“You don’t take a picture, you make it.”
This quote from iconic landscape photographer Ansel Adams (look him up if you don’t know him!) holds great meaning for filmmakers. Pictures tell stories. To “make a picture,” you must decide what story your picture will tell. Where will you place the camera? How will you frame your subject? What angle and height? How will you use light and shadow? What ideas, emotions, or actions will your picture stir in the viewer? And this is just one picture. If you are a filmmaker, you use thousands of pictures to tell your story. Filmmaking is a language. Each shot is a sentence in your story. Images are the nouns, verbs, and adverbs you use to create clear, visual storytelling.
As a burgeoning filmmaker, you’ve probably not made a lot of documentaries. But you tell nonfiction stories all the time. How do you turn those stories into movies? How do you turn your words into films?
As you read this, you have access to the greatest array of communication tools in human history. The cell phone that you may be reading this article on is also a movie camera. You can edit the footage you shoot on it to craft a story, and you can share it with the world via the Internet. This is nothing short of amazing. But do all these tools add up to great storytelling?
A scan of Internet choices of “youth citizen filmmaking” reveals a lot of short clips of people’s antics, fashions, rants, jokes, pets, and the like—but where are your great documentaries? I have taught student filmmakers for many years and I know that your stories—the ones that enlighten, entertain and move people—are in there, ready to share with the world. The tools are in your hands. But how do you use them to create a story?
Why, by harnessing the power of your greatest storytelling tool, of course. Your words. Not a random string of words but carefully chosen ones that tell a good tale. To craft a story, you organize your words into a story arc—a beginning, middle, and an end. You think with words, so that seems pretty straightforward.
So, the first step into film storytelling is to write a treatment. A treatment is a simple narrative of what your movie is about and what you plan to record: interviews, action shots, sounds. The next task is a script. A script can be very basic, using a two-column table where the left column is the shots you will record (the video) and the right column is all the sounds you plan on hearing (the audio).
VIDEO | AUDIO |
Est. Shot: Exterior of animal shelter | Voice Over: “I’ve been coming to this animal shelter for… |
Close Up: Injured cat in girl’s hands | “2 years to help with the sick kittens…” |
That’s all you need to start a story. But that doesn’t mean it’s simple.
Your words need to be clear, concise, visual, and interesting to keep your story moving forward. And you need to do it all with economy. A typical short film is only three to five minutes long, so every word you choose must count. That’s why filmmaking is like writing. You must edit and hone and craft until all that remains is what is best.
But how do you turn words into pictures? By taking your camera and your creativity and showing your subject in interesting ways—maybe in ways we’ve not seen before. Your shots need to literally show the viewer what you want them to see. Don’t tell the viewer the words in your head; show them. Your words must translate into action. With editing, the screen is a blank page to create the story in front of us. Your words are there in the script, the interviews, the on-screen text, maybe in lyrics from music you choose to accompany visuals, but most importantly, your words are there in the pictures you make when you place your camera. The pictures that show us your vision and your story. (A great way to get better at visual storytelling is to take your camera and try to emulate shots from your favorite movies. Learn from the pros.)
As a filmmaker, you want us to see, hear, interpret, feel, and be moved by your words as they interplay on screen before us. By harnessing your words into pictures, you share your story and enlighten us.
Michael Salerno is an independent filmmaker. He and his wife, Cindy, own a production company, Artauro Productions, where they create educational, narrative, and documentary media. In 2015, they produced a documentary feature, Vinyl Dinosaurs. In addition to being a filmmaker, he was a high school teacher where he taught English, mass communication, film study, and created a documentary video production course. He also teaches in Duke TIP’s eStudies Program.