Visual Storytelling in Cinema

Telling your story visually is key in filmmaking as well as photography. Visual storytelling are sets of techniques that are used to tell the story rather than narrating everything about the story. There is a phrase known amongst many filmmakers/photographers, “Show, Don’t Tell”, the notion behind the phrase is that you want to show the story rather than tell. Instead of having a character for example narrate “I want seconds on that dish”, you can show shots of the character looking at their plate empty, to then looking at the food over the counter. 

This can also be done in photography, with compositioning of your images. Another way is photography series, this way you are able to string sequences of images together to create a story. 

There are many elements of filmmaking techniques that can enhance your visual storytelling, in this reading we’ll focus on a few of them. One of which is Rules of thirds which we had gone over briefly in our previous reading last week. There are also Leading Lines, Shallow Depth of Field, Wide, Medium and Close up shots. We will understand what they are and how to use them in order to effectively tell a story visually. 

Leading lines can help draw the audience's attention toward the subject, this can be used to serve your story. Shallow Depth of Field allows you to put importance to a subject, by having the focal point on a subject with the rest of the frame out of focus, letting the audience know the order of importances. This can be done with the combination of Leading lines as well, to draw attendance to the selected subject. 

By using different kinds of shot, such as wide, medium and close up, it creates a different purpose to the storytelling. Wide shots are often used to establish a scene, allowing the audience to understand the setting. This is done because of the amount of information that is allowed to fit within the frame since it is a lot wider in comparison to that of a closeup shot. Closeup shots are used to put emphasis on a subject, it can allow the audience to understand the emotion of a character or create a level of intimacy between the viewer and the subject that is in the frame. Medium shots, is used to emphasize both the actor and their surroundings by giving them an equal presence on screen. The Director of Photography uses a medium shot to clearly show the actor's face and emotions while still informing the audience of what’s going on in the world around them.

CITATION:

Visual storytelling. Accessed June 6, 2024.

https://www.intofilm.org/resources/3046/visual-storytelling-v03.pdf

“Visual Storytelling 101.” YouTube, November 4, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWQQgZh9EyE

“The Language of Visual Storytelling.” YouTube, September 29, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xjJc2nb-Dk

“Film 101: What Is a Medium Shot? Understanding the Essentials of Using a Medium Shot in Film - 2024.” MasterClass. Accessed June 7, 2024. https://www.masterclass.com/articles/film-101-what-is-a-medium-shot-understanding-the-essentials-of-using-a-medium-shot-in-film