Storytelling

Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, sound or images. Stories have been shared by human beings for tens of thousands of years as a means of recording and representing the word and for the purposes of:

• Entertainment
• Education
• Cultural preservation
• Instilling moral values

Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include:

• Plot
• Characters
• Narrative
• Point of view

The term 'storytelling' is used in a narrow sense to refer specifically to oral storytelling and in a looser sense to refer to narrative technique in other media.

Visual Storytelling

The phrase "visual storytelling" applies to film and a range of other media. Sometimes it carries perspective edge: in a pictorial medium, you should tell your stories visually - rather than a lengthy piece of dialogue, in other words its more effective to show instead of  telling. 

Visual storytelling refers to the way that producers of moving image products of moving image products convey the meaning of action and events through images without recourse to the written or spoken word. 

This is achieved through two techniques:

• The choice of shots
• The way those  shots are edited together. 

Visual storytelling is purely visual. In film, it needs concepts, music, noises and much of the time a modicum of  dialogue to work most fully. A director who invests in "purely visual" passages first and then considers how his/her images might be reinforced by other inputs, gains huge dividends in the long run.