Cinematic Storytelling

Cinematic Storytelling.

All of my life I have been fascinated by stories. As a child I loved lying on the floor on Mom’s braided rug and listening to the sweet tones of the radio as The Lone Ranger, Our Miss Brooks or Amos and Andy swept me into another adventure.  Or sitting quietly at the dining room table while our most recent guest beguiled us …

But the best was listening to my Dad create a compelling story from whole cloth and of course each chapter ended with a tantalizing cliffhanger.  And even though I grew up in a town with no theater (except the occasional church play), no movie theater and in a home with not television it is no wonder that I have dedicated my life to the telling of stories.

And now I find, with great delight, that this fascination with story has become more than a career, it has become an obsession. Every story is like an antique clock, with wheels and gears, springs and pendulums all designed and calibrated to achieve a simple magical result. Many are satisfied to just look at the clock to see what time it is. But then there are those of us who want to get behind the face of the clock, who want to see all the gears and wheels, play with the springs and feel the gentle swinging of the pendulum. There are those of us who ask ‘why’.  Or ‘what if’.

The term ‘cinematic storytelling’ at first appears to mean telling stories through the medium of cinema. But to me it is more that than. To me it means telling stories (through any medium) that will generate a visual story in the mind and imagination of the listener, the viewer, or the reader. Whether we are sitting around the campfire, talking on the phone, in a dinner conversation, on stage, in the cinema, reading a book, listening to the radio we are constantly telling and hearing stories. And these stories remain with us, in those little movie theaters in our mind that have a tendency to replay, rewind and review.

And those of us who have chosen to be storytellers, to pass the elixir to others, have a special opportunity and an enormous obligation. We have the opportunity to touch people deep in their souls and the obligation to treat it with respect.

We are all cinematic storytellers. And it is my intention that this blog be an open forum for discussion and debate, a place to share ideas, inspiration and even frustration.

Welcome to Cinematic Storytelling!

Cheers, Mark