There is a 30 second ad I'd like you watch -- but with the sound off. You've probably seen the ad before; it has been on TV enough and all over the Internet. Whether you have seen it or not, I'd still ask you to look at it again without any sound. I'll tell you why below.
This is a great example of how visual storytelling works. Regardless of what the guy is saying, the images communicate the essence of the ad; it's meaning.
When I watched it without the sound, it was only then that I noticed that at the end, there is a brief bit of text reinforcing the message: "Smell like a man, man." With the sound on, you can hear a message -- and that is cleverly done, as well -- but the meaning is in the images. ("Show; don't tell.")
Images have their own vocabulary. It is storytelling that is neither oral nor written. It's pictures. And as this commercial shows, sound and image don't necessarily have to connect. Sometimes they work better when they don't connect. For example, in this ad the man is addressing women ("Hello ladies ...") But the target of the ad isn't women; it's men. The images are speaking to men. The text at the end reaffirms what it has been saying and who it is for: men.
Another example comes from movies. It's the 2001 movie, The Royal Tenebaums. I wrote a review of it a few years ago and one the things I noted was how it handled exposition. "It's done through the deft manipulation of basic script and other film elements, including the heart of film, the visual presentation. (Director Wes) Anderson holds us with the irony between what is being told by the narrator and what we actually see."
That is a case where sound and image truly work together to tell the story. Visually, you see a dysfunctional family. Aurally, you hear the opposite. The meaning? The main character, the narrator, is full of crap -- an essential aspect of the story.
All of this is a wonderful reminder that the medium determines how a story is told and how, sometimes, images need no words and also how, sometimes, working together in sly ways sound and images achieve even greater effectiveness.
Know your medium before you start to write.
(Thanks to Greg Morris who pointed out a post by Larry Brooks on the ad. Greg -- @greggvm -- had tweeted the link.)
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