You're Not A Filmmaker; You're A Storyteller

After a couple of really dense lessons where we put into practice everything I’ve been teaching you so far about the Language of Visual Storytelling, today we’ll change gears a little bit to reflect on the very heart of our craft.

So far, we have studied the technical ingredients –shot sizes, camera angles and camera movement– that allow us to tell stories visually, but of course, none of this means anything if we don’t have a story to tell in the first place.

You could, of course, ask ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini to spit out a script for your next short movie, but if you’ve been a reader of this newsletter for some time, you’d know this is not the way we do things here.

We use AI tools to help us with any task we might need help with, but the ultimate goal is to empower ourselves to learn faster and produce more and better results, not to automate us away.

When it comes to producing Art, and, make no mistake, creating films IS an art form, approaching AI with this attitude is more important than ever.

I don’t know about you, but the main reason why I use GenAI models to help me produce movies –really short movies for now, but this will quickly change as the technology advances– is that I don’t have access to the resources needed to film movies with actual actors and a film crew.

AI is allowing me, first of all, to get an accelerated education in filmmaking by doing the closest thing to actually holding a cinema camera in my hands and shooting actors on location…

And second, and equally important: it is giving me the ability to bring my vision to life without a million-dollar budget.

I’ve been studying screenwriting and movie editing for years, but never had the opportunity to treat it as anything more than a hobby since I didn’t have any connections to the industry, so I never thought that doing this professionally was in the cards for me.

GenAI has given me a gift I never thought I’d see in my wildest dreams: the certainty that I can now bring my stories to life, and I can do so on my own if need be.

There are no excuses anymore.

This does not mean, like many people mistakenly assume, that I wouldn't, if given the chance, do this in a traditional movie setting.

Of course I would!

I love movies and everything about them!

I love learning about directing, acting, stunt work, camera work, lighting, screenwriting, editing, all of it, and I deeply admire the professionals who have mastered any of these fields.

I’m not looking to replace any artist with AI! (this is for you, AI haters out there)

On the contrary: I want to help empower artists, ALL ARTISTS, the working ones, and also the new generation of artists to come.

I LOVE the idea of this technology democratizing the power to create movies, giving EVERYONE the chance of being a director, an actor, or whatever they’d like to be, throwing down once and for all the until-now insurmountable barriers of geography and budget.

I do believe that Art is a fundamental part of the human spirit: we all have an innate necessity to create and inspire. To love, and share our love with others.

This is what Art is for me: the inherently human ability to create something, ANYTHING, that carries a message from heart to heart.

Something –the Art piece– that inspires others to reflection or action.

The tools you use to do this are completely irrelevant.

The only thing that matters when it comes to creating art, the only prerequisite, is to have something to say.

And I believe YOU have something to say.

That’s why Story is the beating heart of all arts, not only cinema.

But in cinema, story is the beginning and the end, STORY IS EVERYTHING.

When I decided to start writing this newsletter, I knew from the very beginning that our main focus would be on cultivating the art of crafting compelling stories: The Art of Storytelling.

But of course, I needed to equip you first with the essential tools of cinematography or, as I like to call it, The Language of Visual Storytelling.

There is, of course, much more to Visual Storytelling than these essential tools we’ve covered so far, and we’ll be exploring all of it in future editions of this newsletter.

But before going there, we need to acquire at least a decent level of proficiency in the core skill, the skill without which none of the other skills really matter: the skill of Storytelling.

Everything starts when you recognize that, in the end, you’re not a filmmaker or a cinematographer.

You’re not a director, nor an actor, nor a stuntman or woman.

You’re not a director of photography, nor a musician, nor an editor

You’re, first and foremost, a storyteller.

Cinematography, or Visual Storytelling, is just the medium and the tools you’ve selected to tell your story.

As a Director, you use framing, shots, and camera movement to tell the story.

As a Director of Photography you use composition, set design, camera lenses, and lighting to tell the story.

As an actor, you use your body, your actions –that’s where the word “actor” comes from– and your emotions to tell the story.

As a music composer, you use music scores to tell the story.

As a sound engineer, you use sounds and sound effects to tell the story.

As an editor, you select and polish the best shots, and cut them together in the perfect rhythm to tell the story.

Each one of these artists has a main instrument, and different tools they masterfully use to elicit the emotion that needs to be elicited in the spectator.

Because at the end, this is all a movie is: a heartfelt message that travels from the heart of the “performers” to the heart of the audience through the medium of light.

I hope you will understand now why cinema –and storytelling in general– is and WILL ALWAYS BE a human endeavor.

Use whatever tools you need to tell your story; tools don’t matter.

But don’t ask a tool to come up with the story itself.

The story is where the human heart needs to be.

Like Beethoven said:

“Music that comes from the soul, goes to the soul.”

I want to invite you to join me in the next few editions of Flawlessly Human where we’ll start exploring the vast and exciting world of stories, and learn why they are so important for the human experience.

We’ll learn together how great stories are architected to move the hearts of audiences the world over, and the most-used and proven screenwriting frameworks currently used in cinema, including the Hero’s Journey and The Story Circle, among others.

We’ll also learn how to use these frameworks in a way that fosters creativity instead of stifling it, and how to adapt them to works of different lengths, from a 4-minute short film to a 90-minute feature, or even an epic 3-hour-long adventure!

This will be a thrilling journey, so fasten your seatbelt Dorothy: Kansas is about to disappear!

See you Friday,

Leonardo

P. S. As you might know, I started this newsletter writing it twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays.

My goal was to help you get the hang of the most essential tools of cinematography as fast as possible, so that we could approach more advanced AI filmmaking workflows and projects in the future.

I’m happy to say that we’ve achieved this goal, having completed one of the most in-depth, hand-on explorations of the Language of Visual Storytelling you’ll find online. I’m very proud of this work.

That said, writing this series has been really taxing on my time, since each edition took me 2 complete days to write and prepare, some even more.

For that reason, I decided to switch this newsletter cadence to only one main newsletter edition per week, on Fridays.

I say “main edition” because in a rapidly changing field like AI Filmmaking where new developments are happening almost daily, I might feel the need to cover some of them in a secondary edition.

These “secondary” editions won’t be part of the main series of lessons being developed at the time, and will be usually shorter than the main edition.

(A good example of a secondary edition is this one you’re reading right now)

These extra editions are, well, extra, and can happen any day of the week, but you shouldn’t expect them every week.

In addition to these extra editions, I’m planning on starting a YouTube channel that will complement this newsletter by providing more visual training on the same and related subjects.

Stay tuned for more news on this next month!

P. P. S. As always, if you’ve been enjoying Flawlessly Human let me ask you to take a couple of minutes to support my work by sharing it with your friends and colleagues:

You can also share this particular issue using the button below:

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!

Leonardo