Output details

Story Development in Cinematography

The visual nature of the research and the original sources being in the main video clips made it necessary to have this research presented visually rather than put forward in the traditional paper format. This presentation was given to many of the key lecturers in film practice in the United Kingdom at the UK national film school conference in 2011.

With the presentation, I set out to prove that storytelling is the most important and primary function of a cinematographer, then I explore how to successfully teach storytelling to students of cinematography – who may or may not have any screenwriting training or interest. I have been working the last few years on teaching my students story development tools that are appropriate for cinematographers. Tools which as they go forward into their own practice have begun to give real results in terms of not only storytelling, but in the students creating their own relevant visual styles. For them to utilize these tools they need to engage not only in pre-production time, but in story development time – which is a period rarely engaged in – either at the student level or in the currently crumbling industry into which they are entering. However story development is the key to creating a visual style and therefore it is critical that we teach them story development skills – appropriate to cinematographers - if we want them to become anything other than the takers of pretty pictures.

But for a cinematographer, what does story development mean, how is it identified and achieved and what is the outcome? What are story development skills appropriate to cinematographers? This research to puts forward identifiable tools for other cinematography teachers to use in enabling students to accomplish these ends and gives example analysis that can be used to enable further student interest.