finished piece, 00:35:57.480 --> 00:36:02.620 but it's a way of bringing up stuff that you can then apply 00:36:02.620 --> 00:36:04.490 to your video later. 00:36:04.490 --> 00:36:07.080 So if you were going to do something 00:36:07.080 --> 00:36:10.610 that was purely visual, that was going to convey what wanted 00:36:10.610 --> 00:36:13.440 to convey, how would you do it? 00:36:13.440 --> 00:36:18.816 And what might you create, or invent, or think about, 00:36:18.816 --> 00:36:20.440 through that process, that you can then 00:36:20.440 --> 00:36:21.890 use to inform your script. 00:36:24.590 --> 00:36:26.990 So just a way of thinking about what you're 00:36:26.990 --> 00:36:28.970 going to be doing this week.