Show - Don’t Tell
This is the number one rule of telling great stories.
From my 📷 YouTube MOC notes
From Storr-The Science of Storytelling:
- ‘instead of telling us a thing was “terrible”, describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description.’
How to introduce characters
For my third F1TENTH video, I had a lot of interviews. I felt that adding these interviews added more commitment to the story. But the reality is that it felt really boring to just see people getting interviewed.
- Like you can do it for 30 seconds max
I also realize that I let the footage dictate the way I edit. But that shouldn’t be it. I guess footage should help guide, but you have a certain vision of the footage. Don’t get carried away. Remember what Casey Neistat says:
Writing
Mary Shelley’s introduction to Frankenstein’s monster:
- Notice the filmic word order, the specificity and show-not-tell.
“It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burned out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite care and pains I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great god! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth was of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.”