Mike Wilhelm is a Filmmaker and co-host of the Video Maker podcast. Today Mike comes on to talk about getting started with video and how video is different from photography when telling a story.

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In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The power of storytelling

• What is a 3 act structure

• The Fundamentals of telling a story in a single frame

• How to push the envelope without going too far

• How to tell a long term story

• How to come up with creative ideas

Resources:

• The Video Maker Podcast

• Video Maker on Instagram

• Video Maker on Facebook

Standout Quotes:

• "I believe truly that video and photography is really all about stories, no matter what kind of work you're doing" - [Mike]

• "It really doesn't matter what kind of camera you have, if it can record images and sounds, it's good enough, you can do amazing things with almost nothing" - [Mike]

• "Editing is just about making creative decisions in the process of creating and removing pieces that don't need to be there" - [Mike]

• "The more pieces there are, the more things that will capture people's attention, the harder time they'll have to figure out what's actually going on" - [Mike]

• "Essentially what we're doing is we're just capturing our lives as photographers" - [Raymond]

Key Takeaways:

• Mike explains that the overall point of filmmaking has improved in the last 10 years.

• While the camera is important, the kind of camera should not necessarily stop you from creating amazing art.

• Understanding the core concepts of storytelling and having new creative ideas plays a major role in evolving from mediocre work.

• A strong image that needs to tell a story all on its own has to have all the important pieces in place to portray what's going on and not much else

• When it comes to marketing a product, start with why it is important, how you achieve it, and then what it is. 

• Tips for exploring the video function on your camera: Camera Stabilization and Audio Capture

• The 3 Act Structure is the beginning, middle, and end of any story based on the concept of Freytag's Pyramid: Exposition, Inciting Incident, Rising action, Climax, Falling action, and Resolution.

• If you do it enough, you start to find your groove and what works for you

Episode Timeline:

• [00:28] How would you start introducing storying into some of your earliest video projects?

• [05:53] Do you think that the overall point of filmmaking and storytelling has gotten better or worse in the last 10 years?.

• [10:40] Mike explains the factors involved in moving from mediocre performance to creating good work.

• [15:10] What sorts of elements would be required to tell a good story within a single frame of a film?

• [23:55] Beginner tips for photographers starting to explore the video function on their cameras

• [29:15] The Crossover between Photography and Video.

• [39:35] 'Freytag's Pyramid' and the '3 Act Structure'

• [47:25] How to do a long term project.

• [50:10] How to contact Mike

Did you enjoy this episode? Check out more recent interviews with other great guests!

Full Episode Transcription:

Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.

Raymond Hatfield: 00:00 You know, Mike, with you getting started in video production with like TV and commercials kind of like myself. One thing that I always found really interesting was just the power of telling a story. Right. When we, when we first get started, we get really excited when we're on our own to kind of do all the technical things ourselves, but then we really learn quickly the power of telling a story in what it is that we're producing. So for you how would you start introducing story into some of your, your earliest video projects?

Mike Wilhelm: 00:35 You know, I would say that that my very earliest video projects were like a hundred percent story. You know, like a lot of people I got started you know, making videos in junior high school and in high school doing like, you know, monkeying around with my dad's old VHS C cam quarter. And you know, at the time we were just like goofing around doing silly stuff, like pointing our camera at ourselves and then plugging into the TV and doing world's effect and all that. But eventually you know, going into, into high school, we had assignments like creative writing assignments or, or actually one that I recall specifically was like a, a it was like a dramatic presentation where you had to like, act out, you know, some you know, Greek play or something right from, from English class.

Mike Wilhelm: 01:23 And I was never a big performer, but I, I, but I did like cameras. So I talked my teacher into letting me shoot a movie of this this little scene rather than acting it out in front of the class. And so story for me was like, right from the start that's what video was for was to, was to put images together and tell some sort of story. You know, as, as kids, I think, you know, we enjoy the process of like imagination, obviously in acting it out in play, but also, you know, in like creative writing, you tell stories and you know, I think I must have written my first story, fourth grade or something, you know, you write like a story or something that's fun and all, but but then actually using a camera and turning it into imagery makes it just sort of come to life in a way that is, is really magical.

Mike Wilhelm: 02:08 So, you know, for me getting started, that's what it was all about is just to tell a story and communicate it. I wasn't the greatest writer. I wasn't the most charismatic person or performer, but I could tell stories with images. And so, so that's what it was all that I, I, I believe truly that that video and photography is really all about stories. No matter what kind of, kind of work you're doing, you know, I, I spent years making commercials and I considered every single commercial, no matter how, like cheesy or, you know pretty straight forward, it was to be a story of some kind, if your community at any, any kind of message you can apply the same elements of storytelling in it. Throughout, you know, we're talking about the, the classic three act structure, you can put it to everything, anything that has any kind of, of timing. I don't know if three X structure works for you or not, but,

Raymond Hatfield: 02:56 Well, it can, if you have a, you know, like a project or just a series

Mike Wilhelm: 03:01 Of series. Yeah. Yeah. So for me it was, it was right from the beginning.

Raymond Hatfield: 03:06 It's funny how similar our our stories are you know, last week, you and I chatted on the video maker podcast and I shared my, my story and it was the same, you know, when you got into high school, you're like, wait, I don't have to write something like, I can make a video. Like, this is fantastic. Definitely gonna do this.

Mike Wilhelm: 03:24 No, I think at our age what happens is you know, shooting movies at home is actually kind of a novelty now it's now it's it's commonplace, but at the time it was like, wow, you can do this. So you should, you absolutely should, you know, make a movie instead of writing this three page story or paper or whatever.

Raymond Hatfield: 03:41 Yeah. Yeah. In fact, my son has he's eight and he has an old, an old iPhone six S right. And it still shoots 4k video. It has eye movie like built into it. And he was just messing around one day and was just playing around with you know, some of the effects and thrown in some, some clips and stuff. And I remember just that moment when he showed me what it was that he created, and it was just simple cuts and things like that. And I remember all of the hours that I spent, you know, taking and ingesting those, those mini DV tapes that you had to do in real time for it to copy. And it was the old, like G4 IMAX at a, at the local college. Cause I had nothing to edit on. And now, as you said, it's just, it's commonplace.

Raymond Hatfield: 04:24 Like we can do this can anywhere. We want to, but I feel like I'd love to hear your thoughts on giving everybody the tool to be able to tell a story because, you know, we gave everybody a pen and paper and now everybody can in theory, like, you know, write something out, they can write a story. They can tell a story before only a select few had cameras, video cameras, but now everybody has them. Do you think that the the overall, maybe not the production, but the overall point of filmmaking and storytelling has gotten better or worse over the last I dunno, 10 years or so?

Mike Wilhelm: 05:06 Oh, way. Better way. Absolutely way better. I mean, there's no, no doubt about it. You know we talked about it all the time on, on the video maker podcast that it really doesn't matter. What, what kind of camera you have, if, if it can record images and sound, it's good enough, you can do amazing things with almost nothing. And you know, a little anecdote we talked about, I mentioned all the time, people were probably annoyed about it right by now, but, you know, Stanley Kubrick was once asked about like, what is the best aspect ratio you like to shoot on, you know for, for your films. And he says, it's just a canvas. You know, it's just a thing place to do art. So whatever the requirement is, I'll make art for that, that medium. You can go back in history and look at some of the greatest photographs of all time, you know, Anzel Adams, wasn't shooting on, you know a 5g Mark for, or anything like that.

Mike Wilhelm: 05:51 You know the equipment is, it makes no difference in my mind in terms of creating art as for, you know, everyone having access to it. I mean, I think you can look at YouTube and the internet as a whole, as an example of what happens when everyone has access to these creative tools, like incredible things happen, and people are introduced to the art of storytelling that never would have before, because it was too far out of reach, you know, just buying your first camera could be difficult. And in fact, I can remember my first video camera. I didn't, I don't think I bought it until boy, I was in college, everything before that was just whatever I could get my hands on you and my dad would rent a camera. I would use that now everyone has it. So they're, they're developing their skills early and they're exercising those creative muscles all the time.

Mike Wilhelm: 06:38 And obviously that's going to have a big impact on the creative world. You know, I was just talking to to a friend yesterday about tiger woods, right. I don't know if, if, if you're into golf at all, but you know, tiger woods, he played. And then they had to like lengthen all the courses because he was so good and they had to like make them hard. I didn't know that. And you know, it's one of those things where this was a guy who started playing golf as a young child and and he was working at it for years and years and years. And now we have people who are coming up in that world who have also been playing since a child and, and the, the level of play is like climbing. Right. So I think you could say the same thing about, about the creative world, you know, when you are, when you have an entire generation of kids that have cameras in their hands, by like the age two, my niece has a camera she's two years old. Then the level of work is just going to go up and up and up and maybe bad news for you know, you and I, who we didn't get started until later. But but yeah, it's only a good thing, I think for the aggression of, of the art,

Raymond Hatfield: 07:44 Well in a world where we have obviously, you know amazing like world-class shorts that are filmed by people, you know, on an iPhone you know, these little documentaries that that are critically acclaimed, obviously, obviously when it comes to documentaries, the story is kind of everything. And the imagery is, is, is almost secondary, but we also live in a world where we have just, you know, Tik TOK and Instagram. And I feel like the two sides are being polarized, right? Like the good is getting great and the okay is getting terrible when it comes to telling stories and whatnot. And some people may not like that. I said that, but well I w I would love to hear your thoughts kind of going on that tiger woods example here. Do you think that we're taking storytelling and cinematography to a place that it's never seen before and that like, we're just pushing the envelope so far forward? Or do you think that that's all just extra when it comes to making video?

Mike Wilhelm: 08:47 You know, I could think I could just sort of describe this phenomenon. It's just an expansion of competition, right? Like the, maybe the, the mediocre art is now pretty bad. But that's really just by comparison, it's like a numbers game, right? If the number of films that are created each year is expanding exponentially then the world has only has so much attention to focus on things. And so they're going to focus their attention on whatever the top, you know, 10% of work is essentially right. Meanwhile, the entire spectrum is expanding. So more people are getting into it and you know, more people are maybe having a hard time breaking through I'll call it the noise, but not really noise, but bringing through the crowd, I guess, to, to try to reach that top 10% is becoming more and more and more difficult to do that.

Mike Wilhelm: 09:34 It's certainly easier to enter the arena, to enter the sort of competitive space to, to try to make your voice heard to, to make your story heard. When you're making take talks, we can all do that, like before the end of this podcast. But but in terms of who's breaking through and what standing out, you know, the bar is raising all the time, just because there's so many more people participating. And if you do mediocre work, it's just harder and harder, harder to get through it. Like if you ever watch TV from the eighties, anyone who does that, right. You watch it and go, wow, this is pretty bad. Pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. As opposed to today, we're like living in this golden age of television, despite actually the kind of decline of broadcasting just because talent, there's just so much talent out there that, that you know, the mediocre stuff has just a less of a chance to, to rise up to the top.

Raymond Hatfield: 10:25 So, in, in your words, what do you think it is that would take you to that level, as you said, it's very easy to get into the arena. Essentially. We can all buy a camera. We all have cameras. What would take us from mediocre to creating really good work?

Mike Wilhelm: 10:46 Well, if I knew that maybe I would be doing something else, something right. But, you know, I think if I were to describe it, it would be, you know you've got to know the fundamentals of storytelling. And you know, like I mentioned, the three X structure and Freytag's pyramid is like ultra important. If you've just sort of abandoned these core concepts of storytelling, then it's going to be hard to get anywhere. That being said today, you know, with competition is as stiff as it is then I think it comes down to really having new creative ideas. If you can show someone something they've never seen before, while using the fundamentals of storytelling to make sure that people's attention is, you know totally captured. I think that's, what's going to do it. I think that's, what's going to do it.

Mike Wilhelm: 11:35 You know, if you look at, if you look at some of the big hits on you know, all the streaming services are stories that are just absolutely unique, you know I think you could look at maybe game of Thrones is a good example of this. I don't know of any story that has, has been in such a way where it's like this part fantasy part soap, opera, you know, super violent, super sexual. It was just like this new thing. People saw this, this story and it was unlike anything that they'd ever seen. And I think it's that, that element that really takes something to the next level and on top of, you know, fantastic photography on top of fantastic writing, you know, you can have fantastic writing but if, you know, the, the editing is poor, the pacing is poor. You're going to have a hard time. So you've got to nail the fundamentals and also have just incredibly original and captivating ideas.

Raymond Hatfield: 12:34 So when it comes to incredibly, you know, original captivating ideas when my wife and I first got together, she had watched Mulholland drive. Right. And that's one of those movies that well, it leaves you kind of wondering what, what have I just watched, right. But at the same time, I would consider that pretty original and I, and I, and a captivating idea. So for these directors, like, you know, David Fincher, where do you think the, the separation is between something like the game of Thrones, where they're pushing the envelope and a, you know, any David Fincher movie as far as how far different they are. Does that question make sense,

Mike Wilhelm: 13:14 Boy, I mean, the question of what's the difference between these two things?

Raymond Hatfield: 13:18 I mean, it's, yeah, we could go on forever.

Mike Wilhelm: 13:21 Some filmmakers just have this amazing ability to take kind of a basic story and turn it into just this absolutely captivating work, you know, I wish I could put my finger on, on what it is, you know you know, certainly there's some films that, that can thrive and succeed and just knock it out of the park based on, on the writing and of the characters. And David Fincher may fall into that category. You know, the movie that I always point at as a good example of this for me has always been Napoleon dynamite where I don't know that the story is kind of like, there's nothing, there's nothing there. Like we've heard this story a hundred times, right? Yeah. You know, underdog, you know achieves the thing that he was in unexpected to achieve. But the characters were so interesting and compelling that he couldn't help, but turn away. And at the same time, you know, David Fincher has this ability to just tell this story. And his timing is such that, you know, kind of keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. Even though you may have kind of all of this story before you kind of know where it's going, it somehow holds your attention. They just have this ability to, to execute these ideas superbly well and yeah, this is one of those cases where if I, if I knew the formula to that,

Raymond Hatfield: 14:44 Well, then let's talk about what you do know, right. What are your thoughts on on just, you know, for, for new photographers, to be able to tell a better story within, within an image, because, you know, as, and I think I've heard you say this before, you know, when it comes to video, we have motion, we can move around, we can explore the scene, but in a photo we have one frame and the story needs to fit within that frame. So what sorts of elements would be required to tell a good story within a single frame of,

Mike Wilhelm: 15:16 Of a film? So I think that, you know, first and foremost, you know, if you're looking at a single frame, you've got to have the fundamentals down, right? Like you have to have the composition of the fundamentals of composition figured out. It has to be, you know, well lit and all of that, all of that sort of basic stuff you have to get down, so you don't have to think about it when you're actually trying to capture images. But beyond that, you know, I would, I would say that I'm a big believer in editing. And when I say editing, I don't necessarily mean like cutting things up in the timeline and, you know, your video editing software or touching up the color and light room or anything that is editing surely, but, but editing is just about making creative decisions in the process of creating and removing pieces that don't need to be there.

Mike Wilhelm: 16:09 Right. I think that a strong image that tells a story, especially if it's a photograph that needs to tell a story all on its own really has to have all the important pieces in place to sort of portray what's going on and not much else. You know, the more pieces of, of noise there are. And I say, I say noise in the sense that, you know, maybe there's like a lot of noise in this shot, you know, with my computer here, actually the computer tells us a little bit of a story, but maybe this coffee cup shouldn't be here, right? The more pieces of noise there are, the more things that will capture people's attention, the harder time they'll have to figure out like what's actually going on, what's important. So, you know, I'm all about making sure that the elements of an image all contribute to telling the story in some way. Otherwise I think things get muddy, you know with, with video, certainly have a number of other elements you know, dialogue and sound and time. But in terms of like an individual image, I think, I think that's it. I think it's, it's placing things that need to be in the shot in the shot so that they, they, they can tell a story about what is actually happening here and cut the rest. Oh, I love that.

Raymond Hatfield: 17:22 Let's talk for a second about that idea of having a photo project, because I think that that's going to be most closely related to working in video and once again telling stories, right. So when we have a video project, or I'm sorry, when we have some sort of photo essay photo project what do you think would be, I'm sorry, this is a bad question here. Let's say that you're being approached a commercial shoot, right? Let me ask the commercial is meant to display a product or a business. Right? That's all that it is. But simply having a sign that says come down to Joe's is very boring, right? So we have to create images that want to get people to come down to Joe's where do you start in creating a story to be able to capture?

Mike Wilhelm: 18:13 I mean if you're talking about a commercial, it really comes down to, you've got to figure out what is, what is the thing that you're trying to convince the viewer of? Oh, you know, usually it's not like buy this thing, you know, buy this coffee mug it's that you have to convince someone in this case of this coffee mug what is special about like this coffee mug will keep your coffee at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for seven hours. It's like, you gotta make, you gotta have a convincing story here. Because just coming out and saying, buy this coffee mug is just not gonna cut it. Right. It's all about persuasion. And you know, there was a great Ted talk. I w I wish I could recall the person gave it. But the general idea is why, how, what with the idea that as you're delivering a message you start with the why of why is something important and then how do you achieve that thing?

Mike Wilhelm: 19:11 And then what is it that you're trying to achieve? So this is, this is the Apple philosophy of marketing, where they start with their vision. They get into the process and then they reveal the product at the end. Right. And the whole idea is you're trying to convince the viewer, the thing that you're trying to convince them of that they cannot live their life without this device. Because, because of like some philosophical idea that people at Apple have. Right. so, you know, it's really just about, about what is the best way to persuade someone of a general idea that ultimately in the case of commercials will lead them to buying a product or service?

Raymond Hatfield: 19:49 Well, what about let's, let's, let's tone that down, obviously, that was very you come from the world of sales, right. Of, of essentially commercials. You're trying to sell something, trying to pit something, let's say that you, something that very often happens to new photographers is that maybe they got the new camera they're going out to the zoo with with their kids. Right. We can all capture a billion photos of that, but what photos do you think are going to tell the overall story of, of going to the zoo? What do we need

Mike Wilhelm: 20:22 You know, when I would say that, you know, when you go to the zoo and you're thinking about the photos that you're going to take, you might think about, Oh, I'm just going to get a great shot of an elephant or a lion or something. But, but the story of going to the zoo, the actual, you know, visiting the zoo is, is done by people. And it, it it is their experience at the zoo, right? So in those cases, I would say, if you're telling that story, you have to sort of try to find a way to combine these different elements of the people. Like, maybe it's your family, I guess, right. The animals themselves. And then you've got to try to capture some sort of emotion that that I don't want to say necessarily accurately portrays. What's actually happening.

Mike Wilhelm: 21:02 You know, we talked about on a video maker podcast about this idea that I like the fantasy of a visual storytelling, but something that captures the emotion that you want to feel when you look at the photo again later. So I would look for opportunities in those cases to, to capture emotions of the family with some sort of zoo, like element, probably some sort of animal, but it could be a sign or it could be a zoo worker. I would look for those, those moments, don't spend so much time focusing on just like getting great shots of, you know, birds or, you know, whatever it is, those are going to be cool. And, you know, you go back and you'll might be impressed with your technical ability to capture animals, which is fine. If that's what you're going for. If you, if you want to be a wildlife photographer using this is like practice, then that's great as well. But, but if you're trying to identify what that story is beforehand, and you have identified it in, in something like the family's trip to the zoo, you absolutely have to find a way to blend these elements together of people, Zu elements, which I guess is animals and some sort of emotion, you know, which is going to probably come through in the eyes and facial features, structure, facial, facial.

Raymond Hatfield: 22:10 I always love looking at the people's pictures from the zoo, because it's always like super long lens trying to just frame the animal as if like they're really on the Serengeti or something like that. But we all know you're like, we're in Cleveland. Like, you know, that's not that that's not Africa there. Yeah,

Mike Wilhelm: 22:27 No, I it's. It's a good example. I think because you know, as a video person, I was never that into photography until video technology sort of, you know, pushed everyone to using DSLRs in which case it's like, okay, now my video camera shoots photos and I, I started to take up photography. And one of the first things I did was I went to the zoo.

Raymond Hatfield: 22:47 Yeah. I knew it. And see, it's such a good example.

Mike Wilhelm: 22:50 Same thing happened. I, I think I took 1200 photos of animals in pens. And guess how many times I've looked at those pictures since that day, even though they were pretty, yeah, none,

Raymond Hatfield: 23:01 But I bet if there was, say a kid in the foreground looking over the fence, trying to see a giraffe suddenly that's a, that's a photo that maybe you would want to to look at later. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So what about, as you just mentioned there, you know, the blending of, of cameras, essentially, we used to have a camera and we used to have a video camera and these were two separate things. And then the cell phone came along and Oh, no, wait, actually I take that back. I had, I don't even remember what it was called. It was like a Sanyo this thing was crazy. It was, it was ridiculous. It was like a little tiny pocket camera and you flip it open and you can switch from video mode to photo mode. And I remember seeing this thing and I bought it for that exact reason.

Raymond Hatfield: 23:43 I was like, wherever I go, I now no longer have to take stills from my, you know, for ADP video to, to, to, to have a photo of this. And being able to have both was very exciting. So let's say that there's, you know, plenty of new photographers right now listening, and they got into photography because they love the idea of capturing moments, right. Should we be exploring the video functions of our cameras? And if so, do you have any good beginner tips to just getting started with that? Like what should we do with some of this footage?

Mike Wilhelm: 24:15 Well, I think it's, it's worth anyone who is learning photography to switch over to video mode and take, take a few clips now and again, and I think what you're going to find is that a lot of the fundamentals translate over pretty seamlessly. You know, camera movement is, can be difficult which is a new skill to learn. And audio capture is a new skill to learn, but, but if you already have the camera that can do it. Yeah, absolutely. Should she would experiment with it and you might find a new passion as for beginner to tips. You know, I just mentioned too, I guess, which is a camera movement and I guess I'll, I'll clarify, can't remove it by saying a camera stabilization is a big one and so is audio. So camera stabilization is important because everyone, I think understands that shaky cam footage is just difficult to watch and it really doesn't matter what the subject is.

Mike Wilhelm: 25:08 You know, if the footage is too shaky, it's like yours would just get disoriented or, you know, motion sick, just watching it. So you got to figure out how to keep the camera stable. So many cameras now have embody stabilization built in that it's not as big a deal, but, but a lot of the same you know, fundamentals of how to keep your cameras still photography for photography work for video as well. So one of them has three points of contact, right? So you wanna like keep your elbows in one elbow to elbow and then like pull the camera itself, close to your face. And if you can make contact with the camera on your face, then that's the third point kind of difficult sometimes with, with modern cares, but you can actually get like little accessories that like, eyepieces that stick out the contact help keep things extra stable.

Mike Wilhelm: 25:57 Obviously tripods work great for video as well as photography. Although I would say that if you're using a, you know inexpensive photo tripod and you want to shoot video with it, try not to move the camera too much. They, the heads of those tripods don't, don't, you know, they're not built for nice smooth pans and tilts. Also you can get stabilizers, pretty inexpensively that will, you know, use a brushless motor to keep things smooth. But otherwise look for it, look for you know, ways to keep the cameras as still as possible and turn that image stabilization on. And the second is audio capture, which if there's anything more frustrating than shaky camera it's in on what's the word? Inaudible audio audible. Yes. Yeah. So you can understand what people are saying or, you know, you're doing that thing where, you know, when you're watching it, you gotta ride the remote control.

Mike Wilhelm: 26:49 You know, it's like blasting and turn it down. That can be tricky. We always say, you know, don't use the microphone. That's built into your camera. Try to get an external mic if you can. But if you have to use the mic that's inside the camera, like you just don't want to make the investment of a microphone, keep the camera really close to your subject. So don't shoot across the room at someone who's talking to the camera, you really have to be close. Those microphones are not that good. They're not that directional. So get the microphone close. And actually that, that advice applies to any microphone. The closer you can get the microphone, generally, the better sound quality you get, but, but if you can focus on those things, keep the the camera stable, make sure the microphone is close and you're capturing a nice crisp sound.

Mike Wilhelm: 27:32 That'll get you a long way. Another thing to do is to plug your headphones into the mic, into the, the camera itself. So not all new cameras or, or entry-level cameras have a headphone Jack, but if they do, you can plug your buds into that and that'll help you monitor the sound. You can't trust it entirely because what you hear in your ear buds are not necessarily what's going to come out of speakers, but you'll listen for things like crackly, audio, or, you know, when noise everyone has has this experience, I think shooting on their phone or, or, or a simple camera where they're capturing some event and then they take it home and they look at it. I guess you can watch it on your phone now, but he would get this like rumbling audio of the wind hitting the microphone. You've got to keep your, your ear buds in so he can hear for that and make adjustments as you, as you go. But that's really the big ones. I'm assuming you already know the fundamentals of photography and exposure and focusing all that realization and audio.

Raymond Hatfield: 28:26 Now let's say that, first of all, I guess before we go any further Atlantic, get your thoughts on on that movie came out a few years ago, hardcore Henry, do you remember that movie? It was like, it was like you said, you've never heard of it. Oh, it was like a, it was like a first person view. It even had like theatrical release. And it was, it was so hard to watch because being, you know first person view it. It's very shaky. It's very shaky. And I ended up having to leave the theater, like I paid $20 or whatever to see this movie. And I left because it was so shaky and it was it was unnerving to watch. So you know, I love that tip. That's a great tip, you know, try to keep things as steady as possible, and then just simple camera movements and bump up the the quality of the audio. That's a, that's great stuff. So now that we have, let's say let me ask you, do you think that there's a world in which photography and video exist together or are they pretty mutually exclusive?

Mike Wilhelm: 29:27 Well, I mean, from a skills perspective, there's certainly tons of overlap. And now you're seeing all kinds of filmmakers who are venturing into photography and vice versa. So that's going to continue, I'm sure. As for creative work. Yeah, absolutely. If there's going to merge over. So I can think of two examples where the two have sort of crossed paths or maybe I've merged. So one of them is motion graphics. So you may have seen, well, actually anyone who's ever watched like old Ken burns documentary is know that Ken burns can tell an eight hour story with stills, right? Yeah. Still audio obviously narration. So that's actually one of the first skills that you know, if you ever want to get into documentary or, or video work generally is to learn how to tell stories with video using only photos using, you know, basically pan and scan over, over images, but even in motion graphics, there's a lot going on with there's this effect that's really popular.

Mike Wilhelm: 30:25 It's been popular for 15 years or so now where, you know, you can go into your software and like cut out you know, the subject of a photograph and separate them from the background and then do this like 3d parallax look. Oh, yes, yes. You know, there's a lot, a lot, a lot you can do with photographs in video and you can tell entire stories without, you know, recording any motion pictures outside of that, you know, one thing that I really enjoy, boy, what is the name of these things? Cinema graph.

Raymond Hatfield: 30:56 Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. When you take the image and you can I had I had the creator of, of, of one of the more popular cinemagraph apps on the podcast and yeah, so you can like have a picture you put in some key points and then like make them stretch or so like is stretch the right word. And then it just kind of loops

Mike Wilhelm: 31:16 I think it's any motion element. So like a cinema graph from my understanding spray, Google this, to make sure I'm using the right word. There is this idea that it's a photograph with an animated looping element, right? So an example might be someone standing in the rain and the rain is pouring, but it's otherwise a photograph, right. Or someone's sitting next to the fire and the fire is flicking, but it's otherwise a photograph. I saw one where it was like an Olympic you know, torch bear and they're like frozen in frame, you know, running, but the fire flame with the torches burning. I think those are really interesting. I don't know how mainstream they'll ever be until we get to like, you know, the Harry Potter world where, you know animated pictures hanging on the wall and all that. But, but I think those are two examples that I can think of where these two, these two disciplines have sort of crossed paths.

Raymond Hatfield: 32:06 So then that brings me kinda to my next question here, which is talking about, you know, you don't know how, how mainstream cinemagraphs are going to go, because it's kind of a strange medium to be able to view, right. It almost seems kind of gimmicky, right. You look at it and you're like, Oh, that's interesting. And then you just, you just keep going. Whereas video has the ability to stop you and you'll want to watch the story from beginning to end and with a photo, it can also stop you and make you really look and kind of dive deeper into an image. W w where do you think that, do you think that it's possible that we live in a world where both of those things can be combined and still allow us to, to view them together? I mean, again, bad question. They're not, not fully formed, but obviously, so that's going to be a video, right. I just answered my own question there, kind of like that Kinsey burn that Ken burns example that you gave there were taken photos, and then we're turning them into video, but in, in the world of, of storytelling, do you think that there's a situation in which we use video and we have photos, but together they just make a stronger story.

Mike Wilhelm: 33:19 You know, what might be a good example of this? And it's, it's not like, you know, the sexiest thing in the world. Well, maybe some people it is, is is social media, right? Where people do tell stories on Instagram using a combination of images and video. So just like, as you're flipping through, you know a post that has a number of what do they call it, a carousel, you know, where you're looking at photos and inter blended within them as is video clips, where if you look at anything individually, maybe the story isn't isn't there, but it's sort of a combination of these things. It sort of paints a broader picture. And again, this is like a consumer level thing, you know whether this translates to Hollywood, I'm not sure. But that's one example I can think of where it's like this sort of multimedia thing, but, you know, to the, to the, to your point about the Ken burns is like, is it video, I mean, does taking these images and then doing pans over the top of them and adding voiceover narration and music, is, does that mean it's no longer a photograph or is it video now?

Mike Wilhelm: 34:21 You know, I, I think you could say it's kind of both. And you know, I think that eventually, yeah, back to the cinema graph idea, you know, this idea that, you know, video will capture someone's attention maybe in a way that, that a photo won't at least like in terms of like a fleeting passer-by, you know, that happens because our eyes are attracted to motion. It's probably like it's back to our time on the Savannah, you know, looking for lions or something that we just like snap our eyes to motion. That's why video is so attention grabbing, but I can definitely foresee you know, more examples in the outside world, outside of our, our screens on our phones and our laptops and our TVs where screens are kind of everywhere. You know, actually we're seeing this now with a lot of billboards, they're like electronic billboards where just a little bit of motion in an otherwise static image, like a billboard will capture someone's attention in a way that is just a classic still photograph wouldn't. So I do think that we are going to see that, especially as, you know display technology progresses and prices come down. If we have displays everywhere, electronic displays, we're definitely gonna see way more motion than we ever have before.

Raymond Hatfield: 35:34 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So a few months I talked to a photographer and his name is Simon. And what he did was he decided to buy, to learn photography while documenting his journey, essentially. Right. So he did a a one photo a week project, and it was only supposed to be for a year, but now I think he's going on year seven, which is, which is awesome for him. But what he did was to extend the the learning, I suppose, or the education side of it, he is now taking those photos and then he puts it in, you know, premiere or, or, or I'm movie, and then narrates kind of how he got that shot. Right. And kind of how that photo came about. And I always struggle with this idea of like, yes, like we're looking at this photo and it's cool to be able to hear that story. And that's, that's a whole element right there. Right. But there's also something to be said about viewing a photograph, like in print, because print is kind of that natural medium for a photograph. And then just letting yourself kind of figure out what's going on in an image. What are your thoughts on kind of the, the differences between the two and kind of where new photographers who are getting into photography, but also interested in video, what are your thoughts on kind of how they can explore those two things?

Mike Wilhelm: 37:02 Well, I think the example that you gave of, of the guy who's trying to do both simultaneously is a good one. And it's interesting because a lot of the fundamentals are the same for both. And yet the process of learning to become a great photographer, or is it becoming a great filmmaker? Are, are, they are quite a bit different and you do have to focus on different things, you know, in a photograph, you have one frame, that's all you get to tell an interesting story. And so you got to pour a lot of attention, a lot of effort into making sure everything is just right in this one frame. Although I don't want to discount, you know, the is sort of what do they call it? Street photography, gorilla photography style. But with filmmaking, you know, you're working on different things.

Mike Wilhelm: 37:48 You know, the, the person who was documenting their photography journey is probably not treating every video shot with the same level of care that they are with their photographs. Likewise they're probably not giving the script for the video that they're creating as much care as they are for their photograph. And, and those are important disciplines that if you want to become a master in, in either craft, you're, you're going to be you know, focusing your attention in different directions. That said, you know, as you're developing your skills, certainly you can work on working on the camera and the composition and lighting, and those skills will transfer pretty well. Like this person who was working in the photo skills surely became a better video shooter or a cinematographer in the process. Now if they want to make a movie every week, they're going to need to learn different skills, you know, because capturing a beautiful image, even if that image tells a little bit of a story, you know, isn't quite developing all the skills that you need to become a great filmmaker. You know, you really do have to focus a lot on editing and writing in ways that you wouldn't have with have to do that with them, the photography,

Raymond Hatfield: 39:09 You know, what I always found interesting is that and I never thought about this in say high school, but, you know, when DVDs were first on the sound so old, when DVDs were really like gaining popularity and they were like putting new features into DVDs and they would always make, you know, a deleted scenes portion. And I was always so excited to watch those deleted scenes. Cause I was like, you know, what, what didn't they put in the movie? But it wasn't until I went to film school that I realized somebody had to write that, like somebody had to write that scene, somebody had to plan it. And when somebody wrote that scene, they wrote that scene with the hopes that that scene was going to push the movie forward in some sense, right. That it was going to push that story that was being told forward. And yet here it is completely removed from those from the movie because it didn't do anything. So let's talk a little bit about what you were talking about earlier, which is just the simple three-act structure, right. For those just getting into video work, you know, what is it and, and what would it look like to capture?

Mike Wilhelm: 40:09 So yeah, so, I mean, that's just the general idea of the scene that gets cut, I think, is a process that happens when a kind of like when you're doing any kind of creative work, as you have an idea of something that's going to work out and as you're working through it, you realize actually, you know, this thing that I thought was going to work really doesn't work. And that happens all the time. I don't care if you're, you know, making a movie or, you know, you're making a business card, right. That, that process happens. The, the three X structure is just like this. It's basically the it's the beginning, middle and end of, of any story. And this is the idea here transcends just filmmaking. It's the same thing for you know, if you're writing a novel, you're probably following this.

Mike Wilhelm: 40:51 But it's basically if, if you take the three extractor beginning, middle end and go one level deeper, it's this concept called Freytag's pyramid, which I don't know the history of a freight guy for a tag, but he, he basically documented this idea that stories happen in these, these phases. So the phase is just to go through them quickly as exposition, where you're just sort of setting the scene, you're introducing all the characters, there's an inciting incident where conflict is introduced, there's rising and action. So in this story, that tension is climbing. And this happens usually in act two, the three-act structure, here's the climax. So this is like, you know, in the scene, the 1989 Batman, when the joker falls off the building, that's the climax. Yeah. There's the falling action. When now tension declines and there's resolution or denouement.

Mike Wilhelm: 41:45 When the story sort of wraps up and this general idea of the three X structure, afraid tags pyramid can be applied to any story that's told over time, I believe. And again, I'm not enough of a photography expert to say, does this, you know, if this works with target for, like I said, maybe in a series of photographs that would work quite well. But but when you're stumbling any story in time whether it's video, you're making a movie, whether you are making a commercial, whether you're making a bunch of tick talks, theoretically, to tell a good story, this, this general Freytag's pyramid three X structure helps to capture attention and hold it in a way that is just, it just, I don't know why it's human psychology or something, but it just works in order to get people to understand what's happening and be interested and, and are you know, have some emotional investment in this story, Athens and novels, you name it. There are other storytelling formats, there are certainly films that don't necessarily follow this format, but this is kind of the bedrock foundation of storytelling

Raymond Hatfield: 42:48 When let's go back to that zoo example real quick. All right, because when I got to the zoo and I hear from many new photographers, they want to capture everything. They're going to shoot every little detail. We're going to, you know, we're going to get the the, the ketchup on the face when he's eating the chicken nuggets or whatever, you know, the little kid at the, at the lunch, like we're going to capture all these photos when it comes to that three X structure idea. Should we, is this something that we should be planning before and then know, like, you know what, I don't really need to capture lunch here, or is this something that we just capture it all and then edit down after the fact,

Mike Wilhelm: 43:25 You know, I would say that if you're taking photographs at the zoo, you can kind of think you're thinking about yourself in like a like a documentarian, right? So one of the big challenges that documentary filmmakers have is there's something going on and they have to explore it and investigate it. And the story unfolds as it's happening, but they find the story in the process of, of making the story. And so obviously you don't want to like plot out the conflict of your trip to the zoo, right? You want there to be conflict to make a good story. Like if you're going to show pictures to your family afterwards, and there's going to be 20 photos, you want there to be some sort of conflict, because as people go through these series, they're seeing like, what happened? And they're like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe blank happened. That's the conflict. But at the same time, you don't want to like be plotting and scheming and being like, I'm going to make sure that, you know, Billy drops his ice cream cone on the ground or something,

Raymond Hatfield: 44:20 I'm going to knock it out of the sand.

Mike Wilhelm: 44:24 But as you're taking photos, you take a lot of photos. And again, this is a little bit outside of my domain, but I would say you're looking for the story and you're looking for elements of conflict. And as you afterwards are piecing these photos together and you're choosing them in a way that, you know, you hope that when you show your friends and family, this collection of images, that it doesn't fall into that same sort of hit that. So many family photos have where it's like, you're excited because you were there and it brings back memories, but no one really else is excited to look, yes. You know, you can, you can, you can go along and show these and maybe with captions or something, you're sort of telling the story of what happened. And you put the most exciting things, you know, kind of like in the last third and you have this rising tension is rising conflict as you go.

Mike Wilhelm: 45:11 And that's, what's going to keep people like, Oh man, I can't wait to see what the next photo holds. And again, sorry, this is kind of out of my domain. I don't know if people actually do this photography, but, but if I was trying to make, am tell a story with photos about a trip to the w that's what I would do. I'd take a bunch of photos and look for those moments of tension and conflict and, and try to tell a story with that. And, you know, I say tension and conflict, which are kind of negative sounding words. They don't have to be traumatic. But, but just sort of points of interest is what you're looking for. They could be perfectly innocent. Like Billy driving's ice cream code is not a big deal, but if you've got the photo, that'd be a great shot. Sorry.

Raymond Hatfield: 45:50 But if I knocked it out of his hand, that would be, that would be traumatic. And that would be conflict. Yeah.

Mike Wilhelm: 45:55 You would be a bad person, but

Raymond Hatfield: 45:58 Yeah, it's, it's interesting that you said that. Cause I think you know, when it comes to photos, displaying the photos is always the challenge. I think when it comes to shooting video, the barrier for me at least is the editing, but then once you have it, it's, it's fun and it's easy to share. And like, it just goes out there it's, it's, it's one video, right? Whether it's a minute, five minutes, you know, whatever it is here it is. But when it comes to photos, I don't want to inundate everybody on my Facebook feed or whatever, with a hundred photos that I took at the zoo and me knocking, you know, Charlie's ice cream out of his hand, you know, I don't want to do that. So that's always a hard thing for me and trying to figure out other ways to display those.

Raymond Hatfield: 46:40 You know, sometimes I use, I don't know if you've heard of it. Animoto so it's just like a slideshow app, right? You load in a bunch of photos creates a video slideshow. You can set it to music if you want it to. And then now you have a collection of images that can be shared much easier. And that's one of my favorite things to do. So if anybody's listening, like that's a great way to do it. But aside from that, I think that's, you you've really helped me there kind of uncovered this, this, this hidden block for me, which is how am I trying to share my photos? How am I trying to get a point across and tell this larger story of essentially what we're doing is we're just capturing our lives right. As photographers. Yep. Yep. Maybe it's a little bit different for video, but for photography, we're just, we're just capturing our lives. So I know that we're coming to the end of our time. Do you have any last maybe ideas or on how to do a long-term project? Like, like how our entire lives?

Mike Wilhelm: 47:36 Oh boy. You know, how do you do it three sentences max, by the way, you know, I always think the most interesting thing when someone does one of these, these big projects is to, is to see how they develop their own personal style. Like if you were doing a photo project for five years or your entire life, good luck telling one coherent story over that entire time. Although actually afterwards, if, if you're coming towards the end of your life and you have a lifetime of photographs, you could edit these together into a, into a book that would probably tell a pretty compelling story that follows a nice free text pyramid structure. But aside from that but aside from that, I always think the most important or most interesting thing is to see how someone's personal style evolves. And it happens with everyone who takes enough photos or shoots enough video where, you know, they start out and they're emulating someone else's look or someone else's style.

Mike Wilhelm: 48:35 And eventually you just like, they run dry. You know, you're taking so many images, you just can't emulate this. Someone else's looked forever. And I think this is true, no matter what you're doing, whether you're taking photographs or, you know, baking cookies, right? Like if you do it enough, you start to get into your own groove and you, you sort of find what you're good at. You find what works, you expand on that. And as a viewer of photographs and a viewer of collections, I love seeing how people's style develops and seeing that evolution of this like kind of generic looking photos or, you know, photos that are emulating something else into something that's truly unique. And so, you know, as a creator, I w I would look for those opportunities, look for opportunities to play and experiment to, to create something new, to create something that is uniquely yours.

Mike Wilhelm: 49:27 Even if it doesn't come through in a singular photograph, but as you're, as you're piecing together this collection over many years, you start to see, Oh, actually I do have this, this signature look or this signature style that when you look at it as a whole says a lot about me as a photographer, as a creator. I think again, that's just really interesting to look at the actual content of the photos is always nice. But when I'm looking at, at a, at a lifetime of collections, those are the things that are most interesting to me,

Raymond Hatfield: 50:00 Mike, I don't know how to end it any better than that. That was inspirational. That was educational right there. And I think that the listeners are going to get a lot out of that, a little sentiment right there. So, so thank you very much. Now I know that we're at the end of our time here, but before I let you go, can you let the listeners know where they can follow you online and learn more about video makers?

Mike Wilhelm: 50:20 Yeah. So if you're listening to this podcast, I guess that must mean you're a podcast listener. So I encourage you to check out our relatively podcast, the video maker podcast. It's a video maker is a publication, a media company for beginners and enthusiasts. So if you're all interested in video production, I encourage that. I encourage you to check that out, or you can go to videomaker.com and read articles, watch videos and that kinda stuff. But yeah, those are the things.

Raymond Hatfield: 50:45 What about you? Can we follow you on Instagram? Can we follow you? Where can we find you online?

Mike Wilhelm: 50:50 You can, if you want, I'm not, I'm not much of a social media person. I'm like a, I'm like one of those people that have got, I don't trust Silicon Valley, but, but I do have profiles there. You can, you can check me out M and the Wilhelm on I think that's the handle on Instagram and Twitter, and that's all I use.

Raymond Hatfield: 51:08 Okay. Right on. Well, I'll link to it in the show notes you know, w you didn't do a very good job of selling it right there, but you know, we'll see what we can do anyway,

Mike Wilhelm: 51:18 At video maker. And both of those places, we are quite active,

Raymond Hatfield: 51:21 Big, perfect, much, much better than the than the personal one right there. Well, Mike you know, thank you again so much for coming on and sharing everything that you did. I look forward to keeping up with you in the future.

Mike Wilhelm: 51:31 Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. It was a great conversation.