Speaker 1: Hello, hello, hello. Hi there. Today in this video we are talking about five tips to better your storytelling and I'm down here in LA. That's why I'm in a hotel room working on my first feature length film. Actually we're finishing this film and we have just a few days to do that and I'm learning so much. So I'm very excited to give you some fresh tips right off the tip press. This might be the most important video I've ever done on my channel because storytelling is the foundation of good filmmaking. So let's get into it. But first, this video is sponsored by the Professional Photographers of America. Join a community of over 33,000 photographers and find equipment, insurance, education, business tools made specifically for business owners like you. Tip number one is find your ending first. Figure out where your film or story is going to end and work backwards from there. When I first started filmmaking, I would focus so much on the beginning and kind of the style of the film and I would just hope the film would kind of progress naturally towards an ending. But I'm finding if I can determine where my film is going to end, even in documentary, if I can have a goal, an aim of where I want the last scenes to occur in the film and I work backwards from there, it makes the entire story better because the whole film feels like it's leading towards that ending rather than just aimlessly meandering towards some sort of weak ending. Your ending should be the strongest part of your film. It should be what you spend the most time on. I feel like filmmakers, we spend so much time on the beginning of our films and we forget about the ending. Tip number two, show, show, show, show. Stop telling us what's happening and start showing us what's happening in your film. What I mean by this is we have this tendency in documentaries and filmmakers to have people say what's happening rather than getting to experience a moment. Make sure in the way you're writing or the way you're telling your documentary films is that you're showing more moments rather than having people talk about what happened. It's always more interesting when we get to experience something. In my film that I did for Nikon, Beauty and the Battle, half of the film was about past events so rather than having Deli just always talk about them, I tried to recreate them so it felt like we were reliving them, showing the experience, showing his pain rather than telling the audience, I felt kind of bad. Show it. My next point, and I say this often, is your film needs to have a question and then the rest of the film is trying to answer that question so ask yourself, what question is my film asking? In Kill or Be Killed, it was about someone retiring from MMA fighting and trying to figure out how he can integrate into society now when he spent his whole life as a fighter. No country is an island. The question was for these people was can they rebuild the relationships in their country after there was a terrorist attack? Simple question. If you can't define the question for your film, you don't know what your film is trying to answer and your film is going to be aimless and again, there will be no tension in your film. You need some tension, you need a bit of conflict and all it is is what question is your film asking? And I really got to get going to the edit. We literally have three days to finish off a 90 minute film. You ready for this? I could get used to this Tesla thing. So I want to quickly talk about today's sponsor, PPA, Professional Photographers of America. When you become a member of PPA, you get many benefits. One of them is equipment insurance. See I'm traveling right now and I have all this gear with me and I hate the stress of leaving it in hotel rooms or being worried when it's in the trunk of the car or wherever I go. I just need it insured in case it gets lost, stolen or damaged. When you're part of PPA, that's part of your membership. You get $15,000 worth of equipment insurance. And also it doesn't just stop there. We recently had a card corrupt on set. It was very stressful. We almost lost all the data. But what's great with PPA is they have data recovery services so you can have peace of mind with your hard drives and your memory cards. And my favorite part about PPA is it has a ton of business resources like cancellation contracts, copyright transfers, model releases, everything that kind of stresses me out, they have you covered. So if you want to know more about PPA, follow the link down below for a special discount on their membership. I really got to get going to this edit. So that was our edit suite. We're working for a charity, so we're out of budget right now. And we're editing out of Eva, my editor's living room or dining room. So it works. We're almost done the film. Just a few more days here. But let's get into our final two points. My fourth point is your character's physical quest is actually only one layer to the film. What I mean is there's always two quests, two journeys going on your film. The physical quest is what they want. So in the case of our film, Okay, the band wants to finish their album. Then there's more of a metaphysical, emotional quest that's going on beneath the surface. And this is the really interesting part of the film. And this is what you should be focusing on as much as the physical quest. This is what people emotionally want, what they desire. And so in the case of our film about Okay, it's about autism. It's exploring these individuals and how they interact with the world. As they're on the spectrum. This is the real story that's going on. The physical quest of them writing the album helps us go from point A to point B. But the interesting part in your film is the emotional quest. So don't forget about that layer. By the way, I got a little guest here, our assistant editor Mushu. Oh, hey, okay, you're joining me for this last point. You want to say hi to everyone? Please don't lick me, you lick your butthole all the time. Okay, let's sit down. My last point is we love to root for the underdog. Find out what makes your character unique, what they're having to overcome. If your character has no flaws, or we don't feel like there's any challenge in their life, or that they haven't come from a background or circumstance that's forced them to have to overcome something, well, then they're just kind of boring. They're just someone who has no challenges. I find the most interesting stories are about underdogs, people who have a lot to overcome. That's why I love making films like Rescate about a challenge of a group of paramedics where there's no 911 in their country. Or again, Beauty and the Battle, Delicar had a type of stroke where he was never supposed to even be able to pick a camera up again. He went through physical therapy and was able to make it back on set and shoot one of his favorite photos. Bonus tip, longer isn't necessarily better. Just because you care about the film doesn't mean the audience will. So think about the most effective way to tell your story, and often that's the delete key. So there you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed those tips. I got to get back in and continuing to edit this film. Go check out PPA. We love them. They keep our gear insured. And I will see you guys on the next one.