Storytelling For Video - How I Script My Ideas

I want to have a discussion about coming up with stories and coming up with what you're going to shoot before you actually go out and shoot. Now I've changed my perspective on how I do vlogs since the initial inception of this channel. So when I first started making videos on this channel, I was doing kind of the daily vlog style and I would just kind of shoot what would happen and I would make a video out of it. Now to me, those videos are great because they're a little slice in time and it's kind of fun to watch. But when you go back and look at those from an outsider's perspective, they're super boring. There's nothing really to them. And so storytelling is super important to create a video that someone is actually going to want to watch and the way you make your videos is going to dictate your overall strategy for your YouTube channel. Now if you're someone who just wants to make a one off video, that's completely different than talking about, you know, YouTube channels as a whole. And my understanding is that the majority of you out there are actually trying to build something on your channel that you can do consistently over time and not just doing a one off video. So that's why I wanted to discuss vlogging and storytelling and I want to show you how I set up this initial story. So before you even go into how you're going to tell the story, you need to think about what's the overall strategy. So do you want to do your typical vlog channel where someone is just following you? Is this vlog something that's just added into the other content that you're doing on your channel or are you trying to go around a specific topic or a specific idea? So for the video that we're talking about here, I'm making it for my second channel and I've completely changed my approach for that channel versus this channel. For the most part, vlogs don't work on this channel because this is a channel around education. However, if I do find a topic that really is fitting for this audience, then I could do it in a vlog format and it'll be appealing. However, the vast majority of just making a vlog around a singular idea or just my experience on something probably isn't going to work. Whereas on my second channel, I'm really focused around stories around interesting topics in the outdoor and adventure space. And I'm still developing the complete strategy on that channel, but I'm pushing more into just unique things that are out there in the world that you have to be a little bit adventurous to go find and explore. And I came up with this idea for the second channel after I've enjoyed making some adventure style vlogs, some stories and then just there's different ideas I've wanted to do, but they won't fit here. So now with that kind of laid out what I'm doing for this one video that we're talking about is creating a story around a giant rock. Now you might think that's pretty boring, but there's this giant rock out in the desert that's been the focal point for UFO enthusiasts. It's been a meeting spot for native American cultures and it just has a weird history. And this rock is kind of out in the middle of desert. I've known about it for a long time, but I wanted to go explore it and tell the story of this rock. So for my approach for this video, for this vlog, I wanted to do something that was more engaging to a broader audience. So I didn't want to do just your typical travel style vlog where it's like, Hey guys, today we're going out to the rock. And then you see all these shots of me going out to the rock. I'm kind of exploring it. Maybe I'll talk about the history a little bit, but it's more of my experience. That kind of video just isn't going to reach a broader audience. It might reach those of you who are really interested in my videos and just want to hang out and go along for the ride. However, if you want to reach a broader audience, you have to think more in storytelling and think of if someone doesn't know anything about you, what happens when they click your video? Do they just keep watching or are they like, Oh, this is another vlog and then they go to the next video. Some people like that kind of content, but the vast majority of the broader audience out there probably don't. So for this video specifically, what I wanted to do was craft a story around the history of the giant rock. And in the process of telling that story, I'm going to show you the rock and actually explore the rock. So it's a mix of a vlog in the format of more of a storytelling education piece. And that's kind of where I'm pushing my content on my second channel, pushing more into this realm of education, science, technology in the outdoor space. But then I'm going to have these vlog elements tied into it. And this just comes from my experience building vlogs on my main channel and kind of evolving this channel and just seeing how content goes on YouTube and what strategies work to hit a broader audience. So this is a different type of story than something that you would find if you were going in like climbing a mountain or something like that. Those kinds of videos have a clear objective and a goal. And then there's going to be a payoff at the end of that video. Whereas this is a video where it's more about the history. So there's still going to be a payoff at the end of the video, but you do have to have this kind of build and you have to keep your viewers engaged. So part one is coming up with all the bullet points that I want to tell in the story. So there was some aspect about native American cultures using it as a meeting point. There was a man who decided to build a apartment underneath the rock. There was also another man who took over after that person died and he believed in aliens and UFOs. And then there was this aspect that this man was building a time travel rejuvenation machine out in the desert. And this is a place that you can go explore right now. So there's this kind of wide range of history of all these bullet points that I wanted to hit. And it's a lot in a short form video. I'm aiming this video to be like five or six minutes. I don't want a super long video. And so as I'm writing out all these bullet points, I'm just looking through the history and finding where's the interesting story in all of this and how does it all tie together. And so for me, the most interesting aspect that I found about this whole story is this whole aspect of the aliens and the time travel machine that was going to help recharge human bodies. Now it's a weird story. Yes, but that's kind of where I want to build to is that aspect of the story and then what happened with this whole machine that he built. And so now I'm going to take all these information bits and put it into the format of a story. First is a hook. So I want to introduce the concept of what the big rock is and then preview what is coming in the video and add an element of mystery because there is this weird history around this story. And then from there I think about the ending of the video. So what is the payoff going to be? And the end of the story for me is that when this man died, we lost the plans on how he was going to finish this machine because he was about 90% done and then he had a heart attack and he never wrote them down. So it's one of those mysteries that's pretty much never going to be solved because we don't know what his actual intention was to finish this structure. But that's not the only payoff because from there you want to have a takeaway for the audience. And so you want to think through, well what is the takeaway from this story? And so when I'm creating these kinds of stories, I'm always thinking, well what's the bigger picture here and what's something that connects all of us? And so this is what I wrote down to kind of come up with this concept. I said, there's things in this world that we don't fully understand and probably never will. Visiting places like this allow us to stretch our imagination and think about the what if. And we also get an opportunity to stand next to the giant rock and see if we actually feel something too. So I came up with a couple sentences that are more about the bigger picture, about these stories of just weird and mysterious things. And that's something that they can take away from this and think about in their own lives. And then maybe inspire someone to go out and explore some places like this themselves. If not go and check out the giant rock. And so I've written down an intro, I've written down kind of an ending takeaway and I have all of these bullet points. And so the next process for me is to literally just write out a script for a story like this. This isn't going to be a vlog where I just kind of tell my experience as I go. I'm trying to hit a bunch of different story beats so I can actually write out the majority of this kind of script before I actually get to the location. And so I just do it all on my phone. I have it all written out and I break it down into different paragraphs. And when I break it down in these paragraphs, it helps me start forming the story and also gives me an idea of how I'm going to break it up for shooting when I'm out at the location. Now for a story like this, I write out a script line for line what I'm going to say. But when I actually get out and I'm shooting these kinds of videos, I look at a paragraph and then I regurgitate that in a different format and something that feels more natural. And so this is just something that takes practice. Some people will feel much more comfortable just reading off a script, especially when it's something as specific as this story. But as you get more experienced, you'll find that, yeah, it might make more sense just to ad lib a lot of these sections and so that it feels much more natural and it just has more emotion. And so I use just a basic storytelling format, intro, kind of history, backstory. For me in this story, it's going to be just getting to the location. So I just want a few shots showing us actually getting to the big rock and then really diving into what the big rock is all about. I don't want my beginning part of this video to be super long. I want it to be short, snappy and get people interested to watch the rest of the video and the climax and kind of the ending point is the fact that this guy died before he was able to build this machine. And then the takeaway is what we were talking about a little bit ago. That's that takeaway that I wrote down and I'm going to expand on that a little bit. And so I've put together a simple story arc for this video for something that's like a quick vlog and it's kind of like you're just experienced in the location. Now some of you might think that, well, this isn't a vlog because it's not in this format where you're just kind of like experiencing things as you go. But I see vlogs in a few different ways and I'll include a link down below description where I really break down some different vlog structures and you know, some different things that are working on YouTube.