TELL YOUR STORY!!! It's all over the internet right now. Experts are all telling us that we need to do it, but not exactly what it means or how. I want to share our experience of a recent outing in Cape Town that brought a couple of things on the subject of storytelling to light. For context lets start with the video. 

I'll start off with a word of advice. When you leave your house in the morning, you better make sure you know what you are going to make your video about. Have a Plan. By the way, this plan is your story. When we start filming without a solid focus point we tend to overshoot and it all looks pointless in the end. Try and focus on only what it is you are going to do. We decided, on the beautiful day, that we wanted to give those Orange Bicycles on the Sea Point Promenade a go. We arrived, met with the guys from Upcycles, signed up for two and were away within 20minutes. We knew we wanted to cover one thing: What is there to do in Sea Point? This was our Plan. This was our story.
All our shots would be based on showing the Pools, the Parks and the activities along the way. 

We could have made the focus of the video about UpCycles. Told you about the breaks, the seats, the routes, the membership program... etc But no, we would stick to our core focus: What was available in the area. All the rest, came along the way....

As with any good Movie or Book the narrative needs ups, downs & plot twists. The next thing you need to focus on is being aware of how your story develops. Things will happen along the way that you don't expect. For one, we didn't realise we would meet people along the way that knew so much info about the UpCycle Drop offs & Membership. BONUS! This meant we didn't have to tell our viewers anything. We merged with other peoples stories and in doing so developed ours into a more complex narrative. 

Similarly, who would have thought that we would encounter beautiful ladies along the way? Well I guess it is Cape Town in the Summer!!! Darren, doing his best Bicycle Pick Ups, managed to persuade one young lass to take a ride with him. None of this was planned but we included it to give the video a dynamic mix of entertainment. The great thing is you can now use these extra twists in an Attention grabbing Title without being called out for Click Baiting... it really happened, even if this small event was not the focus of the video. Make sure to keep it short and sweet so that the main story can carry on...

There was a video to be made and a story to be told, but at the end of the day it was about going out and having a good time. Telling a story simply means you documenting the things that happen in your life. Don't feel like you have to plan your video shoot to the last detail. Instead focus on planning a great day and having fun, the STORY is your LIFE. Have Fun.

Don't stress we've got you covered. Try out of FREE Editing tutorials for Android & iOS devices. This quick 10minute lesson will show you all you need to know to put your shots together in a cool narrative.