The Vampire Lolita

Be careful!

According to the Wall Street Journal,  40% of people dump out of an online video in the first 10 seconds. 

As we live in a world increasingly inundated with new material, we have an increasingly diminished ability to tolerate anything remotely ‘boring’. Because there are so many options competing for our attention, we are soon ‘gone’. 

This is probably not a great harbinger for a deep and accomplished civilization, but that is just the way it is. ADD is more or less becoming a way of life.

If that is the case, and I think it is, then the very first rule of video storytelling is, ‘don’t save the good stuff for later’, because there isn’t going to be a later.

We have a natural and instinctive urge to horde the best material for ‘later on’. Don’t do that.  If the first ten seconds are boring, there is not going to be anyone to see the ‘good stuff’ you have saved for ‘later on’.  All of your viewers are going to dump out before they ever get there.

So the first rule in video storytelling is ‘lead with the very strongest material you have’.

The very strongest.

You have to effectively reach through the screen from the very open, grab the viewer by the throat and say, ‘pay attention. This is important’!

This is going to be true no matter what the nature of the video that you are presenting – from selling your car to your first feature film.

And it’s not like I’m telling you something you don’t know already.

Have you ever seen a James Bond movie?

How does it start?

An exciting chase scene.

Bond is driving down the Corniche in the South of France in a black BMW at 100 miles and hour and being chased by five other black cars all shooting grenades at him.

Things are exploding all over the place, cars are turning over, doors are flying off… (one would assume that if your car got hit by a rocket-propelled grenade it might do a bit more damage than take the door off its hinges, but that’s another story). In any event, it’s action, action, action. And this is the very open to the film.

Now, do you sit there in the theatre going, ‘wait a minute. I don’t understand the motivation here? Who is chasing him? And why?’

No.

You don’t care.

And the people who make the movies understand that you don’t care. All you do is sit there and go ‘wow’... this is good. You are hooked. You are in.

That’s the whole point of the scene: to reach through the screen grab you by the throat and convince you to stay with the film.

Ever see Mission Impossible?

How does it start?

The same way: Tom Cruise is driving along on a motorcycle when a giant truck tries to cut him off and starts shooting rocket-propelled grenades at him.  Massive explosion. Bike swerves.  Whoo.. that was close!

Again, do you know who is chasing him? Do you care?

Not at all.

The scene is only there for one purpose – to get your attention.

This ‘get your attention’ at the very start is not endemic just to action movies.  Ever see Lolita, by Stanley Kubric? Hardly an action packed film, yet how does it open?  James Mason is running through the house chasing Peter Sellers with a gun yelling “Quilty!”

Then James Mason shoots at (and kills) Peter Sellers (admittedly through a painting).

Action?

You bet.

And in Lolita!

The Quilty/Humbert scene actually does not take place chronologically until the end of the movie, but Kubrick, (no slouch) took the scene and jammed it into the very beginning of the movie (and repeats it at the end) to make sure he has your attention.

And this was in 1962!

Today, you would need Humbert to torch the house and have an earthquake swallow the building to get people’s attention. And maybe when they do a remake of Lolita, that’s how it will start, except that Lolita will also be a vampire.