Back in the print era, writers worked with photographers at newspapers and magazines to produce stories. Some editors seemed to expect the photographers to simply illustrate the stories told by the writers. But the better ones devised a different process with a richer outcome.
They saw that the visual and editorial narratives worked together more like interlocking vines, snaking in and out to produce a product much greater than the sum of its parts.
When we got the mixture right, there was an interactive chain that moved, much like how musical notes flow with words in a song.
And that’s true for good story-telling in any form.
The process becomes more complex when you move from the world of print into multimedia — radio, TV, and the movies. Now, the actual or mediated voices and images of people enter the space between you and your audience.
It’s easy to overdo it. Then the story becomes preachy or melodramatic like in a soap opera. Good editors know that in most cases, less is more., and just to let the sounds and the pictures tell the story.
Silences become magnified, which is useful in any medium.
In the end, in any good story, what the teller leaves out, the listener will fill in.
No comments:
Post a Comment