Video Storytelling: The Mighty Sequence. All Videos are Made of Sequences!

A sequence is to video storytelling what a sentence is to written storytelling.

I know, that sounds like one of those corny questions on standardized tests like the ACT, but it’s the best way I can think of to describe what a sequence is in the process of video production.  Most of us are already familiar with words, books, and storytelling, so I often make the comparison.

• Sequences are a fundamental visual storytelling device, so they deserve a starring role in the instructions for any beginning video maker hoping to develop a professional skill set.

VERBAL STORYTELLING AND VISUAL STORYTELLING

When you are telling a story with the written word, you use words to form sentences.  The sentences are strung together to form paragraphs, and the paragraphs build upon each other to form chapters.  Taken together, the words tell the story.

Similarly, with video story telling, you take shots and put them together in sequences.

In this analogy, the shots are like words and the sequences are like sentences. (This is a fairly loose definition and analogy, which is a common way we video folks do it.)

• A video sequence is a series of shots on the same subject/event that are edited together to tell a story. 

The four images in the blue circle depict a sequence of someone getting in a car and driving away.  Not a very elaborate sequence, but a common one.

Look closely.  Four separate images, (a mixture of WS, MS, and CU) that advance the story by showing a character getting into a car and driving away.  This is a common sequence format.  As you grow and develop with film making, you will probably start thinking and daydreaming in sequences.  I did!  I found it fun as well as beneficial.

Sequences Help Keep Your Story Moving

Rarely in video do you just set up a camera and leave it on one wide shot for the entire video.  That would be one boring video!

• A sequence is the process of putting together wide shots, medium shots, and close-ups of an activity to show the viewer what is happening.

A sequence is held together by a commonality.  You could call a montage of shots lasting 10 seconds rapidly depicting someone’s life as a “sequence,” but the more common sequence is one activity happening at one time, such as the example of the person driving away in the car.  Did you notice there is a closeup of the license tag number in the third shot?  Is our character a bank robber?  What highway are they traveling in?  These can all be details of your story.

Let’s say you are going to do a video about how to make a cake.  That’s your story.  (OK, our cake saga won’t win any Academy Awards, but it is a practical example!)

To make our video, we might start with:

• A close-up of a box of cake mix.  A hand comes in and rips off the box top.
• Cut to a close-up of a bowl, and the cake mix is dumped into the bowl.
• Cut back to a medium shot showing Mom in a matched cut dumping the mix into a bowl.

So the viewer knows this is a story about Mom making a cake.  No words were used to tell the viewer this, just a 3-shot sequence.

The sequence might continue with close-ups of eggs cracking, beaters mixing and ovens being turned on.  The final shot in the sequence could be a close-up of little Johnny gobbling cake.  Or, if our story is more morose, it could be a shot of the cake thrown into the trash can along with a note that says, “Sorry dear, but I am leaving you for another woman.”

See how easy it is to add twists and turns to a video story?

SEQUENCES are how you put together video.  ALWAYS.

Next time you are watching TV, notice how the camera shots cut from one shot to another, to another.  That’s a sequence!

When you are shooting video, you videotape everything in sequences.  This means you take wide-shots, medium-shots and close-ups of whatever is happening.  You get different angles, keeping in mind precisely what you want the viewer to know.    Then, in the edit room, you put these shots together in a logical, sequential order to tell a story.

So the next time you are out shooting video, take as many shots as you can, wide, medium and close-up, of the action.  Take different shots from different angles.   Then, when you go into editing, you will have lots of different choices about how to put together your sequence, just like the author has many different choices about how to word her story out of the gazillion words available!

And that, dear readers, is everything you need to know about video sequences.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 

• In your own words, explain how a video sequence is similar to a written sentence.
• Define the term “video sequence.”
• As you are watching TV, do you now notice sequences?  If not yet, keep looking!

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips!

Lorraine Grula