Visual Storytelling in Film and Television
by Ken Aguado
NOTE: The following is the transcript from a lecture I gave at the Create Change Forum in Beijing, China. The audience was mostly young film and television professionals. Many of those attending did not speak English, so the lecture was presented with a simultaneous live translation into Mandarin. It was a great experience. -Ken
Hello, my name is Ken Aguado. I live in Los Angeles, California where I am a film and television producer, educator, and writer.
Because of my work I am often asked to speak at film festivals, and other film events, and teach at film schools around the world. I find teaching especially rewarding and it is always my hope that I can share some of the knowledge and information that I wish someone had shared with me when I was just starting my career. As some of you know, we have many Chinese film students in America, and I enjoy talking to them and learning about their knowledge of film and television, what they like, and about their ambitions to work in the film and television businesses.
And of course, this is how I ended up here, talking to you. Hopefully, I can teach you a few of the things I have learned over the course of my career. And maybe someday I will produce a film in China. That would be great.
I also co-wrote the textbook called The Hollywood Pitching Bible. In the book, we talk about the art of pitching film and television projects, and how pitching can help you to understand stories and how to present them verbally to buyers. Although the book teaches you how to talk about your story ideas, ultimately the goal is to get your listener to visualize your project in their mind. If the listener can’t visualize your story, there is almost no chance they will buy it.
So that is a great time to start talking about visual storytelling.
Fade in:
In the pre-dawn light we are close up on a sign that hangs on a chain-link fence that says “No Trespassing.” Ominous music plays in the background.
The camera slowly cranes up a fence that never seems to end; slowly, slowly, upward, keeping the fence in crisp focus, while the background is a hazy mystery.
At the top of a wrought iron gate is an imposing initial — the letter “K”. Far in the distance, a castle mansion looms darkly on a hilltop.
Two monkeys cling to their bars in an abandoned zoo on the grounds of the great estate. The castle is still in the distance, but now closer. A single, small, lighted window can be seen high up in the otherwise darkened castle.
Two small, empty boats are docked on a private lake — a ghostly mist hovers over the water.
We see a stone bridge over a moat that leads to the great mansion — which now looms even closer.
A private golf course can be seen in the dim light — abandoned and unused for years, overgrown with weeds.
Closer to the castle — the single light still burns from a high window.
Finally, the dark, towering castle itself becomes clearly visible in the pre-dawn light. It stands silently, like an ancient tombstone:
This is Xanadu.
Now we move towards the lighted window, closer and closer — and through it, and into the great master bedroom.
Although the room lighting is dimly lit, we can see the silhouette of a large Man lying in the bed — deathly still.
Now, strangely, we see falling snowflakes, as if we are in a snowstorm.
The Camera pulls back and reveals that the “snowstorm” we are seeing is just the world inside a snow-globe — the kind they sell in novelty shops.
The snow-globe is loosely held in the Man’s hand, almost too weak to grasp it.
Dissolve to the elderly Man’s lips, framed by a bushy mustache, as he utters a single word: “Rosebud”.
The Man lets the snow-globe fall from his fingers. It falls to the floor by his bed, where it smashes into glass pieces.
A Nurse enters the master bedroom, her entrance only visible in the reflection of the snow-globe’s broken glass. She approaches the bed.
Cloaked in shadows, she crosses the Man’s lifeless arms over his chest and then pulls a white sheet over his head. He is dead.
The morning sun rises through the window just beyond the Man’s deathbed. A day the Man will never see…
Fade to black.
So begins the 1941 film “Citizen Kane,” one of the greatest examples of visual storytelling, and one of the greatest films, of all time. The film, co-written and directed by 24-year-old Orson Wells, is probably the most studied film in cinema history.
“Citizen Kane” begins with an ending — the old man named Charles Foster Kane, alone in his once majestic kingdom, uttering just one word — “Rosebud” — as he takes his last breath.
In just the first 3 minutes of the film, using only images and one word of dialog, Wells shows us a man who lived a lonely life, full of mystery and regret.
Welles also introduces us to Xanadu — Kane’s “private pleasure palace” — almost as if it were a character in the film. It is a decadent, abandoned estate, with few signs of life, reflecting the faded grandeur of its mysterious owner.
We understand that Kane’s final years were spent locked away in his castle, on a distant mountain, behind towering gates, and marked with an imposing sign — “No Trespassing” — almost as if the filmmaker was saying “the truth about Kane’s life will never be known.”
Anyone who has seen this masterpiece film will almost surely remember where they were when they first saw it. (For the record, I was at the Prytania Theater in New Orleans.)
Welcome to the art of visual storytelling.
Visual Storytelling in Film and Television
Visual storytelling in film and television is the art of conveying a narrative journey with the images that are possible because of the amazing technology of this art form.
Of all the animals in the world, human beings are uniquely capable of understanding stories. It is our visual ability and our wonderful brains that allow us to instinctively try to put images together and make sense of what we see. It is in our nature to want to understand the world around us, and our eyes are the primary way we do so.
Everyday in the world we are bombarded by images. But it is through the arrangement of images in film and television that all of those images transform from just being “noise” or “information” and into something we call a story. And based on the success of film and television programming around the world, we cannot seem to get enough of it.
It is amazing when you realize that this has only been true for a tiny fraction of the time that human beings have lived on planet earth. By this standard, the art of visual storytelling is still in its infancy! I will talk more about the history of visual storytelling in a moment, but for the now let us all accept, and be humbled, that one day our descendants will look back at us, and at our films and television shows, in the same way we look back at the era of silent filmmaking. For example, it has only been a decade or two since the widespread use of computer-made special effects has allowed filmmakers to visualize new worlds and events, limited only by the time and money it takes to create this magic. Does anyone here doubt that the future of visual storytelling will be even more amazing?
If you want to see how visual storytelling works and why our brains are so special, try this experiment: Turn your television to a movie that you have never seen, and then turn the sound off. Without hearing a single sound, can you tell what is happening? This is an experiment in how good the filmmakers were at visual storytelling. But it is also an experiment in the way the human mind works and instinctively tries to understand stories.
As you watch the film and try to figure it out, you may not be completely correct, but your mind will want to try to make sense of the story. How quickly do you begin to tell yourself the story? Now try to understand why you think what you think. Was it the action? The lighting? The way the camera moves? Is it the way the actors interact? How did the filmmaker communicate with you?
Of course, visual storytelling is not just the domain of film and television. Comic books, picture books, fine artists and photographers often use some aspect of visual storytelling. Advertisers have long understood the power of visual storytelling as a means to sell their products. Visual storytelling has the ability to reach consumers in ways that are both efficient and effective. And if you are doing a print ad or a 15 second television commercial, it better be efficient! The visual appeal of a television commercial can have an effect on us that we do not always understand, and for an advertiser, that is often what they want. They want the consumer to connect with their product in a deeply psychological way. And they have ways of getting into our minds that can compel us profoundly.
But with a typical running time of 30 minutes to 2 hours, films and television shows are a form of storytelling where we routinely surrender ourselves for long periods of time. I think it is safe to say that, of all the art forms that use visual storytelling, film and television are at the top of the pyramid.
Screenwriter Bill Wittliff, who wrote “The Perfect Storm” and “Legends of the Fall,” once said: “You do not want to explain to the audience, because that makes them observers. You want to reveal to them little by little, and that makes them participants, because then they experience the story in the same way the characters experience it.”
It is a simple idea: Do not explain — instead, reveal.
Unlike most other storytelling art forms, film and television rely heavily on visual information to tell a story.
But what is visual storytelling? Where did it come from, and why does it hold such power over us?
The History of Storytelling
Before there was written language, history was passed along from generation to generation through the spoken word, gestures, and facial expressions. For perhaps 300,000 years before written language, this was the way our ancestors communicated with each other.
But when one of these ancestors intentionally (or maybe unintentionally) changed the story from the truth into something more interesting — art was probably born. In that moment, the literal truth of a story became less important than the entertainment value, or the meaning of the story. Nobody knows exactly when the first story was told, but it is not hard to imagine a primitive man or woman, after a long, hard day of hunting for survival, in a cave, lit only by the flickering glow of a camp fire, telling stories to their children and each other: Stories of their brave battles and triumphs, stories of their gods, maybe stories about their own ancestors and their experiences. Stories to make people laugh or cry. Stories that, today, we would call “myths,” “fables,” or “folk tales.” Sometimes spoken, sometimes sung, these things would become the centerpiece of cultures around the world.
And surely these stories were passed along to the children’s children, and those children changed the stories and made the stories their own, and the history and culture of the human race was told, by one person at a time — for hundreds of thousands of years. This is sometimes referred to as the “oral tradition.”
However else humans are different from animals, surely our ability to create art and tells stories is one of the things that makes us unique. And surely it is the universal love of storytelling that is one of the things that binds the human race together.
Visual Storytelling
As far as we know, humans have only 5 senses: Sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. But it is our ability to see that we all rely upon more than any other. Sure there are animals that have senses that are far more developed than ours, but, more than any other of our senses, our ability to see is the important way we come to experience and understand the world around us. And — maybe more importantly — the way we interact with our world and change our world.
But when it comes to our experience of storytelling, the two senses we rely upon the most are sight and hearing. But in reality, our 5 senses do not reside in our eyes, or our ears. When you realize that the eyes and the ears merely the biological tools we use to gather the story information and transmit it all to our brains — well — it is really our brain where all the fun happens. Our brains put all this information together, and that is where the “visualization” really happens. So really, when you think of it this way, it means that all storytelling is visual!
The History of the Visual Storytelling
Thirty four thousand years ago, in a large cave in France, an artist used pigment to create some of the first known paintings: herds of bison, charging rhinos, leaping gazelle. The animals — some of them now extinct — were rendered in startling detail. However, these were not just simply portraits. The animals were interacting with one another — and that interaction is a story. The artist was a storyteller, and a very talented painter too. Starting with that moment in time, we can draw a line between the caves of France and the contemporary stories we see unfolding all around us today.
There is evidence that those early painters struggled with the limitations of their chosen “canvas,” but also found ways to take advantage of it. The primitive painters in the French caves sanded down the walls to give it a lighter, smoother surface, and then after the paintings were done, they etched outlines into the stone so that fire-light would cast shadows that made the images stand out. In other places, rather than try to change the cave wall, the artists actually used these found qualities in their work. For example, a jagged part of the wall could be used to represent animal fur. Or, the uneven lines of a rock could become part of the landscape portrayed in a painting. In other words, a rock or cave wall was part of their technology of artistic expression!
So what else can we say about these first examples of recorded visual storytelling? Well, first of all, they were also the first works of art with built-in, anti-piracy protection — you cannot copy a cave wall. But it also means, if you want to see it, you must go to the cave — the cave is not coming to you. While today this might seem like a limitation, there is also something wonderful about it. It is one of a kind, and it has stood the test of time for 34,000 years.
Written Language and the Printing Press
The first evidence of writing appeared about 6000 years ago, perhaps in Mesopotamia — what we now call the Middle East. These were not words or letters but rather small visual images — pictograms, as we call them today. Sometime later, hieroglyphics started to appear. Once again, visual images told the story. Scientists now believe that it was about 4000 years ago that the first alphabet was created, but it would be another 2000 years before someone invented a form of paper here in China, around the year 105 AD. Suddenly, stories and the visual arts could be recorded in a ways that was very portable — and this was a big step forward.
It would be another thousand years before paper copies of documents were made by hand blocks, and then a few hundred more years before the mechanical printing press was invented in middle of the 15th century. Suddenly, art, stories, and the printed word could be mass-produced, and the world would never be the same. It was truly one of the milestones of human history. In that moment, we no longer needed to rely on the oral tradition. The identical form of a story, or some other form of printed information, could be accurately and quickly replicated and distributed widely. Prior to this it was mostly done by hand copying. That all changed with the invention of the printing press. It would be another 300 years before the next breakthrough in visual communication occurred — when photography was invented.
Photography
The first photographs were taken in 1827. They were called Heliographs — named for Helio, the Greek Sun God — because rays of sunlight were used to etch the images. Later, photography would capture an image on a celluloid material — called a negative — that allowed for the precise duplication of images, whether the sun was shining or not.
Of course, the first photographic images were black and white. This lasted another 75 years, until color photography was introduced to the public in 1903. Really, not very long ago in the history of the world!
But when photography was introduced it was unique in many ways: it produced a visual image that precisely replicated the image of the subject, unlike the subjective interpretations of a painting or drawing. Also, a photographic image could be produced quickly — the image was captured in a fraction of a second, and the chemical developing and printing could be done in a matter of hours. Its speed and potential for accurate reproduction made photography the most important development in the history of visual expression since the printing press was invented. Photography’s striking ability to capture and reproduce what we would consider “life-like” imagery, at a remarkable speed, would change the world of visual storytelling forever.
Motion Pictures & Television
The first motion picture device that captured a moving photographic image is credited to Eadweard Muybridge, who used a series of still cameras to study the motion of horses in 1877. Interestingly, Eadweard Muybridge’s photographic system has some resemblance to the technique used in the hit movie “The Matrix.” “The Matrix” used their system to expand time and space — what the filmmakers called “bullet time.” Two movies separated by 122 years that used a similar technique!
Soon, more sophisticated movie cameras were built, based upon the still-image camera’s ability to capture visual reality. The combination of photographic likeness with the appearance of moving images, and the development of a system of editing, would result in an art form that engaged viewers in a way that they had never experienced before. Today, for us, it is hard to imagine the impact that these early moving pictures had on the general public. Today we take it for granted. It is all around us. But in the late 1800s silent motion pictures of visual images overwhelmed the senses of moviegoers. To them it was a miracle.
At first, however, visual storytelling was not considered the role of the motion picture camera. Early films were basically long-format still photographs — footage of a baby eating, a train arriving at the station, people leaving a factory after a long day at work. In the same way that today we see the internet as simply a better version of other media, the first motion picture cameras were seen as just a better version of the still camera, rather than its own unique form of artistic expression. What we would consider modern film language — close up shots, reverse shots, continuity editing, cross-cutting between different stories, and some simple special effects — would develop over the following decade. And this is really where modern filmmaking begins.
In 1903 the silent film “The Great Train Robbery” treated audience to what many consider to be the first great movie. From its opening scene of a bank robbery, to the final scene of a bandit firing his pistol directly at the viewers, the filmmaker began to manipulate the image to entertain and tell a story. Remember, at this time there was no sound in movies, except maybe a piano player who would play live; accompanying the film while it was being projected.
By 1914, thanks to filmmakers like D.W. Griffith, motion pictures had become something we would recognize as familiar in today’s movie theaters. Griffith developed many of the visual storytelling film techniques we take for granted today — what we sometimes call the “grammar” of film. Now that the art form was established, this unique form of entertainment would soon become the dominant form of visual storytelling (and entertainment) on our planet.
As time past, the technology of cinema improved and filmmakers found ways to use this new technology to enhance their work. For this is truly the way it always happens: Scientists and technicians invent new technologies, and artists find new ways to take advantage of these technological advances and tell better stories. Silent films gave way to films with sound, black and white films gave way to color films, and analog gave way to digital.
Still, for much of the history of filmmaking, the equipment was cumbersome and very expensive, limiting what was visually (and economically) possible. For example, the film cameras that director Alfred Hitchcock had to use in the 1940s and 50s were the size of a large suitcase! Compare that to today where some people are making films that were shot with their cellphones. Amazing!
As filmmaking equipment became more affordable, accessible, and smaller in the 1960s and 70s, artists were liberated to pursue personal and stylistic storytelling. The use of light weight 16mm movie cameras — which were also cheaper than the professional 35mm cameras (which also became smaller and lighter) — became widespread, and this opened the door to an influential generation of filmmakers, as they were able to experiment with the cinematic techniques that the smaller, lighter equipment allowed them. Because of this, many film historians consider the 1960s and 70s to be one of the golden ages of filmmaking. It is not an accident that famous filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, François Truffaut, George Lucas, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Milos Forman, and Jean-Luc Godard, all got their start during this period.
The Rise of Television
A conversation about visual storytelling would not be complete without discussing the television revolution. The first usable form of television was presented in 1926, and then later introduced commercially in Germany in 1935. Television came to America around 1941, and by 1959 there were 50 million television sets in America. It was an amazing success story. Until the rise of the Internet in the 1990s, no other media technology would become so widespread, so quickly.
While the visual style of storytelling in television shared much of the style of film, there were some important differences — mostly limitations, for much of television history.
First of all, with television you could change the channel! The closest thing a filmgoer could come to changing the channel was walking out of one theater and into another. (Although, I have to admit, I have done this many times in my life if I was watching a bad film.) True, in the early days of television, there were only 3 channels, so there wasn’t much choice. But for television broadcasters, this also meant their programming had to hold the viewer’s attention. Also, until the late 1970s, almost all television shows ran advertisement meaning the broadcasters had to find a way to have the viewer keep watching after they used the commercial break to get a snack from the kitchen.
Making things even tougher, the remote control became commonplace in the 1960s. The remote control made it possible to change channels without getting off the sofa, and men and women have been fighting over who gets to use it ever since! Ha ha.
Early television also offered live broadcasts, replacing radio as the dominant technology for this purpose. Videotape was not widely used until the late 1950s. Before videotape, cinematic storytelling and style became less important than the immediacy of the live broadcast. Live comedies, live sports and live news. And live television broadcasting is still a major aspect of television today. This is very different than film. New, sports political debates, and the first man walked on the moon! And you saw it all live, while it happened.
But television also limited visual storytelling. While a 1950s CinemaScope movie theater screen might be 15 meters wide, the typical television screen size up until in the late 1980s was usually less than 1 meter in size — often a lot smaller. And television broadcasts are always restricted to a so-called “safe zone” — a smaller area of the television screen where the visible on-screen action can safely occur.
Perhaps even worse than the small size of the early television screens: until very recently, television broadcasters would almost always choose to fit the large format of a widescreen movie onto a television screen by just chopping off the right and the left side of the film picture. It is called “cropping.” The broadcasters would just eliminate half the visual image! Poof! Gone!
It would be many decades before large-format, widescreen television sets — now commonplace — would let the television viewers experience anything close to the visual experience of a movie theater. When you add a Dolby 7.1 surround sound home theater system, why bother to leave your house anymore?
But the good news is that these larger, widescreen television sets have allowed filmmakers of television programs to compose many of their visual images in way that were previously only possible in the movies.
The Tools of Visual Filmmaking
Now that I have talked about the history of visual storytelling, let us discuss the 4 primary tools a filmmaker uses to actually present visual storytelling in film and television.
There are 4 technical tools a filmmaker uses to convey visual storytelling. Of course, each of these is more complicated than I am presenting, but I want to make sure you understand the 4 tools that filmmakers use on their most basic level. They are Framing, Lighting, Camera Movement, and Editing.
Framing:
Director Martin Scorsese once said that, “Cinema is a matter of what is in the frame, and what is out.”
That quote always reminds me of the famous quote by Michelangelo, the 15th century painter and sculptor, when he said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the work of the sculptor to discover it.”
No one knows what kind of filmmaker Michelangelo would have been, but I bet he would have been awesome!
Framing — as Mr. Scorsese said — is the most important visual element; not only because it reveals certain and particular information to the viewer, but because what fills the frame of the shot (and what does not) is the most basic visual decision a filmmaker can make.
What is in frame? What is out of frame? If the entire world is your canvas, visual storytelling means we will only see a small amount of it. And how a shot is framed can have a big impact. Framing is the most basic level of artistic choice in films and television.
So for example, a tightly framed shot can create a sense of confinement and mystery — or create a bond with the audience to a character. A widely framed shot can give the viewer a sense of freedom, or give the scene a sense of grandeur or scope.
If all your viewer knows is what you show them, then framing is visual storytelling at its most basic.
Lighting:
Lighting is crucial in visual storytelling. What is lit and not lit is a fundamental decision! Cinematography and lighting go hand-in-hand when it comes to telling a story. Lighting can create stark, contrast and shadows that can reveal the psychology of a character or even the genre of film. Lighting can force the audience to focus on whatever detail the filmmaker wants them to see. Colored light can indicate a character’s mood, the time of day, or even the theme of the film.
Camera Movement:
Knowing when and how to move the camera can be a powerful element of visual storytelling. Pans and tilts can be used to reveal certain information, or create a sense of mystery and build tension as your audience learns what will enter the frame. Using a dolly to push in on a subject can add intimacy to the story. The movement of a handheld camera can add a documentary-like reality to a story. In real life we rarely see the world around us sitting still, so camera movement is the way a filmmaker get their audience to experience the a film as if they are there.
Editing:
Of course, visual storytelling does not end after the film is shot. The various bits of film or video must be assembled in a way that makes sense, and the editor is responsible for the way the story is told and understood by audiences. This is very important: Remember, almost all films and television series are shot out of order. For example, the ending of a movie might be the first part that is shot! The editor, along with the director, must know how all the parts fit together, and how they fit together in a way that serves the story best. The editing also effects the pacing of the story; the choices can do things like cause tension within the scene or building suspense or excitement, or reveal information to the viewer.
There are other visual elements in film and television I did not mention: things like set dressing and costumes, but from a technical point of view, really that is it — those 4 tools are the things filmmakers use to define the “visual” part of “visual storytelling.”
But wait — I left out the most important aspect of visual storytelling. Can anyone guess what it is? I will give you a hint: It is the most important word in the phrase “Visual Storytelling.”
That is right: STORY.
It is all about the story.
Now we get to the heart of the matter. After all, in order to visually tell a story, there has to be a story to tell. Audiences want to see stories that grabs their attention and captivates their imagination. A good story is where the audience really cares about the characters and what will happen to them.
In Hollywood it is often said that nothing else matters but the story. We all know this is not exactly true, but it is surely the most significant part of the experience of a film or television show. As I said, without the story, there can be no visual storytelling.
If you want proof, try this: Next time you see a film and a friend asks how you liked it, start talking to them about the framing, or the lighting, or the camera movements, or the editing. (I know people who talk like this.)
Your friend will probably look at you like you are crazy and ask, “uh, yeah, but how was the story”?
And that is the important point I am trying to make. While the visual parts of storytelling are important, they should always be based on the content of the story!
But what is a story? Why do people care about stories?
Philosophers have debated and discussed what a story really is for over 2000 years. It is a branch of philosophy called “Aesthetics.”
It is a complicated subject, but fortunately we have a narrower focus today — we will just talk about storytelling in film and television.
So lets talk about it.
While the following story principles are presented in a particular order, a storyteller can come at these issues from many directions. There is no inherently right or wrong way to understand them. Every storyteller makes a story his or her own. Also, of course, all of these elements will overlap in a good story.
In most narrative films and television stories, there are 5 main elements:
Concept, Character, Theme, Plot, and Dialog.
In reality, there are many more elements than the ones just I listed, but most of these other elements can usually be grouped into one of the 5 I just listed. For example, things like tone (comedy or drama), setting or location, genre, conflict — and so on. But I am trying to simplify things for clarity.
Let us talk about them one by one.
Concept.
The concept of a story (sometimes also called “the premise”) is the most basic level of a film or television story. It is the answer to the question, “so, what is it about”?
A good answer to that question will usually incorporate two or three of the basic elements of a story that I mentioned previously.
Remember what I said before? That all stories are about people we care about not getting the things they want. Even though I was kind of joking, the concept of a story usually describes just that! Who is the main character and what problem is he or she trying to solve.
So, for example, the film “Gravity” is about an astronaut, stranded in space, who is trying to survive and return home.
Do you see what I mean? Someone we like — an astronaut — not getting the thing she wants — in this case, to live! Once she gets the thing she wants — the movie is over!
Or let us take an example from television. Do you watch the television series “The Big Bang Theory” over here? We could describe its concept as the story of two nerdy geniuses who meet an independent woman, and realize they the smartest guys in the world but they know nothing about real life or love.
See? Again: people we like — geniuses — not getting the things they want — finding love and fitting into the world around them!
Concept (sometimes called premise) is important because it is the fundamental way an audience will understand the story.
Character
If there is one element of good stories that is common through all ages and narrative forms, and if there is one unbroken rule of successful storytelling, it is this — create compelling characters of interest to an audience.
Characters in films and television connect us to the story. It is the way we experience the events we are watching. In fact, we usually only care about the events in film and television to the extent that they effect the characters we are watching. We experience the events of the story through their eyes.
This does not mean that all movie and television characters have to be perfect people. In many of the great stories, they are not. Charles Foster Kane in “Citizen Kane” is not perfect. Flawed characters can be interesting too. But in a good story there is always some reason want to keep watching them!
Plot
A story is always a journey that the characters take. Whether it is a drama or a comedy, an action film, or set in outer space, the characters will undertake an emotional or physical journey that causes them to learn things or change by the end. The course of this journey is marked by events — incidents and experiences that the main characters face. The plot is the series of these events — from the beginning, through the middle, until the end — that gives us the feeling of the forward motion in a story.
The most important events of the plot are often significant irreversible incidents that change the course of the plot and push it further ahead. These events are called Plot Points. For example, in “The Matrix,” when Neo decides to takes the red pill (instead of the blue one) and decides he wants to understand what is wrong with him, and the world around him. Or in “Titanic,” when Jack Dawson saves Rose from committing suicide over the back of the mighty ship — we know their stories have come together and their fate together will take the rest of the film to resolve.
If character is our way into a story, then plot (as it happens to the characters) is what keeps us in our seats!
Theme
If plot is what keeps us in our seats watching a story, then theme is what it all means to us. The theme of a film or television story is the way we make sense of what we are seeing. It is the layer beneath the plot — the message, the significance. Theme is connected to why stories are different than real life. Real life rarely has a theme — unless you consider “endless frustration” a theme! Theme in stories is the way we want the world to work. That it will make sense to us. It is what we desire; it is what we wish were true.
So in “Titanic” you could say that the theme is “love conquers all, and forever!”
Or that “The Matrix” is really about the need to overcome slavery and be free.
If you go back and watch these movies again with these themes in mind, I think you will see how each of these themes play out over the course of each film — almost from start to finish.
It is sometimes said that there are really only 7 themes: things like the need for justice, or the need for love, or the need for order. But really I do not think there is any reason to limit the number or simplify things. Let the theme be whatever the storyteller wants it to be!
In any case, most good stories will have a theme, even if you cannot always say exactly what it is. You will know it when you feel it and see it.
Dialogue
In some ways film and television dialog is the trickiest element of storytelling. And personally I think we would all be better off if we just included it in the same category as sound and music — but for some reason it never is.
Dialog is just characters talking. That is it. Sometimes they talk on camera and we call it “conversation.” Sometimes dialog occurs off camera and we call it “voice over.” But either way, dialog in film and television storytelling exists because people actually do talk! And even when the people in the movie are not really people (as in an animated film like “Finding Nemo”), well, we all know that the voices were performed by actors — most of whom actually are people! Ha ha.
Dialog is a tricky aspect of visual storytelling because most people think it can run counter to the goals of visual storytelling. After all, it is just people talking, telling each other things, what they think, and revealing information to the viewer. For example, if you watch television sit coms you know that many of them are very dialog heavy. These television series are often no more than just filmed plays, shot with 4 cameras running at all times. But think about why this is so. They say comedy is all about timing, and sit coms use editing (from what the 4 camera shot) to get the most from a joke. So once again, even here there is a visual element.
Also, keep in mind that when actors read the dialog they are always performing — using movement, gestures and facial expressions (all visual elements) to “sell” their words to the viewers. So there is also a visual component in the performance of dialog.
A few final thoughts.
There have been some amazing examples of visual storytelling in film and television.
For example, the first 10 minutes of Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” has no dialog at all. The last 20 minutes of the Tom Hanks film “Road to Perdition” has almost no dialog. The Stanley Kubrick film “2001: A Space Odyssey” has nothing but silence on screen for about 45 minutes of its total running time!
One of my favorites visual sequences is in another Orson Wells film called “Touch of Evil.” In “Touch of Evil,” Wells’ opening shot is one long unbroken take that follows a time bomb after it has been placed in the trunk of a car. This one shot runs about 3 minutes and 20 seconds and it took Wells all night to get it right in one take. There is some dialog in the shot, but it is visual, suspenseful, and wonderful.
And it is not just the movies. There is a wonderful sequence in the American hit television series called “Breaking Bad.” If you have not seen the series, actor Bryan Cranston plays a humble chemistry teacher who finds out he is dying of cancer. So that his family will be provided for after he is gone, he begins a career as a drug manufacturer to make money for them. In season 3, episode 10, in an episode call “Fly,” an insect — a house fly in this case — has invaded the sterile environment of Cranston’s drug lab. In a sequence that runs 4 minutes, Cranston’s character — without a word of dialog — decides that the fly must die. But the fly is tougher than he thought and Cranston’s character becomes more and more frustrated, taking greater and greater risks to kill it. It is very funny and a great example of the possibilities of visual storytelling in television.
In all these examples, it is the visual aspect that carries the storytelling. But why does it matter? Can we also enjoy films and television shows that are not primarily visual? Of course! There is a film I like called “My Dinner with Andre” that is about two men having dinner. That is it! Just two old friends having a meal together. There is certainly a little visual style in the film, but the film is about just two guys talking and eating! So no one should tell you what films and television shows you should enjoy or not enjoy.
Still, I would never deny the power that visual images have over us, or their ability to make a lasting impression. Think about it — if you have a precious memory — maybe from your childhood — is it a memory of something that someone said or something you read? Or is it a memory of something you saw? I will bet most of your memories, especially the oldest ones, are things you remember seeing.
I have read that the human mind is able to understand visual images 60,000 times faster than it can understand written text. I really have no idea how someone measured this, but I also have no trouble believing it is generally true.
There is an old saying in America. People say, “I will believe it when I see it.” It is supposed to be an expression of skepticism, but if you read that quote in another way it perfectly sums up why visual storytelling is so important, why it holds so much power over us, and why it will continue to do so forever. “You will believe it when you see it.”
Ken Aguado is a an Emmy-winning producer, screenwriter and author. His most recent films are the award-winning PBS documentary “Miracle on 42nd Street” and the theatrical film “An Interview with God,” which he wrote and produced. He is also the co-author of The Hollywood Pitching Bible and Based On: A Non-Lawyer’s GUIDE to Acquiring Film and Television Rights from Everywhere. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kagaudo.
