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Imagine this
You have met up with a friend who has just been to an exhibition at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
Your friend is incredibly excited about what they have seen and can't wait to tell you all about it.
'I've never seen anything like it', they say. 'It was mind-blowing.'
'So what was it?', you ask.
'Well, it was a horse – a tiny horse. And it was galloping on the spot, right there in front of us!'
'What – a real horse?', you ask.
'No! That's the thing. I could have reached out my arm and touched it. But it wasn't there. It wasn't real. The best way I can describe it is like one of those photographs, but moving. Absolutely incredible!'
The year was 1880.
The visitor to the California School of Fine Arts had just witnessed Eadweard Muybridge's groundbreaking The Horse in Motion – a work that would change visual storytelling forever.
Through his revolutionary Zoopraxiscope, the first device to project moving photographs, Muybridge had created something previously impossible: the ability to capture and replay motion itself.
This is what it would have looked like:
Although we have no idea who that enthusiastic visitor was, the scenario described above must have played out many times in San Francisco throughout the duration of the exhibition.
I like to think of it as one of the earliest examples of videotelling – a term I use to describe the everyday human activity of telling stories that come from video narratives.
Viewing is not a passive process. We perceive, we make meaning, we feel emotions. And sometimes, we feel the need to verbalise the experience by telling the story of what we have seen.
Here are some more examples of videotelling:
- John tells Aysha about a TikTok video that makes him laugh.
- Mary tells her colleague about some shocking news footage she saw on TV.
- After watching a nature documentary, a girl passionately tells her little brother how polar bears hunt for seals in the Arctic.
- Janet tells her partner about a TV advert she remembers from her childhood.
- You accidentally upset a friend by telling them what happens at the end of a film.
Video does not just belong on screen – it also belongs in our hearts and minds. And videotelling, perhaps the most communicative approach to the medium, is a great way to develop students' language, communication, and visual literacy skills in and out of the classroom.
If you are interested in finding out more, why not check out the LessonStream Video Course?
It would be great to have you on board 🚢
Thank you for reading,
Jamie
