The Witness & the Storyteller, Or How I Learned to Love the One-Shot

…The abundance of cheap inputs for the creation and storage of information means that niche content – novellas, albums, documentaries, etc – can now be produced with little upfront capital costs…

– Keynote Address, November 3rd, 2008, University of Melbourne, School of Social and Political Sciences (The Hon. Lindsay Tanner, Minister of Finance and Deregulation)

The most noticeable role, or opportunity rather, which next-media technologies afford the average audience member is increasingly that of “witness,” and “storyteller.” These roles, quite distinct each, are evolving rapidly around available technology, cameras are smaller and audio recorders no longer need separate traveling trunks, they often fit in your pocket! With these evolutions the barrier for entry into production is much more democratic, and with said democracy however comes the responsibility to capture the moment well, no matter if it is on a $100 dollar camera, or on a $1,000 camera.

In the early days of YouTube the task of getting good video seemed an insurmountable mountain to the average viewer, however with smaller and cheaper cameras on the scene, the process has streamlined, allowing each of us to theoretically travel with mobile capture no matter where we go. However to take our stories from “hey grandma, look!” to “hey CNN, look!” citizen 2.0 (that’s you with the video camera in your pocket) would be best served practicing to capture the moment in one foul swoop, in one shot.

Sounds more complicated than it is; whether we embrace the role of witness (capturing the moment for later significance); or if we embrace the role of story-teller (capturing the complete beginning, middle and end of the moment); a one-shot story eliminates the need for extensive editing (which is honestly a different skill set best honed separately) and the one-shot when correctly executed provides a fun capsule which is essentially the new language of the world.

The following are some tips to help in capturing the moment faithfully whether as “witness” or “storyteller.” Two video samples are provided as part of this entry, “Chinese New Year” and “Baby wants a firecracker!” I will leave you to guess which comes from my storyteller, and which from my witness.

Video Capture Tips

1. Anticipate the action and position yourself accordingly.
2. Starting off in a wide shot is a good way to establish a scene, this allows the audience to take in information and work out where you are, and who or what your subject is.
3. Think of “Cause and Effect” if you are shooting someone dancing, (PAN over to show the sound source or vise versa.)
4. Be very aware of your surroundings, crowd reactions are great for accentuating main action.
5. Use close-ups as nature wipes when available for camera position changes.
6. Be aware of your shot length. There’s nothing worse than an uninteresting shot being left on screen for longer than necessary. After a while viewers quickly get bored with seeing the same thing and need some movement, so don’t dwell on something for too long.

Panning refers to the horizontal movement or rotation of a still or video camera

*The first major feature length film to be shot in one continuous take was Timecode, directed by Mike Figgis. The 2002 film, Russian Ark, directed by Russian Alexander Sokurov, was also filmed entirely in one continuous take.

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