Creating a Good Video Story

Video stories are becoming an essential part of online and newspaper multimedia reports. But what makes a video story good?

Recently, Rebecca Aguilar, freelance multimedia reporter in Dallas, asked three television news videographers what they think makes for a good video story.

Chuck Denton, a videographer based near Los Angeles, was one of the interviewees. Also interviewed were Bonnie Gonzalez, a reporter and videographer in Austin, and Jim Kent, a videographer with his own company, ArtGecko Productions.

Denton says you need to make sure there are visual elements that can help tell the story.

"Are the interviews dynamic?" he says you should ask yourself in order to determine if a story would make a good video story. "Are they compelling enough to keep folks interested in tuning in?"

Gonzalez says a good video story has a lot of action and natural sounds. These are the sounds you hear in the video that make you feel like you are actually there.

Kent says you should stick with print if the story is complicated and complex. Otherwise, it is better to use video because television is a visual medium.

All three agree that the characters in the video play an important role. Characters that are compelling help tell the story and keep the viewers interested.

They also say that having good sound to tell the story is key. Gonzalez says it is also important to have action to tell an interesting story.

I think that all of these things are important in telling a good video story. A video story would not be interesting if you didn't have energetic or emotional characters telling the story. A video story would also seem dull if there was no action or if the storyline wasn't fitting for a video story.