Story ideas visualization

The mockumentary is one particular comedic story frame the writer has other options to choose from, as well. Comedy runs the gamut from farce, which is principally visual, to more sophisticated forms, where character and dialogue are more important. If the idea is character oriented, what are the characteristics that lend themselves to comic opportunity If they are physical, the comedy is aimed at the character to put it another way, we laugh at the character. If the characteristics are more behavioral, we have a broader band of comic opportunity. We needn t laugh at the character, but we may laugh with the character. How does the source of humor blend with your attitude about the idea If we laugh at your character, in other words, does it undermine or support your idea ... 

Using comedy should help your story. It should make your story seem fresh, and it can, if deployed well, energize your story. Comedy, whether farcical or cerebral, visual or verbal, can help you frame your story in such a way that your idea is strengthened. 

Not all film ideas are inherently visual, especially those that concern complex or technical issues. If you haven t found a sufficiently visual story through which to explore these issues, it s likely that you ll try to find general visuals that will at least put some images on screen as your experts and/or narrator speak. For a story on educational policy, for example, you might spend an afternoon filming at a local elementary school for a story on aging, you might attend a physical therapy session at a local hospital. This material is often described as... 

I like the idea of creating visual beds, particularly in a complex story. An example would be the strip club which [Enron executive] Lou Pai used to inhabit. We shot it in a way that emphasized numbers, and we cut it to music by Philip Glass. We tried to shoot a sense of the place of the California trading floor too, and find music and a shooting style that would convey the frat house atmosphere, to portray it from their point of view. So those are two examples. [Someone else] could have done it very differently. 

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