Thursday 29 December 2011

The Story Formatting

Stories can be told in many different formats, each designed for a different purpose. Be mindful of your budget, the availability of resources, and time
when you choose the format for your story.

The main formats include:

■ Animation. Produced either by hand or using computer technologies, 2D
or 3D movies still rely on traditional story structures, although the means of production lie strictly with the animator and rarely include live-action
elements. Animated fi lms are very time consuming and technically elaborate.

■ Commercials. Designed to advertise a product or service, television
commercials incorporate a wide range of styles, techniques, animation,
narrative, and hard-sell techniques into 10-, 15-, 30-, or 60-second time
lengths. Commercials are a great way for fi lmmakers to showcase their
style and story-telling and production capabilities and are among the most
lucrative, well-paying forms of production.

■ Documentaries. Documentaries are intended to study a subject, occurrence,
theme, or belief in an attempt to either explore the subject or arrive
at a conclusion about the subject. Documentaries can either take on an
investigative approach, in which the fi lmmaker tries to answer a question or research
a subject, or follow a subject and allow the story to unfold during the production.
Documentaries can, in some instances, be inexpensive but time-consuming to produce.

■ Feature fi lms. The 90-minute narrative is the mainstay of Hollywood entertainment,
and its production is the dream of millions of aspiring fi lmmakers. The riskiest style
of production, feature fi lms are expensive and time consuming and rarely recoup the
monies invested.

■ Industrial/corporate. These productions are typically marketing or how-to pieces for
businesses. Although not very entertaining to watch or make, industrials
are an outstanding way to make money in the production industry.

■ Music videos. These highly stylized four-minute promotional videos for
music artists are a great way for a fi lmmaker to explore unbridled creativity
using any medium, any style of narrative or performance, and artistic
editing. Music videos are terrifi c short-format pieces that easily demonstrate
a fi lmmaker’s abilities.

■ Short fi lms. Short fi lms are movies that are shorter than 80 minutes.
Ideally under 20 minutes, shorts are a terrifi c way of learning the process
of making a movie, showcasing the talents of the fi lmmakers, and
generating interest from investors in future projects. Despite the educational
and career benefi ts, there is virtually no market for short fi lms,
making it nearly impossible to see a return on the investment. Although
there are a few distributors who may release a compilation DVD of short
fi lms, fi lmmakers rarely see their money back or see distribution of a short
fi lm by itself.

Tag;Story Formatting,story outline format,feature story format,short story format,user story format

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