Garr Reynolds's Blog, page 6

Story structure, simplicity, & hacking away at the unessential

For a lot of us, the reality is not that we have too few ideas, it's that we have too many. This may not sound like a problem, but it becomes problematic when we get bogged down in analysis paralysis and feel unable to choose, and harder still to simplify. Reducing and simplifying in an honest way—a way that makes a message clear and memorable—is one of the hardest things for professionals to do. I am reminded of the old Bruce Lee saying: "It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential." This is one of the secrets to mastery in general, and hacking away is indeed what we must do to identify the essence of our message and to build strong stories. As a follow up to the last piece of Billy Wider, allow me to share again some Wilder wisdom and apply the lesson to speech making or presenting.

In an interview recorded in Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age at the American Film Institute, Wilder is asked how he came up with the idea for the script Sunset Boulevard. Wilder answered that it was an idea they thought up and held in their heads five years before beginning to write the script. Then Wilder elaborates (emphasis mine):

“There is no such thing as somebody sitting down and saying, ‘Now, all right, I’m going to make a new picture.’ Not at all. You have ideas stashed away, dozens of them–good, bad, or indifferent. Then you pull them out of your memory, out of your drawer, you combine them… People think when it comes to a screenplay you start with absolutely nothing. But the trouble is that you have a million ideas and you have to condense them into a thousand ideas, and you have to condense those into three hundred ideas to get it under one hat, as it were. In other words, you start with too much, not with nothing, and it can go in every kind of direction. Every possible avenue is open. They you have to dramatize it—it is as simple as that—by omitting, by simplifying, by finding a clean theme that leads someplace.”

The need for solid structure
The last line above—omitting, simplifying, finding a clean theme (message) that leads someplace—is at the heart of designing a compelling narrative. Having a clear structure makes it easier to simplify your content in a way that moves the material forward. The audience need not be aware of your structure, but without it you could not have crafted a compelling narrative that goes someplace. While describing the plot points in the hit film "Some Like it Hot" Billy Wilder stresses the importance of structure.

"[Story] needs...architectural structure, which is completely forgotten once you see the movie. We have to put those pillars in or that beautiful ceiling is going to come crashing down."

It's the message, not techniques or effects
Special effects, including remarkable camera angles, call too much attention to themselves in many films today. Wilder felt the same in his time. Once you start thinking "I wonder how they did that?" or "What awesome camera work!" and so on, then you are pulled out of the story and are thinking about effects and techniques rather than the story. "Nobody will say, ‘This is a great screenwriter because he always has the camera angles.’ Just have good characters and good scenes and something that plays,” Wilder says.

In a similar way, nobody will say this is a great presenter because he is a master at using PowerPoint or Keynote, or Prezi, etc. I have said it 'till I am blue in the face, but I will say it again: It is not the tools and digital techniques and effects that make you a better storyteller. This is true whether we are talking about writing or speaking. Tools can help, especially tools that amplify our ability to tell visual stories, but the greatest tools in the world will not make a bad idea great or turn an inauthentic presenter into an authentic one.

Multimedia—if you use it—comes last
Multimedia is wonderful. I love it. But my approach to preparation is pretty old school. This week, for example, students are making presentations where they share their ideas—their proposed solutions—to real world problems of their choosing. They are using slideware and video, etc., but before they ever began to organize slides, and other multimedia, they first organized their ideas and their approach around a very basic structure. And they did so without using any tech.

It's a very simple framework where they contrast the "ideal" with the way things really are today. Then they state the problems which contribute to this reality and offer up solutions or their "big idea" worth sharing. In the end they offer up a "next step" or an action for the audience to take. Through a process of brainstorming and discussion they end up with sketches or storyboards so that they can run through the basics of their argument or storyline in front of everyone. The sketches are very crude and basic, but that is fine. These sketches serve as storyboards that help the audience understand, and they help the presenter take the audience on a little journey. After the storyboard pitch, other students offer suggestions to improve the structure. When we feel like the basic structure makes sense then the student can go off on his own and dig deeper for evidence, examples, data, and so on and put together a compelling, engaging talk—using multimedia for visual support—based on the fundamental structure worked out in their storyboard pitch. Here are a few pics of students pitching their rough storyboard ideas last week, and one pic from a student who is presenting the final product today.







Students pitch their solutions to specific real-world economic and social problems in Japan and get feedback from the audience before they start designing the details of their actual presentations.



Here the student is making the actual presentation, having pitched her storyboard ideas last week. Her talk followed a basic structure of Ideal world, Reality, Problem (cause of the reality), Solutions (her ideas with evidence and support), and finally a Next Step or action for the audience, something to do or to ponder, etc. A different audience would not be aware of the structure underneath, but the structure was very helpful for the student presenter in crafting ideas, designing visuals, and building the narrative flow of the talk.

One man's creativity in an airport "all by myself"

Have you ever found yourself alone in an airport with a lot of time to kill? For most of us this is a rather dismal experience. But for others, such alone time is a nice respite and a bit freedom to be creative and just see what happens. Last week, Richard Dunn, a lighting designer in corporate entertainment who is originally from Canada, was heading back to his current home in Georgia from Las Vegas. But after volunteering to get bumped off his 11:00pm flight home, he found himself with seven hours to kill before the next flight out at 6:00am the next day. So what to do?

Many people would have headed back to the Las Vegas strip or taken a nap, but Dunn says in this CBC audio interview that he looked around and saw the airport as an empty movie set. He had his iPhone so why not make a movie? So he sat down to brainstorm some ideas and at first pondered making a movie related to travel. But that idea did not grab him, so then he Googled songs about being alone and bingo! It hit him. “And then our dear Canadian sister started streaming in my headphones, 'All By Myself' and I thought ‘that’s it, that’s pure movie gold!’”

As you watch the 5-min video below, keep in mind that he was all alone and had no one holding the camera. His only equipment in the airport was his iPhone, iPad (for the music), a PC case with a long handle, a ruler, and some luggage tape that a staff member gave him earlier in the evening. Once back home, he edited the clips in Final Cut on his MacBook. No special lenses, just a regular iPhone.

All by myself from Richard Dunn on Vimeo.

Limitations stimulate creativity
The budget for this home movie of sorts was essentially zero, yet this amateur production made by one person alone is far more interesting than the majority of professionally made music videos costing loads of cash. In the comments section of Vimeo, Richard Dunn touches on how he did those shots:

"I had a person behind a ticket counter give me a roll of luggage tape before she left. I then used a wheel chair that had a tall pole on the back of it and taped my iPhone to that. Then I would put it on the moving walkway for a dolly shot. I also used the extended handle on my computer bag and taped the iPhone to my handle. I would tuck different stuff under the bag to get the right angle. For the escalator shot I had to sprint up the steps after I got my shot so the computer bag didn't hit the top and fall back down. Quite fun!"

I always tell people, including students, that they are not limited by technology. There are always cooler, more powerful and more expensive tools available. But so what? You are lucky enough to have a smart phone. And with this ubiquitous device you can still do quality presentations of all types, including short vignette or slice of life videos like this one above. Students always ask me where they can get good photos or video for presentations. I tell them to get their ideas clear and their story structure down first. Brainstorm, get organized, then sketch out what visuals you will need (if any). In most cases they can shoot all the photos or video footage they need themselves using their smart phone and a bit of editing.

One thing that makes Dunn's video seem so good, even though it is shot with a phone, is that he did not use a lot of transitions and effects. Novices will almost always use a dozen or more transitions and effects in such a video, almost all of them cheesy. Dunn kept things simple and focused on getting good material and then keeping the editing simple stylistically, though it was not doubt a lot of work to get the lip-synching perfect and build tension as the song progressed.

Resonating a shared theme
Everyone can relate to feeling lonely or being alone, even being alone in an airport. Many of us have probably fantasized of making our own music video parody of some kind. In the CBC interview Dunn says that he was laughing to himself when thinking of different scenes that the airport interior was offering up, but he figured he was just tired and suspected that what he thought was hysterical was probably not really that funny to others. Dunn had no intention to even post this publicly; it was just a video that maybe his wife would get a kick out. Well, some 72 hours since posting it is already at 3 million views on Vimeo. In the CBC interview he said he was shocked when the views went over 30,000, about 29,999 more than he ever expected. I wonder how he is feeling now?

What makes this fun little video piece work is that it is not about ego. Dunn never intended this to be seen outside his family and a few friends. This was just for a laugh. These humble intentions lend an air of authenticity to it, and yet he took the care to make it as good as possible. Even though he is in almost every shot, it is not about him. This resonates because, like any good story, it is not about the characters, it is about the viewers. Almost everyone who views this will be touched and amused. If you can make someone have a good laugh, or touch them in some other positive way emotionally, I'd call that a pretty good day. A lot of people have had a good heartfelt laugh thanks to Dunn's burst of creativity one night last week in the Las Vegas airport. Let's home Celine Dion is one of them.

• Link to original video on Vimeo.

10 Storytelling tips from Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder (1906–2002) was the first person to win an Academy Award as producer, director and screenwriter for the same film. The film The Apartment (1960) stared Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray and is certainly in my top-10 favorite movies of all time. There is something quite special about Wilder's films. There's a simplicity, clarity, and naturalness that is above all else engaging and human. Even today Wilder is a hero to many filmmakers both young and old. In a 1999 interview with NPR, filmmaker Cameron Crowe talks about his admiration for Wilder's work. It is this bit from Crowe that I find most interesting (emphasis mine):

"...if you talk to many screenwriters or film students, they’re still studying Billy Wilder. And what is it that makes a guy still relevant after more than 50 years of filmmaking? And what you find are values, you know, that people are going to experience over the holiday when they see a movie like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which isn’t, of course, Billy Wilder, but it’s simple, clear, soulful, funny storytelling. And I believe Billy Wilder is the king."
— Cameron Crowe

What makes Wilder and his films still relevant today, suggest Crowe, are themes of deeply human values and "simple, clear, soulful, funny storytelling."  This has relevance beyond writing and fiction, of course. There are many different ways to connect and share your message with an audience, but the storytelling principles noted by Crowe of simplicity, clarity, soulfulness, and humor—backed by authenticity and a respect for your audience—will take you far.

In 1999 Crowe wrote a book called Conversations with Wilder where the legendary and elusive Billy Wilder talks extensively about his life and work. It's gold. In the back of the book Crowe includes a list of ten screenwriting tips by Wilder. This list has now been shared by thousands over the years. "There’s no better film school really than listening to what Billy Wilder says," Crowe said in the 1999 NPR interview. You may not be interested in writing a novel or a screenplay, but the lessons can be applied to the work of anyone who is in the business of story and storytelling, and that certainly includes public speakers and presenters of all types.



10 Storytelling/Screen Writing Tips From Billy Wilder
The tips here were for screen writers and filmmakers, but with a little imagination, it's not hard to see how Wilder's advice can help us too. After all, Wilder is talking about storytelling, and storytelling—that is, telling true stories— is what we are doing. After each tip by Wilder (in bold) I offer my own thoughts on how the tip relates to the world of presentations. I hope at least some of these tips will stimulate you to find your own applications of the wisdom.

(1) The audience is fickle. You try to prepare the best you can for an audience. But in the end, audiences are unpredictable. What works one night falls flat the next night (ask a comedian). But we need not eat our liver over this. All we can do is prepare the best we can. A presentation is not about us. Even if we are telling "our story," we must think long and hard during preparation how our story is really their story. If our story has a universal theme with an important lesson or some other contribution then it has a shot at resonating. Yes, audiences are fickle, but the old axiom is true: Know your audience.

(2) Grab 'em by the throat and never let 'em go. Don't waste time at the beginning with formalities or filler talk. Start with a bang. A hook. Get their attention and then sustain that interest with variety, unexpectedness built upon structure that is taking them some place. We remember the beginning and the ending the most—don't waste those important opening minutes. At the end of the documentary Billy Wilder Speaks, Wilder warned against being timid when he says, only half jokingly, "You have to use both knees to kick them in the balls.” Start strong.

(3) Develop a clean line of action for your leading character.
Make sure the arc of change is clear. This one may not seem as directly relevant unless your narrative has a clear protagonist, but one thing we can take from this tip is this: Make sure the arc of change in your talk is clear and it is meaningful. Whether you are talking about a customer or a person in history or yourself, the series of actions you unfold for your audience—actions often involving a conflict to overcome—must illuminate a clear arc of change.

(4) Know where you're going.
Story takes you some place. Have you ever listened to a speech and wondered where the heck it was going? It is not enough that you know where this presentation is headed, the audience needs to feel that the parts are connected and that everything that is included is included because it is necessary. Too many presenters—and writers for that matter—get bogged down in back stories or details about minor—or even irrelevant—points and momentum dies as the audience begins scratching their collective heads in confusion or boredom. What is included must be included for a good reason. Remember the dramatic principle Chekhov's Gun:  "Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." —Anton Chekhov

(5) The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
A plot point is an event that propels the action in a new direction. A typical three-act film may have two major plot points. The first plot point comes at the end of Act I and takes us in a new direction in Act II. The second plot point signifies the end of Act II and gives the story momentum for Act III. One takeaway for presenters, however, is that we must have a very clear structure that is the framework of our talk, but that frame work does not necessarily have to be clear to the audience. Our events, which may be in essence similar to plot points in a drama, are certainly events that get the audiences attention, peek their curiosity, surprise them, make them question and want to know more, etc. But the audience is not aware of the structure or that it is a "plot point" or an attempt to engage and propel the story forward. The audience is too busy listening and yearning to know what comes next.



(6) If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
Again, wonderful advice for a screen writer, but what about us? In drama, the third act (usually) is the climatic conclusion. Our conclusion in many ways is the most important part. People remember the beginning and ending the most. The ending should be the pay off. But a lot of speakers have great difficulty with the ending. One reason for this is they prepare speeches or presentations in the typical linear outline method in slideware. They spend a lot of time filling the talk with data, facts, and often unconnected opinions and events to beef up their talk without really considering first where their destination was in the first place. When this happens you get a rather weak beginning followed by a lot of stuff in the middle and concluding with a weak little ramble at the end. The presenter has problems with the ending because he never set down the foundation of the talk at the beginning.

(7) A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They'll love you forever.
Treat your audience with respect and don't try to beat them over the head with your message. The best storytellers, no matter the genre, craft the material so that the audience can be an active participant in figuring things out. No one wants to be lectured to or fed conclusions all the time. Treat the audience as intelligent participants in this journey. Whenever possible show them, don't just tell them. And of course, in the classroom or training room, participants should be doing not just watching or listening. (Ernst Lubitsch was Billy Wilder's mentor.)

(8) In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they're seeing.
This one is related to number (7). When possible, show don't just tell. And when telling, be careful not to describe what they are seeing. Design visuals so that it is obvious. With quantitative displays, for example, it is useful and a very good practice to explain the vertical and horizontal axis and set up the audience for the visual display that you are about to show them. If it is a good graph the data will be easy to see and the data will be clear. You then can focus on talking about the consequences of the data, the meaning in context. What are the opposing arguments or different interpretations of the same data, etc. Too often audiences are just trying to figure out what they are seeing while the presenter rambles on or moves on to another point, leaving the audience behind.

(9) The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.
Think about how you can introduce an event near the end that really gathers you some momentum. This is a twist, something unexpected that increases the tempo for the last part of your talk. When they say go out on a bang, they ain't kidding. So in the preparation stage, what can you include in the structure of your talk—an event or a revelation or an unexpected finding, etc.—that spins the talk in a new direction and sets the stage for a compelling ending or conclusion?

(10) The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then — that's it. Don’t hang around.
Two things we can take from this. (1) Momentum is always important, but the beats or the tempo must really build, especially at the end. It builds to such a degree that your ending is engaging and obvious. And then (2) it is time to be done. One of the worst things you can do is to go over your allotted time or to linger, repeating the same message long after it was understood. This old chestnut by Franklin D. Roosevelt is a good reminder:  “Be sincere, Be brief, Be seated.”



Bonus Tips
Here are a couple of more tips I gleaned from researching the great Billy Wilder.

• Don't be boring.
Another "rule" from Billy Wilder is not on the list, perhaps because it is implied, but it is simply this: Don't be boring. A simple guideline but it's indeed very hard to achieve. "I have ten commandments," Wilder said. "The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut."

• The more complicated the story, the simpler the visuals
In this last one I am paraphrasing Wilder from one of his interviews in the Billy Wilder Speaks documentary. If your story is rather simple then "you can be ornate" or be a bit more complex with the visual treatment. But if the story is quite complicated then Wilder suggests a very simple approach to the use of visuals. This obviously is an approach that translates well to a lot presentation situations as well. Certainly when showing quantitative displays, especially complex ones, you want to remove any extraneous material and keep the visuals simple and clear.

Bonus II
Here is a 4-min cut from the classic The Apartment. At the end you will see an important plot point. It's a wonderful film. See it on DVD if you get a chance.

Change & the Art of Small Victories

John F. Kennedy is often reported to have said "The only reason to give a speech is to change the world." Over the years this has been paraphrased by many speaking and training professionals. Not surprisingly, people occasionally mock this kind of statement as being just so much hubris or pomposity. "Surely," they proclaim, "not every presentation or speech is important enough to even make the slightest difference." However, when we say "change the world," we do not mean necessarily to change the world in a monumental, earth-altering, life-changing way. The operative word in that phrase is change. Affecting a change is a necessary condition of an effective speech. "A presentation that doesn’t seek to make change is a waste of time and energy," says business guru Seth Godin.

We do not have to make a speech like Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi, or Churchill, etc. But we do have to think long and hard—before our speech—of just what kind of change we are aiming for with our particular audience. Presentations and talks are usually a mix of information, inspiration, and motivation. To really affect a change we need to do more than just give information. If information were all that was required to make a change, we could send an email or a document for people to read and cancel the talk. A live talk must impact the heart as well as the mind.

The little victories that you win
Making a small difference is reason enough to get out of bed every day. We do not always need—or even want—to make such a grand impact. Often we are just lucky to make a small change, perhaps influencing or making a difference in a few people's lives that day. The speech (or presentation) itself is ephemeral and will soon be forgotten, but if we can make even a tiny influence, we can take satisfaction in that. If your presentation gets people talking—not about you necessarily, but about your idea—then this is at least a small victory. I was reminded of this while researching the legendary filmmaker Billy Wilder. At the end of the documentary Billy Wilder Speaks, Wilder says something relevant to all storytellers, from filmmakers to the guy making a speech at his local business group:

"You tell them something they can take home with them....the kind of film that people see and then go to a drug store to talk about it for half an hour. If you pull that off, it's great." Wilder continues. "It's very gratifying if your have a successful picture and it tells them a little something new that they did not know about it, or it makes them interested in a subject that was strange to them. These are the little victories that you win."

We will not impact everyone in even our greatest presentations. But if we can get enough people talking about the content in the hours or days after our time on stage, that may be enough. That's something. That's a small victory. Maybe we have lit a spark or motivated someone just a little to explore our message more deeply in future. That is change. It may not be a big change, but it is a change...and that is making a difference.

 

Study the basics: John Lasseter on the secret to success

John Lasseter is Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios and Principal Creative Advisor, Walt Disney Imagineering. He's a two-time Academy Award-winning director and today oversees all Pixar and Disney films. Not bad for a guy who first learned how to entertain an audience by working part-time as a skipper on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland during his college days. A few years ago the Disney Pixar Facebook page asked fans to submit questions for Lasseter. The answer here in this two-minute video reply by Lasseter to the question "Any advice for aspiring animation students?" is simple and wise and is relevant for just about any creative person.  

Two-minutes of great advice from the master
In the clip below Lasseter shares his advice. Using our imagination just a little, it's not too hard to see how the spirit and even the letter of what he says is relevant for those outside animation as well.



"Do not forget to study the basics," Lasseter says. A list of some of the basics:
 • Basic drawing (figure drawing, perspective drawing, etc.)
 • Basic design (visual grammar, design process, etc.)
 • Fundamentals of animation (principles of animation, movement, etc.).
 • Film grammar (e.g., learning from staging in live action, etc.)
 • Story/storytelling. Three-act story structure. Creative writing, etc.

As for "design" what Lasseter means to have have a sold level of visual literacy in general and also a real understanding of the myriad visual design principles such as line, shape, space, balance, value, color theory, scale and proportion, focal point, and many, many more fundamentals.

It's like eating your vegetables
"You've got to learn all these basics," Lasseter says, "it's kind of like eating vegetables." Most people, he says, do not want to spend the energy learning the fundamentals and "just want to get on to the more flashy stuff of using all the latest software." The problem is, Lasseter says, the software is ephemeral. "Throughout your career the software will change. It will always evolve and get better." So Lasseter says what is important is to remember this: "Software never makes a movie entertaining. It's what you do with the software that matters." And what you end up doing with software, Lasseter says, you get from drawing upon the knowledge and insights you have obtained by having a solid base in the fundamentals.

"I rely on the basic fundamentals of art, and design, and filmmaking, and animation, and storytelling every single day of my career. It's something that is just a part of you, It's the foundation in which you work, and without those...you won't go anywhere."

Forget the technology
In this piece below, Lasseter says that the technology is amazing and it is getting better all the time. The tools are remarkable. "But!" says Lasseter, "the most important thing is, as you are deciding to learn about computer animation, forget the technology! The technology never entertains an audience—it's what you do with the technology. Therefore, the most important thing to learn is learn the basics...learn the fundamentals...of art...of drawing....color theory....principles of animation..."



Yes indeed. Technology never made a bad story good and no amount of technology will make an ineffective presentation an effective one.

Sharing stories from the heart...about mom

This Sunday, it's Mother's Day, even here in Japan. Nothing is more important than mom. This is what I always say. I don't care how sentimental or saccharine it sounds, the bond and the love between a mother and child is the most precious thing on earth. I am a father to a four-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy. Being a father is my number one job and my number one priority. As a father I'm also learning about the mother-daughter bond as I watch the relationship that my wife and daughter are building. It's beautiful. Yet, the mother-son bond is the one I have the most personal experience with, obviously. For me, my mom is the reason I am the man I am today. My mom passed away in 2010, and think about her everyday. But this quote here gives me inspiration.

OK, since it's Mother's Day, I want to point to two clips below which are beautiful examples of two men paying tribute to their moms by speaking from the heart. The first one is of Kevin Durant who won the NBA MVP Award last week. The clip features the highlights from his speech. Near the end Durant shares a story from his childhood that is particularly touching.

 

"Genuine, spontaneous, and authentic." These are the terms often used to describe late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson. Ferguson ad-libs much of his material and often goes off script (not that there is much of a solid script to begin with). His approach is unique among the late-night talk show hosts. His approach may not be for everyone, but his dry wit and authentic, down-to-earth style is engaging. Ferguson is my personal favorite. In this second clip below, Ferguson eschews his normal monologue and instead talks about his mother who had just recently passed away.

 

Here's a bit from me. Below is a 6-min segment from a longer talk I gave at TEDxKyoto in 2012. In this story, which I  also shared at Webstock 2013 in New Zealand, I talk about our two-month-old daughter meeting my mom for the first time, just days before my mother passed away. (Here I share a little more about my mom and what it was like to be with her in her final moments).

 

Storyboarding & the art of finding your story

Storyboarding as we know it may have been pioneered by filmmakers and animators, but we can use many of the same concepts in the development of other forms of storytelling including keynote presentations or short-form presentations such as those made at TED or at conferences, pecha kucha nights, and so so. The storyboard process allows you to flesh out themes and look for patterns as you apply your creativity toward presenting your content in a structured yet engaging way. Storyboarding is a great way to begin to visualize the story of your content.

What can Pixar teach us about storyboarding?
Ever since Pixar made it big with Toy Story in 1995, they have been generous in sharing the "secrets" of their story design and their story process for the world to see. Even if you are not interested in becoming an animator or a filmmaker, the lessons and inspiration one can get from studying the Pixar methods can be a huge help in your work. This 4-minute clip below illustrates a great example of the storyboard process. And if you remember seeing A Bugs Life, the clip will be all that more enjoyable. Joe Ranft, who died in a automobile accident in 2005 during the making of Cars (the film is dedicated to his memory) was the Head of Story in A Bugs Life and also did the voice of Heimlich. At the end of the clip Joe demonstrates the pitching process. Joe was not only super smart and creative, he was a master storyteller and hysterically funny.

 

In this next clip below, you see the great Joe Ranft storyboard the classic army men sequence from Toy Story. Amazing stuff.

 

It goes back to Walt Disney
This video below is a wonderful introduction to storyboarding with clips from Walt Disney and others. A great storyboard artist is a great communicator (not necessarily a great illustrator/animator). Walt Disney developed the use of storyboards in the 1920s. Storyboards allow film makers to see a blueprint of the movie before going into production. You tack them (your sketches/ideas in visual form) up on the wall so you can see the entire sequence, flow, continuity, etc. Storyboards are an effective, inexpensive way to develop the story. You can "board it up" on the wall and see if it works. Because ideas can be changed easily and quickly, storyboarding works. The key is to put down in your storyboards the minimum amount of information that gives a dynamic and quick read of the content (and the emotions) of the sequence.

A good storyboard artist is a good storyteller. The drawings do not have to be pretty, but they must have the meaning and the feelings behind the idea. A good storyboard artist is a good pitchman. Walt Disney, they say, was an amazing pitchman/storyboard artist. Walt's great ability was his passion and vision behind the pitch. The storyboard pitch is one of the great performance arts developed in the 20th century at Disney (yet no one ever gets to see it). The use of storyboards is one of the reasons Walt Disney's early films were so remarkable; the practice was soon copied.

"At our studio we don't write our stories, we draw them." 
— Walt Disney

With storyboarding you tell the story in the simple form (storyboard reels) before entering the more complex form. The storyboard lets the whole team in on what's going on with the production. The storyboard is "an expensive writing tool, but an inexpensive production tool." The storyboard can cut out a lot of unnecessary work. Storyboards allow you to see what is not working (and toss the bits out that don't work).

"If I can make things work on paper, then I can make them work on the set." — Kevin Costner

Applying the concepts
Can you visualize your presentation like a comic? No, not literally perhaps — but something like the sequential flow of a comic or rough sketches in storyboard form. You can do this on a whiteboard, but one of the best analog ways is with sticky notes (Post its) on a wall on in a notebook.

In Presentation Zen 2nd Edition I outline an analog approach to preparing digital presentation visuals. Near the end of the process is when we really start thinking about what visuals we'll want to use. This is the time when I start making very rough sketches of how I want the slides to look. It is a form of storyboarding. I use sticky notes in my own sketchbook. The advantage is I can get the flow and structure down before I ever make slides. Below is a sample of just eight slides from a much larger set. (Click images for larger view.)

  

Suggested reading
• From Word to Image: Storyboarding and the Filmmaking Process
by Marcie Begleiter
• Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques for Live Action and Animation by Francis Glebas
• Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 Most Powerful Film Conventions Every Filmmaker Must Know by Jennifer Van Sijll

No amount of technology will make a bad story good

When Toy Story opened in the US at the end of 1995, it was met with enthusiasm and great critical acclaim. The film would go on to be the highest-grossing film of the year. There was tremendous buzz (ahem) about the film before it arrived here in Japan a few months later. Much of the talk focused on the stunning 3-D animation and the remarkable technical achievements by Pixar to pull this movie off. I remember sitting in a movie theatre in the spring of 1996 in Osaka, Japan watching the film. I was a bit of a technology geek in those days so what propelled me to actually go see the film initially was the fact that it was the first truly digital animation feature film. And yet the thing that impressed me about the movie was that I soon forgot all about how the animation was created and just remembered being engaged by the story. I wanted to see the film again (and again). I thought it was perfect. Fast forward to today and I have seen every Pixar film ever made dozens of times. I have two small children who adore all the Pixar films and I don't mind watching along with them. If there was a degree given out for watching Pixar films, then I'd by working on my PhD by now.

I watch the films repeatedly because my kids ask to see them, and since our DVDs are in English the movies are more than mere entertainment. But truth be told, I love watching the Pixar films because I have learned so much about story structure, story elements, character, etc. simply by seeing them so many times and paying close attention. These films are designed for adults and kids to enjoy and you may not think there is much to learn from these animated features, but you'd be wrong. Lasseter has said that the first 18 months of working on Toy Story was spent laboring just on the script, that is, the story. The animation is awesome, but it's the story that hooks you, holds you, and rewards you at the end. And it is really, really hard to craft a good one.

There are many lessons from Pixar's prowess at storytelling that we can take and apply to other forms of storytelling, including the 21st-century short-form presentation format. At the end of this documentary on the making of Toy Story, filmed before the film was released, there is a great line by Pixar's now legendary John Lasseter:

"Everyone's going to talk about the fact that this is the very first computer animated feature film, but the computers are just tools [the computers] didn't create this picture, it's the people who created the picture." — John Lasseter

In spite of Pixar's amazing technology, there has always been a focus on the people creating the picture, the people in the audience, and above all, the commitment to the story and the story process.

Steve Jobs on Pixar, Hollywood, and Story
This is a great, short clip of Steve talking with Wall Street Journal columnists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg back in 2007. In the clip Jobs tells how the typical live action film will shoot between 10- to one 100-times more footage than will actually appear in the film. After shooting, the film is assembled in editing, which leaves most of what was shot on the cutting room floor. But animation is much too expensive to create a film in this way. Because animation is so expensive you have to edit the film before you actually make it, Jobs explains. This is where storyboarding comes in. The story team has sketches of each scene which follow the progression of the script. A film could have thousands of these.

 

"Basically we build our movie before we make it out of these story sketches, and we video them, put scratch music and scratch voices so that we can watch our movie. And invariably what you think is going to work crashes and burns when you see it in the reels." The key says Jobs is improving on what you see in the reels. "You iterate on these reels thousands of times, and only when it works in the reels do you then go animate it and actually produce [the movie]."

"In Hollywood one of the most popular sayings is 'The story is King' — but it turns out it really isn't. Because when push comes to shove and the movie is in production and there is a lot of mouths to feed and they're waiting for stuff to make and the story is not working, almost everybody says 'well, we just have to make the movie.'' — Steve Jobs

Jobs talks about how Pixar had avoided having to go ahead and finish a movie that was not working. Pixar has a story crisis on every movie they make, says Jobs. When the story is not working, Jobs says, "we stop, we stop and we fix the story. Because John Lasseter really instilled a culture of story, story, story. Even though Pixar is the most technologically advanced studio in the world, John has a saying which has really stuck: No amount of technology will turn a bad story into a good story. That's one of the reasons why we have been so fortunate is that we get to look at our stories before we really make them and perfect them in reels, and then go make them."

Putting the story first is one of those things, Jobs said, that's easy to say but hard to do. "Everybody has to make their choice. You find out what people really care about when you are in a tough situation and the meter's running.Then you find out how important they think the story is."

In this short clip from 2009, John Lasseter talks about the importance of storyboarding and creating story reels to see if the story is working or not before starting production on a scene. "We will never let a sequence of a movie go into production until the story reel is working fantastically." If a story reel is working well then Lasseter says it gets a hundred times better once it's animated. "But if a story reel is not working, if the sequence is not working, it will never be improved by all this animation." This is a lesson for all storytellers. It is not about your visuals, and certainly not about the software tools you used to make those visuals. Visuals matter. Visuals are important. But no amount of stunning visualization is going to save a story with a bad design or a presentation that is poorly thought out.

How to make a good (or bad) presentation

This semester I'm teaching three classes on presentation for undergraduates at my university in Japan. On the second day, I have students share with the class what they think are the elements of a good presentation and what they think are the kinds of things that make for a bad or ineffective presentation. Students may still be quite young, but they have sat through years of classes in school and lectures in college, sat through orientation meetings, and they have seen many kinds of presentations online such as TED talks over the years, so students actually do have quite a bit of experience with various kinds of presentations.


I use a slide like this or just write something similiar on the whiteboard. "Think about the best and the worst presentations you have ever seen. What's the difference? What made the good ones good and the bad ones bad from your point of view? What are the elements of a good presentation, including visuals (if any), preparation, delivery, etc. What was happening during the presentations that you identified as 'bad'?"

Activity
For the activity I ask students to break up into groups of 4-5 to share their ideas—based on their experience—on what makes for a good presentation and what makes for a bad presentation. I give them about 20 minutes. One person in each group keeps notes using a t-chart with "Good" on one side and "Bad" on the other. Before this we discuss a bit on what we mean by "Good." A good or effective presentation, from the point of few of the audience, being one where the audience was engaged and learned something, but also was motivated, or inspired, etc. in addition to being informed. After students have discussed their ideas and they have a "good/bad" list, they then put that info on the walls around the room, edit as they like, and then finally share their ideas with the rest of the class.



There is no right or wrong answer for the exercise I tell them. Tdhe point is to share their ideas based on their real-life experience and to get a conversation started, a discussion that will last the entire semester. The point of the exercise, besides being a good icebreaker, is to introduce many of the concepts we will be talking about for the next 15 weeks, but in this case the ideas are coming from them, not just from "a professor" at the front of the room. "You know this stuff all ready" I tell them, but there is a difference between knowing it and having the skills—and eventually the courage—to actually do it. The students identify many classic elements of a good presentation of talk. Below is a list of some of the more common elements identified by the students. This is a rough assembly of the items that students, numbering more than 100 in total came up with. Each element is quite commonsensical, perhaps, but common sense is not common practice. We'll spend the reset of the semester learning the principles, techniques, and practices of 21st-century presentation.

Elements of a "Good" & "Bad" presentation
Here is a list that a group of about one hundred young Japanese college students came up with this week.

 



"GOOD"






"BAD"








 

• Start with interesting hook
• Big Voice (good projection)
• Smile, friendly, natural
• Passion, excited by topic
• Conversational tone
• Points are clear
• Use of humor, emotion
• Use of great visuals
• Use of video/movie segments
• Simple design, delivery
• Has a clear main point
• Confident body language
• Use of interesting examples
• Uses personal stories
• Clear pronunciation
• Gets audience participation
• Speaker asks questions
• Q&A, discussion time
• Feels like a journey
• Lots of photos/visuals
• Good time management
• Clear conclusion
• Has surprises, unexpected bits
• Makes audience think
• Is entertaining, fun
• Has new or "rare" info
• Variety of content
• Statistics *with* context
• Explains why not just what
• Makes the abstract tangible
• Changes pace periodically
• Uses original content
• Shows "the big picture"
• Not just lists of info
• Presenter is "authentic"
• Presenter is having fun

• Rambling, boring, slow start
• Small, weak voice
• Reading a script
• Reading text on slides
• Lots of text on slide
• No eye contact
• Looks at paper all the time
• No gestures
• Seems not confident
• Looks bored/disinterested
• Too long/too short
• Too complicated, confusing
• No attempt to simplify
• Material only memorized
• Ugly, amateur design of visuals
• No clear point
• No examples
• No stories
• Faces away from audience
• Repeats a point too often
• No audience participation
• Monotone, monopacing
• Seems unprepared
• Talks too fast
• No body movement
• Data overly complicated
• Charts are irrelevant
• Charts impossible to see
• Using jargon
• Speaks down to audience
• "Showing off" by using jargon
• Presenter not motivated
• Talk contains nothing new
• Speaking sounds memorized
• No flow, just many "points"
• Does not inspire or motivate

Students listing their ideas on the whiteboard. Then we have a class discussion on what they think are the most important elements and why. A chance to share the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly based on their own experience.

"The moment defines the creative expression."

A presentation is a moment in time. I have long referenced jazz and my own experience with jazz as having a great parallel to the act of a live talk or a presentation on the center stage. One thing that a live talk and a musical performance have in common—especially improvisational music—is that neither event is ever the same twice. They may be similar, they may cover similar ground, but they are never exactly the same. The message—the real meaning—is in the moment, in that interaction between audience and performer (or presenter). In this interview with London Real, famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson relates Miles Davis's idea that you can not do again what you just did.

Tyson: The talk is my interaction with your live audience.
Below is the transcript from Dr. Tyson's riff on the importance of spontaneity and being in the moment.

"When you create—and it's on he spot and it's live—it's something that's never been created before even if the notes are the same on the page. The moment defines the creative expression. I feel that way when I give talks. When I give a talk, there are hosts of that event who will say: 'Oh, could you send your talk in advance?' No. The talk is the talk I give at that time, in that moment, to that audience. There is no 'talk in advance.' If I could send a talk in advance, I would do that and I would stay home. The talk is my interaction with your live audience. That's the talk." (emphasis mine.)

When I heard Dr. Tyson speak to the absurdity of "sending your talk ahead of time" in this interview, I practically fell out of my chair. I have been saying the same thing for more years than I can remember. It's just common sense. And yet it's refreshing to hear it from such great speaker and respected communicator of science as Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yes, dear conference organizers, please stop asking people to send their presentations in advance.

Related links
• "Slideuments" and the catch-22 for conference speakers
• Advice for conference presenters
• Advice on giving technical presentations

H/T @brainslides