I recently came across a blog from a fellow named Joe Caneen (a.k.a. The Video Whisperer). Joe is one of those gems you may be lucky enough to encounter in an otherwise lacklustre sea of video tutorials and articles found on the Internet. Don’t get me wrong – I have learned a lot about the mechanics of videography, lighting and postproduction through watching tutorials on YouTube, but I always felt something was lacking – I got the How’s but not the Why’s of all these skills.
Enter Joe, stage left… Joe has decades of experience in both production and post production from large scale Hollywood endeavours to one-man operations (or ‘Lone Shooter’ as he often calls it). Joe recently published a book called ‘Run ‘N Gun Videography: The Lone Shooter’s Survival Guide’ (avaiable from Amazon for Kindle). It’s a great read and I highly recommend it to both experienced videographers and for those looking for meaning behind all the production technology available to us today (the How’s).
The introduction deals with the definition of Run ‘N Gun (so as to clarify that this is not a book about firearms) and then quickly moves to the second chapter – ‘Think Before You Shoot’ – The Message. This is where Joe distinguishes himself and where for the balance of the book he returns to tie the mechanics back to this idea – The Message – “It’s why you are there in the first place”.
This simple idea that no matter what you do with the technology in your hands, if it doesn’t further the message being conveyed and doesn’t increase the audience’s engagement then it doesn’t add value (and therefore doesn’t belong – although Joe is never dictatorial and tends to steer clear of absolutes, provided what you do does not detract from The Message).
This was (is) a breath of fresh air. If you’re like me and you want to learn more about the Why’s of film and video storytelling, I highly recommend you check out Joe’ blog over at Run ‘N Gun.
The Message is clear.