Telling a story is a powerful way to communicate, whether it's through the written word, spoken word or in video.
Unfortunately it’s common for video newbies and non-professionals to go out and shoot willy-nilly and then fall in love with everything they shot. This makes it nearly impossible for them to pick the best bits to edit into a short, compelling video.
Organizing is an important aspect of telling a good story. If you decide on a basic organizing story line, the presentation will be more focused. Having a guiding structure makes editing decisions easier and should prevent your "story" from jumping all over the place.
Here are 5 types of structure to organize stories better:
Problem- Solution: Spell out what the problem is. Offer the solution your product, service or expertise delivers. (This is the most common structure to use. Marketers sometimes call describing the problem as agitating the pain.)
Cause and Effect: This happened and because of it, that happened.
Comparison – Contrast: Explain and show why these things are similar or these things are different. (a whole video could be only looking at a comparison or only contrast or you can mix the two in one video.)
Chronology: Organizing a story by the time on the clockface. At 8 am this happened. By noon, this was the situation.
History: Back in the 1800's, we did this but times have changed. Now we do this… (similar to chronology but with a wider sweep – a more historical perspective)
Keep these organizing storylines in mind when you’re writing a script or producing news-style videos where you assemble the story after you’ve shot it. Your videos will be more effective if you can present crisp and focused stories with some underlying organization
(BTW, this post was problem-solution. Did you notice? Just sayin'…)
Thoughts?