3 Easy Tips for GREAT Storytelling 

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I am SO happy that Tim Schmoyer shared your channel on his Twitter.. oh my goodness, I am HOOKED! Your channel (at least the 2 videos I've watched thus far) is pure gold!! I can't wait to watch all of your videos & continue learning from you. :)

Loving these vids. Keep them coming. We find that flash backs to relevant previous footage helps build a deeper connection with our audience. Pro tip back at ya 🙃

Some tips/techniques that I find useful: 1. Unless you're cutting a music video, don't cut to music too tightly. Edits become predictable and boring. 2. As others have said, key things short, but let the shot dictate how long it needs to be. Fast cutting works fine for some shots, but other shots (drama, comedy, reactions) need time to play out. 3. Regarding most edits, I like to start late and leave early. Dragging out the beginning of a shot can kill its impact and hanging too long can make the shot drag. 4. Think of all your edits in 3s. Each clip should somehow connect with the one that precedes it and the one that follows. Don't get hung up on individual clips or the edit sequence won't flow. 5. Show your work to people you trust for feedback and try to re-edit to make it better. Don't seek out people who will always praise your work (you won't improve) and avoid people who always have toxic critiques (passion killers). 6. Keep shooting/editing.

Establishment shots are a great way to give CONTEXT in a VISUAL way. Showing a few landmarks gives instant information where the characters are at. Quick and simple. And to take this even further you could start in a subway and show a local newspaper which gives the information of the location.

Shorter is better as long as you can complete the thought within that time, i usually find a short piece of music that i can build around, great tips. Realizing ive been using these techniques for a while! This is a great refreshing reminder. Thanks!

Thank you for this excellent succinct video on storytelling.

Jeff great video and great tips! And it's a small world - You're in California and you have family in Ohio and we're originally from Southern California and we now live in Ohio. And yes the winters are very beautiful here. Thanks again for your videos! Sincerely, Eric & Tara

Hi and thank you for this informative video that says it all in a succinct way.

Great stuff as always. I just went through my scripts to check if any of these tips were included. Super helpful Jeff!

"Thanks for the amazing storytelling tips! Your 3 easy tips were so practical and insightful. I'm already seeing how they'll help me improve my storytelling skills. Your explanations were clear, and the examples you provided were very helpful. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experience with us. The overall production quality of the video was fantastic. Thanks again for creating such a helpful resource!"

Thanks for the great tip Jeff! Much appreciate the regular content! MY TIP 1: Record as much footage as possible, and build a story later if you havent done so beforehand. You can always write a small voice over script you can do over the videos you have shot. An example would be little 5 second clips with your phone at your family Christmas (other religious event) Party. I have a video called "What is life" on my channel that I did this exact tip with. TIP 2: If filming family etc, always interview them. Ask them questions relevant to the day/occasion etc. Even if you don't use it, it's a golden nugget that if you don't capture it, you will never have it.

Thank You for the helpful tips.

Love this, and the "short is better" tip" at the end. I do comedy and when I look back at a video i finished, I'm amazed (and ashamed) how often I can then spot the self-indulgent or soft spots, EVEN when i went after then with a machete over and over when I was editing. Great Stuff. Thanks. - PS as a muddling amateur self-taught Premiere user (I saw you use it in the no-known-ending-vlog video), hearing from a pro on just how you organize/sort/work timelines/whatever/optimize your workflow is a video I would kill for. There's never enough time in life, and if I can find tips on how to do the editing better/faster/less-messy, I love it. Thank you again

Gotta know when to pause. The pause is one of the most important parts of storytelling!

Very helpful! Feel free to make more of those videos :)

jeff i really do apreciat you giving us these tips ..you have no idea how much you have helped me ...i still have so much to learn and so much more to put in practice but every time i watch these i grasp a little more ....one of these days i will make enough money to pay the 97 bucks ..and i know it will be well wourth it

I would love to see a video on how to improve at speaking a written story already created. Also, to answer your question a great pause in a story can really help.

Love your vids man! I came to you through Tim Schmoyer. Do more please! I took a college level film class in high school, but that was 15 years ago. Now I'm doing a RU-vid Outdoor channel. Your tips are picking up right where I left off, and helping me brush up on forgotten skills! Thanks again!

Thanks Jeff, these videos will once have 1.000.001 views, they're incredibly helpful

I’m obsessed with your videos! Love this. Thank you!! 🙌🏼

Jeff thanks for sharing these important principles of storytelling.

Loving your videos. Great info in all of them!

VISUAL storytelling + shorter is better: This could've been applied to your first tip starting at 00:26 which for me felt way too long. Visuals play a good role in storytelling as well and this is called SHOW - DON'T TELL. Using visuals can make your projects a lot shorter because saying something can take a long time. You could've done something like this: "We are spending our holidays in a house middle of the woods in Ohio" *fast forward to the house* shorter.

Can you give an example of a video that does the opposite of constantly revealing new info? I am having a hard time wrapping my head around what the concept means. -I am a new subscriber - love what you are doing. Thank you Thank you thank you

Great video! I struggle with my family events/vlogs. Usually don’t know how to end. Would love a video about how to sequence a vlog type video with examples.

2020 here and still very relevant video. great tips for story telling. Thank you!

thanks for the tips

My tip, take Dan O'Bannon's advice on page 63 of his screenplay book where he compares his system vs others. Their systems are 'striving' based. His is 'fight' based. Think of every scene as a fight. Doesn't have to be repelling a siege. Might be a waitress sloshing coffee. It makes it easier to do the beginning, middle , end thinking as a chain of 60 to 90 fights. Or, it's easier for me. I was very pleased that I came up with this exact idea about two weeks before I read it in O'Bannon's book. A warm fuzzy of confirmation enveloped me. My other big tip, almost every interesting story consists of a build to a showdown. You can cite some movie and think "That was no showdown." No, it probably was if it paid of in a satisfying way.

Love your style. You’re going to do super well, keep going,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,!

Just found this video, Jeff. Love your work. Gonna make a great difference in the work I'm looking to do on my channel. Thanks for sharing your great ideas with us all :)

I am truly still learning! I have no Idea sometimes what I am doing but I am making progress. Thank you again for all the great tips Much Love #BE Yourself!

Thanks

Hold on I had to pause to get my note book and pen. ( yeah I have to write this stuff down on paper none the less) okay un pause. Great video I think it's time to binge watch

I grew in Kentucky on the Ohio River. Those shots take me back to my old romping grounds. Thanks for the upload, great info btw! Thanks! =S= Sha

Hey Jeff, you deserve a bigger audience. Great content man!

Thank you so much. This was incredibly helpful.

Love this Jeff, thanks!

I've started using storyboards. Helps me loads!

Great stuff Jeff. Thanks for this.

Always great advice from you.. Thank you so much!

Thank you!! Nice tips !!

Nice work man! Thanks for your insight

Please you send the more tips about storytelling and also about the small talk

In response to your question, while studying script writing some years ago, I found Blake Snyder's "Save the Cat" really offered a fresh perspective to making a winning film/story. And while the RU-vid world doesn't get into tools like generating a Framework, Treatment, Trailer, etc, one of Blake's high-level concepts still applies. We should always be mindful of how we can "sell" the video's NAME and ONE LINER (tagline). In other words, having the greatest film/story/episode/YT post ever produced, if our suspects/prospects/target audience just don't get it (or even pop up on the radar screen), no one will be interested to even try the proverbial taste test of your "story well told" (to quote Robert McKee). Bottom line, start with the end in mine - not just you the cameraman, actor, director ... but you the Executive Producer/Marketing Promoter - if your target audience won't nibble on the bait, don't bother putting your heart, soul, time and money going down the production rabbit hole!

Jeff, thanks for the great tips, and nice DP work. I linked from Stage32. My tip: know where the story starts, then I write an epitaph for my story. Ginny Monroe #Masterplayer #Seamaster

1 tip we have is to pick a central theme and make sure each part of your story connects to that.

Great info. Thanks

wow thank you

Great video

It would be a nice idea to put a link to your book Edit Better: Hollywood-Tested Strategies for Powerful Video Editing in all of yuor descriptions. Be nice to talk about your book as it pertains to the Thing under the Thing . You are brilliant you have so much to offer. I am finding al the puzzle scattered on the floor. I want all the pieces to be put on the table so that I can put the puzzle together table of cotents of all that you have to offfer on your website. :) Yes, I watched the video with the puzzle. I am watching all of your content one video at a time love your stuff I love the way you explain things shown on screen in written form brilliant.

Thank you

Great content! You have a new subscriber!

Great content; Keep it coming!

I’m guilty of wandering and letting the video be long. Funny how going shorter takes MORE work and preparation. It’s a good exercise I could stand to focus on more.

Thanks for sharing, great channel, subscribed to your channel.

I love these videos

Nice video! I always keep stuck in visual techniques when trying to improve my editing and forget about story so quickly, while it's the most important factor of every part of the process. Talking about music... I've seen the trend of cutting to the beat rising up like crazy. But I've always prefered cutting first and letting the edit decide what music will come, not the other way around (while that sometimes might work well too). I'm talking to composers right now to fix this in the most professional way by adding their talent to my work and giving clients the chance to buy tailored music to the stuff I edit. If anyone will buy that is not the question, but what do you think about it? I'm pretty sure you cut to the beat a lot and I assume you're required to do so often times in your television work and not given much choice (correct me if I'm wrong!). While I know that cutting to different parts of a beat is helpful to not bore the audience (now I remember that you taught me that), I think it's mostly lazy and uninspired. And I say mostly, not always. It can be great. Also, I saw the amazing offer you're making on your book, where one get can get it for cheap on your website. I am super interested in that physical book option (or VIP) because I really want a physical copy, but there are only credit card options available, and I don't have one at the moment :/ Any chance you could extend it to Paypal somehow? Agh, and last question (this is getting big). I make subtitles for most of the videos from one of my greatest learning resources out there, This Guy Edits. Doing them has helped the channel reach out to a larger audience (those with hearing problems), at least we hope so, and has helped me, by going through everything word for word, better understand the videos. I do those for free but I consider it rather a "thank you" than anything else because I like to support channels that give out valuable information for free. Whether it be with a financial goal or not - it's information that I'd otherwise have to pay for. I left film school because of people like Sven and you who give me way greater advice on how to improve my editing and storytelling. So if you're interested, I'd be happy to help the channel out that way. I only do this actively for Sven so far, just because I love his content so much, you would be the only other channel if you'd be interested. Not that I'm begging to help, I mean it does take time for me to do those subs, so consider if you really need or want them first. However, I'd be happy to help!

Thanks for the tips :)

Great job 👍

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very helpful!

#qotd what should you do if you go to edit your video and find some didn't come out (audio didn't capture / video is poor) and you can't go back to your shooting location?

Like these videos! Can you make a video about how to make blogs interesting? We usually dont do too much vlogs, because everytime we do them it somehow is just random footage of the day and we are having trouble to add them up into a story when we hit the editing section. Can you give tips on how to do great storytelling while blogging?

Do people know what the word context means and is context the same as story? I

I can understand the perspective of the video dragging. I think it would have felt snappier for various reasons. I think your point was to tell the story visually and audibly. And the visual parts at times made it seem like it was dragging especially because it was basically a tip video. But I think you messed teaching and experience together well and it was aspirational to do both. If you told them separately, I think the person may not have felt that way.

Cool

First time story teller and I am yet to come with the story

my story is a christian story the title is the birth of jesus i tried my best ti say tge story my parents were lustening they said its not very good and i deliever the words very fast abd this video helped me thank you☺️😁❤️🥰

We could talk on the please subscribe thing. Bill, you need too more, but proper. You got this make a video thing bro

What do you do if no one you personally know is willing to tell you the truth and no one subscribes or gives feedback even to help you out ? Sorta the predicament I’m in

First, always set up your context where your characters are and what they are doing. Explain more rather than less Beginning Midlle End Where does the start begin? Where do the beginning end and the middle start, where does the middle end and where does the end start, and what is the moral of the story? Constantly Review New information. This is what unlocked all the doors for me. What I did was I created one minute Video, each one-minute Video, said what it is about, and talked about each point for one minute. Then, at the end of one minute, say, "in the next Video. I will talk about this," say the point, and keep going until you have completed the story. In the next Video, the training wheels on the bicycle. At the end of the Video. I will remove this "in the next Video, discuss this, and add transitions for each one-minute Video. Some videos add the thing of the thing.

He looks a little like Jacob dylan

Lol born and raised in ohio, im not a fan of the weather