Storytelling About A Cause

Many artists feel driven to create stories about some form of injustice or something that frustrates them. Though the motivation behind such stories can be positive, the premise is by its very nature a negative one. You’re telling a story about something you don’t like.

How do we move past this obstacle (or is it even an obstacle at all)? I would say that it is an obstacle. Negativity is a turnoff. A story can shine light on tragedy, but if I don’t like watching/reading/hearing that story, I’m less likely to pass it on.

Enjoyable stories can still haunt an audience. A movies that we love to recommend to others can plant its cause in their hearts.

Here’s the key: If you’re writing about something you don’t like, write about something that you do like.

Create characters that you love. Pick elements for your story that excite you. Include those things you know and do well. Don’t get so caught up in shining light on your cause that you forget to make a compelling and enjoyable story. If we forget to entertain, then we have done a disservice to our cause. We shut people down to our message by disregarding the needs of the audience and only thinking about what we need to accomplish.

For this very reason, many storytellers have decided to only entertain and never teach or have a cause. My previous post Do Formulas Work? discusses that you must have something deeper to your story than entertainment. Writers can have a hard time balancing these two ideas. They’ve experienced the missteps of telling stories about something they didn’t like. These stories often get poor results and poor reception.

Never forget to entertain, captivate and inspire your audience. If they connect on a positive level with your story, then your cause will matter to them.

Let’s go tell some stories!

Kip

Who Are You Writing For? (And Why You Don’t Finish)

A graveyard with unending borders stretches out through time, bursting full with unfinished speeches, articles, books, shorts, movies and poems. So many stories go unfinished, and so many storytellers never finish anything at all.

Why don’t you finish?

I’ll answer with a question: who are you writing for?

Most of us were taught to, “Write for yourself,” as I discussed in my earlier post Criticism and Critique. Here’s the problem with just writing for yourself: if people are trying to lose weight and their only motivation is to look better, they’ll never achieve that goal the way they want or need to. Something greater has to drive them. Maybe it’s health. Maybe it’s finding that special someone. It could be looking better because of a pageant or acting role. Perhaps there’s a sporting event or a job that requires a certain level of fitness. When people have outside reasons driving them, they are able to accomplish goals that require personal sacrifice and discipline.

Do you want to finish that manuscript on your computer that has a “last modified” date of weeks/months/years ago? Do you want to finally sit down and finish editing that short film? Find a reason greater than just yourself. Find something that drives you, something that makes the effort worthwhile.

This is one of the reasons why it’s so important for your work to have meaning. An entertaining story that has no larger purpose is hard to justify. That story takes sacrifice—sometimes a lot of personal sacrifice—to bring to life. Willful suffering requires motivation.

Motivate your stories and thus motivate yourself.

Let’s go tell some stories!

Kip

Training With Interest

One of the biggest challenges of training is keeping the attention of your audience. People keep a train of thought for 17 seconds before their brain switches to something new. It’s your job as a trainer to keep ahead of that so they are switching where you want them to go.

I’ve seen different stats thrown that claim people only remember 14% or 20% or 70% of what they are trained. The numbers always change, but the consistent factor is that they do not remember a large portion. It’s extremely hard to train lots of little details and expect everyone to learn each of them after one time through.

How do we keep the interest of our trainee? We want to stay ahead of brain switches and keep the highest percentage possible in their heads.

Stories are one excellent method for both of these areas. Many trainers or communicators use a funny story to keep interest and break up the pace. However, stories in and of themselves teach. The principles of a story often stay in the mind when the details of the tale have faded. Prepare stories or jokes that actually teach part of your material and retention in those areas will jump sharply.

Never go more than one hour without giving people a break to go walk around. When you are training, their brains are in overdrive to soak up the information. That train of thought is switching every few seconds and eventually people just wear out. After an hour, you might as well stop talking. You audience will learn more from an hour and a half with two fifteen minute breaks than they will from two whole hours of training.

It always helps to relate what you train to something people already understand. Maybe you compare the two programs you are training to the trainee and their next door neighbor. Perhaps the method is similar to what someone does when they answer the phone or pick up their iPad. Think of unusual ways to relate ideas. If you can, relate the ideas in funny ways.

Most trainers these days know that we need to engage all the learning methods if we want our audience to learn well: hearing, seeing, and doing. What many fail to realize is that storytelling engages ALL learning methods on some level simultaneously. When someone tells us a story, we are hearing it, visualizing it (seeing), and playing it out in our minds (doing). Become a great storyteller, and you will become a great trainer as well.

Let’s go tell some stories!

Kip

Color Correction Demystified

Independent filmmakers often think that color correction on their work is outside their reach. Big movies have color grade artists and DaVinci machines with all the cool toys.

Any professional grade editing software (like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro) has solid color correction tools built in. Even Final Cut X has some really good tools for getting the job done.

Lots of third-party providers have fancy plugins to give certain looks. You can spend the money on those, or you can play around with the existing tools to get the look you want (usually the plugins are not necessary, just quicker and easier).

To find out how easy it is, I’ll point you towards a video tutorial. This video uses After Effects and a plugin, but that is irrelevant. The video teaches you all the essential principles of color correction and if you pay attention, shows you how to achieve them with the tools you already have. The same principles apply in any program. Here’s the link to the video on Red Giant Software.

Smile boys! You're in the movies!

Color correction can do so much in setting the tone of your work. Don’t let the opportunity pass you by because you feel like it’s out of reach.

Let’s go tell some stories!

Kip

Visual Effects as Story

Visual effects are often thought of as eye-candy– a great way to generate excitement and create production value. My post, Action With Purpose discussed why action needs to be about more than excitement. Visual effects are no different.

One of my favorite visual effects is the not-so-humble lense flare. J.J. Abrams and Michael Bay love to use them in their films. It’s easy to see how a director could fall in love with all the lights and colors adding life to their images. We see these great visual effects used in such expert ways and pretty soon we want to throw them on everything.

Visual effects must always support your story. A pointless (but cool looking) sky replacement of churning clouds can be distracting. Buildings crumbling around your hero need to further the mood the director wants. A flaming sword needs to reflect the personality of the character wielding it. Every effect must integrate into storytelling.

The focus of a shot needs to remain where it should be. If the bright explosions dominate the shot so well that we miss the hero kissing the girl– those explosions hurt the story instead of enhancing it.

I use a lot of After Effects, and I composite a great deal of my work. It’s easy to get caught up in the details of matching colors, motion blur and noise levels. I’ll add more and more effects to make it look even better! Lense flares start showing up everywhere. Before long the story is completely muddied beneath a blanket of effects.

Keep your visual effects in their place. Throwing them on everything can soon turn your story into a circus. Always know why you are adding an effect. “It looks cool,” should never be the answer– oh it had better look cool, but it must have a great reason behind it.

One of the best ways for visuals effects to enhance your story is through creating or assisting in the mood. Adding shadows can drastically help or change the mood of a scene. Sky replacement is a powerful tool both visually and metaphorically.

If you are interested in compositing, being a compositor or you’re a director that wants to know the capabilities of special effects, I highly recommend Video Copilot. This site will teach you from scratch how to use Adobe After Effects and it’s a free site. The tutorials are high quality and highly entertaining (hard to believe with tutorials, but it’s true).

When effects are created with story in mind, the entire experience becomes deeper. We understand the story better and the writing feels more solid. Effects can make or break the mood on a film.

Let’s go tell some stories!

Kip

Do Formulas Work?

Here’s an interesting question for you: Do story formulas work? It’s very hard to argue that they don’t. Hollywood churns out film after film using their tried and true formulas. We’ve seen it a thousand times.

Scientists and architects use formulas every day. They lay out the order of things and how different components interact to create the desired outcome. Formulas give us structure and help us create productively.

So, when it comes to storytelling, do formulas really work? My answer– sort of. It’s perfectly acceptable to use a formula to create the type of story you want. It helps to give bones to your fledgling story that you can build on. If Drake is our hero and we want him in a romantic comedy, there’s a structure there to help guide us along that path.

This is the problem with formulas: by and large they were created for marketing. Understand that marketing is a vital part of storytelling. What good is a story if no one hears it? If your story can’t generate the funds or response to justify itself, no subsequent stories can be told. Marketing and storytelling often go hand in hand.

However, stories dictated entirely by marketing have no soul. Many people think of stories as entertainment only (as well as product). Who cares if it has a soul as long as it makes money? Such thinking is perfectly understandable, but ultimately flawed.

The film industry is feeling the effects of decades worth of formula movies. Major news outlets are seeing the same effects from formula news stories. The typical ways of projecting behavioral patterns for audiences no longer work as they should. It’s harder and harder to predict success. Big names, big stars and big budgets don’t always equal dollars. A Superbowl spot doesn’t guarantee however much interest in your film.

People are turning to bloggers for their news. They’re playing video games instead of going to the movies. Some people would rather sit on Facebook than go out with their friends.

What are you getting at, Kip? Are you going round and round about nothing?

People want more than to be entertained.

They want truth and substance in their stories (pushing a political agenda is not truth or substance– simply more politics). It’s not enough for the hero to get the girl, have a great action sequence and beat the bad guy in the end. It’s not enough for the news to report on deaths in a war, have a nice story about a dog being rescued, and then have a debate on the latest bill in Congress.

Meaningless stories are meaningless. People can only be entertained for so long before they stop caring. Sure, they still want to be entertained, but they will wander ever farther to find that something that satisfies them. If your story lacks a soul and a purpose, your audience will praise you, pay you and ultimately forget you. It always catches up in the end.

Give your stories true meaning. Tell a story that matters. Even the lightest of action movies can serve a good purpose if you focus on making it matter. You don’t need to tell a Hallmark story to have a moral. Tell the stories that YOU want to tell, but this time give them purpose.

Let’s go tell some stories!

Kip

Write What You Don’t Know

The old adage, “Write what you know,” has served many writers well. It’s just smart to utilize your strengths. Even still, sometimes a storyteller does not have that luxury. A compelling idea might challenge you to explore areas you aren’t familiar with or more likely you’re assigned to work on a story by someone else. The subject matter and the desired results have already been decided and the task now falls to you to bring this concept to life.

The first task is to keep your standards of quality firm in your mind. Just because you don’t know much about the subject or someone else came up with the idea doesn’t mean you can deliver subpar results. Think of an actor who reads over his lines only to realize it’s nothing but dull cliché. His or her job is to take what they have been given and make it come alive on stage or screen. Our job as a storyteller is no different. We must take the framework we have and make it come alive.

How do you write what you don’t know and write it well?

Research helps a great deal. Some writers love to research, but others want to stick to the creative parts. It takes discipline to learn about a subject that doesn’t fascinate you. Do the hard work and get the good results. Even cursory glances at reference material can increase your credibility tremendously.

Consultants are invaluable. If possible, ask someone who knows about the subject to look over the material. Don’t be quick to assume you don’t know anyone with the knowledge you need. Ask around and you might be surprised who you find. Show them what you have. A nice conversation works well if you don’t have anything to show. Previously I posted about Criticism and Critique. Keep in mind that someone knowledgeable in an area will often be very insensitive when correcting your errors. These things are such basic knowledge to them that they can forget how harsh they sound. Thank them (out loud), forgive them (not out loud) and move on.

Remember that you don’t know. Just because you’ve done some research and talked to a couple of people doesn’t make you an expert. If possible, try not to delve too deeply into the parts you have weak knowledge in. The trick is to make it seem that you have deep knowledge. Otherwise your story will feel hollow and we will realize you are avoiding things. Say just enough to imply you know exactly what you are talking about and leave it be.

Write what you do know: people and emotion. Anchor your stories with solid character and compelling emotion. People relate to people, and you know people. Use it! Characters are your saving grace. You know situations as well. Even Drake the space captain knows the joy of winning a game or the loss of a death in his family. Weave your story into situations you understand.

If you create characters you can fall in love with, you will really enjoy a story you thought you might otherwise hate. Write what you don’t know by writing what you do.

Let’s go tell some stories!

Kip

Acting – Giving Your Characters Life

Every character has a life of their own. They have a voice, a history and a personality. Portraying that life on a stage or screen can at times be challenging, especially for characters with few lines.

You need to know who you’re portraying. Even a simple character needs more depth than a script provides on the surface. If the script describes a location as powerful vista, it’s up to the director, location manager and many other people to decide what those simple words mean. It has to take on color and texture. By the time it reaches the screen, that simple description has truly come alive.

As an actor, you have the same job and the same constraints. Often you can’t improvise new lines or change what happens with your character (be very careful about grabbing uncalled for attention to your character). You need to deliver the character as written, but it still needs some spice.

A quick look online or at any bookstore into personality profiles reveals that all people fall into categories. Sometimes you can tell who your character is, but when it’s less obvious– you must decide. Chose a personality that fits the script and that you personally find intriguing. Look at the other characters in your scenes. Do you see some interesting potential to spice up how those characters interact? Pick a personality that maximizes compelling interaction.

TypeLogic is just one site among many with information on the topic.

Unless you’re the star, your character exists to enhance the scene and/or the star. Be aware of that and do everything you can to be a true enhancement. The more you enhance what the director is trying to do the more valuable you become as an actor. That means one of the best ways to give your character some character is to enhance what the star is doing without trying to steal the scene. By making someone else look good, you are actually making yourself look better.

When conveying emotion, worry less about convincing people that your character feels a certain way and just act it out. Don’t work so hard at making sure your character looks confused or sad. If you’re trying to look angry instead of portraying anger it often seems fake. Just think about how people really behave. Most real people don’t go out of their way to portray an emotion in every sentence. Your characters should act the same.

If you know who your character is, you will do a better job of giving them life.

Let’s go tell some stories!

Kip

Neat Technology – Inkling

Here’s a neat piece of technology coming out this month. It’s made by Wacom so it will be high quality. Seems like a perfect way to make digital sketches on any kind of paper when you’re away from the computer. Doodling in a sketchbook just got more interesting!

Punishing Your Heroes

When learning to create protagonists for your stories, it’s easy to feel that your hero needs to outsmart, outmaneuver and out fight everyone else. I mean, they’re the hero, right? It may seem counter-intuitive, but punishment and failure is a large part of your hero’s appeal.

Conversely, a hero that wins every moment of your story is downright annoying. The term, “Mary Sue” was born out of internet fan fiction to describe a character that is always better than everyone else at anything imaginable. Universally reviled, the Mary Sue has better jokes, more knowledge, a grander history and simply cannot fail. Real characters have flaws– strengths and weaknesses.

Think of Rocky. We love to root for the hero when he’s taken such a beating that it seems he can’t go on. To have that wonderful moment, the director was willing to show his hero punched in the face repeatedly.

Many underdog characters are the brunt of jokes throughout their own stories. Even though the underdog is the hero, other characters constantly make fun of them. You can use that to build towards a climax where the hero finally proves his or herself. It can make for a triumphant moment.

I’ve already discussed how your hero is only as cool as your villain. The antagonist might be a character or it might be circumstance. Either way, when your villain punishes your hero it makes your villain look better. Then in turn, because a cool villain makes your hero more impressive– your hero looks that much better as well. It may seem like a paradox, but this cycle really does feed itself.

Adversity makes your hero shine.

Most of us know that our hero needs challenges. Now here’s the challenge for you: push your heroes beyond your comfort zone. Maybe he or she loses everything– family, job, possessions, etc… Your hero might be vitally injured. They could lose their gun or other necessary tools that make them so successful. Part of what makes this work is punishing that hero in ways you didn’t initially plan; forcing your character (and in turn yourself) to improvise for success makes your story far better than allowing your character to proceed as expected. My only cautionary note would be to avoid horrific injuries that alter your character’s appearance. That step should only be undertaken as an intentional choice for your story and/or character.

Naturally, the protagonist needs to succeed as well. Try to avoid making their success an accident or you end up with a lame failure that just got lucky. It’s their perseverance in the face of punishment and failure that makes their victory so sweet.

Let’s go punish some heroes!

Kip