Raghu's Lessons in Video and Creative Thinking

Today we take a hiatus from Arian’s lessons on Web site creation and turn to a bit of video: Raghu’s experiences in working with his wife on using video for a grad school presentation.

While obviously there are differences between doing a video for grad school and doing one for journalism, there also are some similarities. Key among them: thinking creatively about the best way to convey a story; planning well; and editing effectively.

Here’s Raghu:

Stuck on how to tell a story in video or a slideshow? Look to the past.

I learned this after helping my wife, Mona, plan out a Web video project she had for a graduate school assignment. Her task: A presentation about terminating parental rights.

It sounded pretty dry and seemed destined to suffer the same fate of so many class and corporate presentations before it. It could be summed up in one dreaded word: PowerPoint.

Mona wanted to do a video. And not one with slide after slide of facts, but one propelled by a story. After my tour at asap over the summer, I was able to give her the 10-minute, Ray Kugler video shooting and editing primer.

She interviewed a deputy attorney general in charge of child protection cases, returned with footage, and tons of notes. In those notes, she had her story: A boy whose abusive parents lost their parental rights and who was later adopted.

The next problem: Given the constraints of confidentiality with child abuse cases, how does she tell the boy's story? She could not use photos of the boy, or even use his real name.

She wanted to do an animation, but she did not know how to do that. We looked at software that helps make stop-motion animation, that excruciatingly painstaking process of moving a figure a fraction of an inch, snapping a photo, and repeating to create the effect of movement.

Then it dawned on us: Legos!

She planned out the story. I helped her eliminate the unnecessary details of the boy's life. Each detail that she wanted to depict needed to be photographed, with the Legos representing the characters.  Each photo needed to be a scene from his life: First we introduced him; then showed some scenes from his life; then a scene of him scared after his father beat him; and then the visit to the guidance counselor.

(Note from Paula: In my inept way I'm unable to get these to line up correctly, let alone captioned. Not Raghu's fault.  Bear with me.):

 

 

 

   She used these scenes in her video. Not exactly a Power… Typing it once was enough!

The entire process got me thinking, though. As beginning Web video storytellers, we are not yet equipped with the skills to tell the stories in the way that we see them in our boundlessly creative minds. Sort of like a beginning reporter or editor.

Before we are able to get those skills _ stop-motion animation, anyone _ the best tack is probably to simplify. The more times I watched her video, the more I thought about the beautifully, simple silent movies that got us all on this visual storytelling kick way back when.

A few words, a few pictures or video; More words, more pictures or video. Rinse. Repeat.

Below are clips from the video she put together:

 

 

 

 

Comments

[lwi]

This is so sad Raghu. A very powerful way to tell the story, especially the use of color and black-and-white. I'd love to see the whole thing.

[arian]

I'm loving it. I can't wait to see the whole thing either. The music was used really well. For some reason, it kind of reminds me of the movie Edward Scissor Hands. It's a sort of comical and child-like way to tell a story about dealing with loss, pain and hope. Well done.

[Noreen]

Raghu! This is so awesome. I'm very impressed you guys put this together. I bet she had the best presentation in the class!

[amanda]

this reminds me of the time i was in grad school, and had to find art for a writer's story about getting a happy-ending massage. obviously there were privacy issues, and the masseuse didn't want to be photographed. so i bought two barbie dolls, made a diorama and shot some photos in black and white. the sketchiness of the dolls made it better, just like the legos made the story a little sadder.