Storytelling Tip

When you tell a story, it's useful to use images to "set the stage". For example, if you are on vacation, take lots of background and "ambiance" pictures. Because we all like to make connections, images placed closely to other images in either time or proximity will be automatically assumed to have some connection to each other. With the image above, you're creating the opportunity to tell a story about your vacation, a trip to Disneyland or even your ride on the Jungle Cruise.

Combining Images and Video

I created this DVD Navigator using images and an old Super 8 film (converted to digital). The videos are from a visit to Disneyland around 1963. I used template driven software that is made by aVinci Media (the company I work for). I'm the lead kid hanging on for dear life. At the time I was very afraid of the swinging bridge. That's my Dad in the images and my Mom in the video.

The navigator is used on a DVD to show you what you can do with the DVD, in this case, Play a Movie or Slideshow. These "spinups" are especially useful in creating the appearance of a professional product. They can tell a story all by themselves.

Photography Tip

Add a new and interesting perspective to your images. Simply choose a lens or lens setting of 20mm or less (ideally less than 16mm). The resulting image will be one with a unique perspective. The image above was taken with a Nikon D 200 and DX AF 10.5 mm lens.

Note, it's okay to get in the water with the subject.

Of Interest: I've seen research that the focal length of the human eye is equivalent to between 17mm and 25mm camera lens. More commonly, it is thought that the human eye really sees the equivalent of 22mm to 25mm.

Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa's first apartment. The surprise was finding a description in my grandmothers handwriting on the back completing the story.

The Chart of Many Bubbles

Way back in 2002, when less than 10% of cameras sold were digital. I looked at what it would take to simplify the art of telling a story in multimedia. It seemed to me that multimedia would be an emerging opportunity. My main motivation was to find a way to allow people to "give voice" to their stories. I wanted to hear the stories of my friends and family in their own words. I wanted to know what made them who they were. Still images, video tapes and books did not seem like the answer. Over time, it became obvious that three things were necessary.

Individual Expertise

Probably the most difficult thing was to have an idea. What did you want to do? If you have never done something, how would you know what you could do? You also need motivation, and lots of it. Storytelling is a daunting task. You needed content and industry information showed that more than 1 trillion printed images were stored in shoe boxes and darkened closets. In many cases you knew something about the images (context) and in many cases you did not. For example, I found an image in an old album my Dad had stored in the garage. It appeared that my grandfather was in the image with my grandmother, but they were very young. I asked my Dad if that was grandpa and grandma, he said "no". I took the image out of the book and their in my grandmothers handwriting were the words "our first apartment". Case solved. You also needed artistic ability and technical competency. No wonder storytelling was a lost art.

Hardware

You needed digital cameras, personal computers, printers, video cameras, tape players, tape recorders, VHS, Beta, D3, Video Tape, Film etc. All these were the capture and create devices. With one device you would capture moments through images, video, sound and with others, you would publish those moments in a form that others (and yourself) could enjoy. Things like prints, movies, DVD's, CD's and anything you could think imagine.

Software

The interface between humans and machines is software. Software tells the machine what to do. Only problem is, software was (and is) designed by engineers. Engineers just love a challenge. So the more powerful the software, the harder is is to learn, use etc. Imagine needing to learn a new language in order to use a pair of scissors!


Next: What did I learn from scrapbookers?

Digital Photography and Video

From childhood I have been interested in photography. I remember the first camera I owned, a Kodak Instamatic and the anticipation between the time I looked through the plastic viewfinder to dropping off the film at the store to opening the envelop that contained the prints. Blurred Black and White Images greeted my expectations and they were great!

My Dad was in the Navy before I was born and while he was in Japan, he bought a 35mm Nikon camera. I was fascinated by the camera. My grandfather too loved to travel the west and photograph people and places. His brother was an avid photographer, owning a Hasselblad (the one they took to the moon) with lots of lenses. Uncle Dee even had a darkroom in his house and during his active years captured hundreds of thousands of images.

In college, I studied film. Film, different from photography, captures not a single moment in time, but a "slice" of time. In those days, it was a very, very expensive pursuit to create a film. Not only was the equipment expensive, but the film, developing, effects and prints were tens of thousand of dollars. Not only did we make and edit films, we also studied Film History and Theory.

One of the classes I took was in the School of Architecture. In that class, the major assignment was to take a 35mm camera and tell a story with still images. This was probably the most challenging assignment I received. How do you tell a story with a still camera?

Film making has a structure. Storytelling has a structure. The easiest way to define it is to think about a story. Stories have a beginning, middle and an end. Lots of great filmmakers will tell you that they are just good storytellers. Stories without structure are confusing or boring to those who view them. More on storytelling later.

Movies also use techniques like "contrast and compare" to tell you about a character. Making movies, contrary to the current thinking, is about more than owning a video camera and nice editing software. The fact that so few films see theatrical release is a testament to this.

Fast forward the Digital Age. When the digital age came along, I have to admit I was not impressed. Low image quality and printing on a home printer were horrible. My first digital camera was a Sony Mavica MVC-FD7. It stored images on a 3.5" floppy drive of all things.

I avoided any more digital experience until about 2002 when I bought a Nikon D1 (don't ask, it fit a lot of Lenses I owned with my F100) Now I own a Nikon D3. I think that Nikon has finally figured it out. Lenses that match the sensor and compliment each other.

In late 2002 I got really interested in multimedia and researched scrapbooking because it provided a template of how an industry was born. Original Photo Albums were a $100 million dollar business but over a decade, scrapbooking took the industry to new levels and and estimated $3 billion in annual sales. I studied this for more than a year, noting what people did, what they valued and how the word got out.

Next: Multimedia and the Chart of Many Bubbles