no interviews – Video Storytelling for the Web

Visual Storytelling by David Mamet

David Mamet is an amazing writer, known for his award winning plays, screenplays, books and televisi on shows. He’s also a director and he has a quite famous rant in the form of a letter that he wrote to writers of The Unit, a TV show since cancelled.

It shows how well he understands dramatic writing (he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama) but also visual storytelling.

Here’s one of my favorite sections: (The original is , famously, in all caps.)

REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. MOST TELEVISION WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE RADIO. THE CAMERA CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. LET IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS DOING -LITERALLY. WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY SEEING. IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA. IF YOU DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF THE CRUTCH OF NARRATION, EXPOSITION,INDEED, OF SPEECH. YOU WILL BE FORGED TO WORK IN A NEW MEDIUM – TELLING THE STORY IN PICTURES (ALSO KNOWN AS SCREENWRITING)

Sep 05, 2012 | Categories: bob sacha, future, no interviews, story, unfolding action, Video Storytelling | Leave A Comment »

A story about an issue with not a single word spoken

Here’s a lovely example of a powerful story using strong close-ups and a simple unfolding action. There is no interview, no narrator. It has great use of sound, editing techniques and music to build to a crescendo.

Aug 04, 2012 | Categories: advocacy, bob sacha, editing, issue, music, no interviews | Leave A Comment »

A Story with No Interview

Here’s a story with no interview (but a story that transmits an amazing amount of information). You’ll notice he used still pictures too.

America’s Dead Sea by Jim Lo Scalzo

winner of third prize in the 2012 World Press Multimedia Competition.

If you’d like to know more, click through to the story’s Vimeo page where there’s text to explain the rest of the story. I didn’t need it.

Watch what the judges say about the winners in the World Press Competition. Some great insights on storytelling and multimedia.

Mar 16, 2012 | Categories: bob sacha, music, no interviews, still photos | Leave A Comment »

Summer vacation with some cool tricks

Samuel Ebat used some cool edit tricks in his video 270 Seconds of Summer . Ask me and I can explain how he did most of them.

Feb 07, 2012 | Categories: bob sacha, editing, music, no interviews, Video Storytelling | Leave A Comment »

simple idea, great commercial

No words either.

Dec 13, 2011 | Categories: bob sacha, no interviews, sequence | Leave A Comment »

Murmuration

You can talk all you want about how words are important but you are never, ever going to string together a sentence that can capture what this video shows starting at the 30 second mark.

Never. Ever.

Nov 14, 2011 | Categories: bob sacha, no interviews, unfolding action, Video Storytelling | Leave A Comment »

“Saloon”, New Delhi, India + Some Vacation Pix

Here are two stories told without a single word:

First, an Indian barber shop in New Delhi…

Tom Pietrasik, who made the short, provides some insight into his tools and also gives an interesting description of what it was like to obtain the rights to the music. Remember, don’t steal music.

I found this at the Virgin Media Shorts Festival.

Finally, I always used to groan when people asked me if they could show me their vacation pictures. BUT, this view of Paul Wex’s vacation to SouthEast Asia was pretty fun. He wrote the music too.

Nov 07, 2011 | Categories: bob sacha, music, no interviews, story, unfolding action | Leave A Comment »

How Many of Your Have Been to Occupy Wall Street?

Alex Mallis + Lily Henderson have. Here’s what they saw, Right Here, All Over.

No snark from CNN anchors or New York Times style columnists dropping by for an afternoon…no narrators…. just voices of the people, slice of life..

BTW, One of your upcoming assignments is a story about an issue.

Oct 10, 2011 | Categories: bob sacha, issue, no interviews, story, Video Storytelling | Leave A Comment »

Show Don’t Tell, short-and-sweet

A nice, short video story told without any words in 1.30. Remember, one of the remaining two assignments must be done without an interview.So watch the sequential storytelling here.