Does the
story offer a hook? Are you immediately interested?
Is the focus
of the video clear from the beginning?
Are there
points where it gets muddy or confusing?
Has the
artists consider the visual elements clearly enough and do the visual elements
align with the story? In other words, are they of the same style?
Given what
you’ve seen from the first 16 panels, what are your expectations about what
will come next?
What are you
most interested in finding out?
How has the
artist considered the interests of the audience?
Rate the storyboard on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the highest.
Here is a good tutorial about how to use the iMovie Ken Burns effect.
Take a look at this video that captures Ken Burns' effects in one of his documentaries:
And hear what Ken Burns has to say about story, particularly about how all stories are manipulation:
In reviewing the short videos that you all created from JoAnn Beard's essay, I noticed a few common missteps. When you are contemplating your own final video project, consider the following as you create your images, footage, narration, colors, and style:
1. Are all of the elements working together? In other words, do you have a certain style in your video that remains consistent? Do you have a color palette or a visual style that you are adhering to? Are you interrupting the flow of the experience by adding dissonant or inconsistent images that take the viewer out of the piece?
2. Are you utilizing all of the available tools to enhance the viewing experience? In the podcast, you explored how to use sound effects and music to immerse the listener in the story. Now, you have those elements, as well as visual enhancements such as pictures, written words, and color, and the narrative aspects of the piece. If you are using only one or two of these things, your video will be flat.
3. Are you using the title of your piece to give the viewer extra information about the focus of the video essay? Your title is another way to tell your story; to give the viewer and idea of not just what the content will be, but what your intention is. Think of the video we watched about the girl with life-threatening diabetes. That was called "Midnight Three and Six" not "Diabetes." The creator of that video used the title to reinforce the structure of the piece (remember how the alarm went off at those times), and to illustrate how difficult it is to manage the illness. Use your title as another way to tell your story.
4. Does your video have a clear beginning, middle, and end, and is your message or central idea clear? You are now using visual elements to tell a story, but you are still telling a story. You should be weaving in all of the things we've discussed about writing and story-telling: specificity, vivid imagery, showing rather than telling, and digger deeper for insights, moving below the surface.
