Tag Archives: story structure

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

June 19, 2023

Posted under

Behind the Scenes, Interviews

Comments

Leave a comment

5 Strategies to Simplifying Video for Social Media

Attention spans are short, and scrolling through social media feeds has become a daily routine. This cultural phenomenon makes capturing and maintaining our audience’s attention crucial.

Video messages are a powerful tool for communication on social media platforms, but to make an impact, they need to be concise, clear, and engaging. There are five effective strategies for simplifying video messages to communicate your message to your target audience effectively.

Craft a Clear and Compelling Message

The first step is to define a clear and compelling message in your visual voice. Identify the core objective of your video. What do you want your audience to take away from it? Once you have a clear goal, distill your message into a concise statement or key points. Avoid excessive jargon or complex explanations that might confuse or disengage viewers.

Consider using a storytelling approach to communicate your message effectively. Narratives with a beginning, middle, and end are compelling and can captivate your audience. Structure your video in a way that hooks viewers from the start, keeps them engaged throughout, and concludes with a memorable ending.

Keep it Short and Sweet (KISS)

Attention spans on social media are notoriously short, so keep your video message concise. Aim for videos that are at most two minutes in length. Grab your viewers’ attention within the first four seconds and maintain their interest throughout. Be mindful of the pacing, avoiding unnecessary repetitions or rabbit trails that could cause your audience to lose interest.

One effective way to simplify your video message is to focus on a single key idea or takeaway. Resist the temptation to overload your video with too much information. Instead, break complex topics into smaller, digestible chunks and create separate videos if needed. Remember, brevity is key to maximizing engagement on social media platforms.

Use Visuals and Graphics

Visual aids and graphics can significantly enhance the simplicity and impact of your video message. Support your narrative by illustrating key points with relevant visuals, such as images, charts, or infographics. Visual elements like storyboards can be fun and make information easier to remember.

When using graphics, choose clean and uncluttered designs that align with your brand identity and the overall tone of your video. Avoid overwhelming viewers with too much stimulation or information. Instead, focus on conveying the most crucial information visually.

Optimize for Mobile Viewing

Smartphones make up about 70% of internet traffic, so optimize your video message for mobile viewing. Ensure that your video is compatible with various screen sizes and orientations. Also, many viewers watch videos with the sound off, so consider using subtitles or captions.

Video load time is a critical consideration since most viewers won’t wait for your video to load. There is little loyalty when it comes to impatient wait times. Most individuals are likely to click on a faster-loading video from your competitor.

Compressing your video file size without compromising quality can help improve loading times. Prioritize high-quality visuals while keeping the file size as small as possible.

Call-to-Action and Follow-up

To maximize the video’s impact, conclude with a clear and compelling call-to-action (CTA). What action do you want your viewers to take after watching the video? Whether it’s visiting your website, subscribing to your channel, or sharing the video with others, make it explicit and easy to follow.

Often the CTA drives engagement in the comments section or direct messages. Respond promptly to questions, comments, and feedback to fuel engagement and foster a sense of community. Actively participate in the conversation surrounding your video message to help build trust and credibility with your audience.

Simplify Your Video Message

Simplifying video messages for social media is essential to communicate with your target audience. By crafting a clear and compelling message, keeping your videos short and engaging, incorporating visual aids and graphics, optimizing for mobile viewing, and including a strong call-to-action, you can create impactful video content that resonates with viewers.

Remember, simplicity is key to capturing your audience’s attention, making a memorable impression, driving engagement, and increasing brand awareness. All of which help you achieve your communication goals.

Copyright © 2023 by CJ Powers

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 9, 2018

Posted under

Filmmaking

Comments

Leave a comment

Launching a Story With an Inciting Incident

Most stories open with an attention-getting beat that reveals something likeable about the main character or the evil of the uber bad guy that he’ll face. This is followed by a series of scenes that demonstrate what the main character’s normal life is like. But audiences won’t hang on too long when it comes to emotionally flat experiences, so within a short time the storyteller must launch the main story using an inciting incident.

The inciting incident is a dynamic event or fully developed moment that radically upsets the main character’s status quo. The clear and obvious trigger throws the main character’s life out of balance. This action-based circumstance can either happen to the main character or be an unexpected ramification of a decision he makes.

princessholo-e1523289223415.jpeg
The inciting incident can be simple like receiving a letter, diagnosis, pink slip, or phone call. In Star Wars, the inciting incident was a hologram of Princess Leia asking Obi-Wan for help. Luke Skywalker was intrigued by her plea and decided that he was going to help her.

A successful inciting incident, not one that is stagnant or vague, drives the main character to make a decision that will change his life forever. The specific event places him on a story path of obstacles that turns his weakness into a strength. The event also raises the central question of the movie for the first time. In the case of Star Wars, the question is, “Will Luke help or save the princess?”

The single event must also cause the main character to clearly see that his life is now out of balance for better or worse. He must not only react to this positive or negative change, but he must respond as well. In other words, the incident must arouse a desire in him to restore the balance in his life, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual—or all three.

The main character is therefore compelled to pursue his new goal of rebalancing his life. This stimulation becomes both a conscious and a subconscious desire. The subconscious driving force comes naturally for a complex character and shows up in the form of him suffering from an intense internal battle, especially if his conscious desire is in direct opposition or conflict with his subconscious desire.

Some writers refer to this internal battle as reflecting the character’s wants versus his needs. Many times the human condition causes us to chase after our wants, only to learn that we got what we needed instead. This righting of the unbalanced internal desire presents itself in a plot twist on screen—allowing for a realistic ending, while still pleasing the audience.

The key to developing an inciting incident is to make sure it launches a compelling character goal that will hold the audience’s attention and drive the story. The goal must be something that the main character can’t discard, because if he does, lots of innocent people will suffer—developing empathy within the hearts of the audience.

The trigger must do more than make the main character care. He must take action. If he merely cares, the story will fail to cause the audience to care, hindering the film’s box office results. This makes the inciting incident an important factor in developing a feature length story. Unfortunately many independent filmmakers treat inciting incidents as an insignificant piece of the story and wonder why their film doesn’t keep the audience’s attention for its duration.

© Copyright 2018 by CJ Powers
Standard

Posted by

Posted on

March 23, 2018

Posted under

Filmmaking

Comments

Leave a comment

Confident Creations

© Peter Kim - Fotolia.comI recently coached a young filmmaker who wrote a short story that demonstrated a significant amount of confidence in his work. The artistic choices were bold and he didn’t allow any inexperience to slow his approach. The script was resolute in his desire to thrill the audience. The boldness of the character alone was enough to capture the audience’s attention as he struggled to discover what had happened to him.

This confidence in one’s art comes from practice and exploration. There is no other teacher that can raise the tone necessary for the proper development of a story. An internal boldness must surface in order to birth a vision of magnitude.

“The more you practice, learn, and make discoveries, the more confident you will be!” —Tim Delaney, Concept Development

Confidence is not the sole key to successfully developing a story. All creations need to take on a life of its own and transform throughout, as the plot points are ticked off, heading diligently toward the climax.

However, the backbone of any good story rises from the creator’s viewpoint and must stay intact, yet flexible. In this case, the filmmaker chose to shoot a short film in order to entice investors or distributors to bring a feature version of his story to the silver screen. He purposely left out the ending of the short story to enhance the audience’s desire to see the feature to find out how things end.

While raising a central, unanswered question certainly seeds a desire for more, it doesn’t prove that the filmmaker knows how to tell a complete story. If I were investing, I’d watch his short film and realize that he has a beginning, middle, and no ending. I’d feel ripped off and wonder if the feature will also leave the audience hanging or unsatisfied.

His choice isn’t uncommon. There is a trend in filmmakers leaving short films open ended. While it’s unsettling to the audience, it shifts the focus from the director’s ability to tell a story to his ability to make something look and feel cool. Many young filmmakers are more interested in the look and feel of a project than in giving the audience a resolving end to the story.

Unfortunately, films with only a beginning and middle do poorly at the box office. Even short films with solid endings outperform “impact films” 10 to 1. One reason is that a person won’t tell others about a film that doesn’t resolve. Very few will watch the film a second time because the impact is only good at the first viewing. All subsequent viewings require a satisfying ending.

The film or the creation must be crafted with skill and confidence to be effective, but it also must have an ending to elicit ticket sales. Otherwise, the audience will be much smaller and the film seldom watched more than once.

Copyright © 2018 by CJ Powers