Make It Memorable

📖 The Scoop

This essential guide to visual storytelling for news media students and professionals, grounds you in proven techniques while it lights your path to the future of new media storytelling in the digital world.

In Make It Memorable, former NBC News correspondent Bob Dotson and New York Times visual investigations producer Drew Jordan present a unique and engaging hands-on approach to the craft of visual storytelling. The third edition offers new insight for the digital age and a step-by-step explanation of how to find and create all kinds of visual stories under tight deadlines. In addition to new scripts annotated with behind-the-scenes insights and structural comments, the book includes links to online videos of all the story examples.

Each chapter includes

• Detailed story scripts with video cues, audio cues, story tips, and links to the final productions online.
• Discussion questions to reflect on and apply the chapter's content to your own stories.

Additional book resources

• Glossary of Script Cues
• Reporter's Checklist for every story

New to the third edition

• Insights on new media and digital open-source journalism from Drew Jordan add to Bob Dotson’s classic framework for engaging storytelling.
• Chapter 9: Lighting the Path to What's New draws on Drew Jordan's EMMY and Pulitzer Prize winning work with the New York Times Visual Investigations unit to reveal the latest digital tools for building stories with deeper, richer visual-based narratives.
  • The chapter script analyses the New York Times’ piece: “Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol.”
  • New digital sources and tools include satellite maps and geospatial imaging, bodycam footage, user-generated smartphone footage, and social media content and data.

Genre: Performing Arts / Film / Direction & Production (fancy, right?)