What you’re talking about–to use composition (camera angle, focal length, camera position), lighting, manipulation of values (through stylized approaches–not realism), colors, anatomy/figure, stylization, and even brushwork, to enhance the visual narrative or portray a mood, is basically the grammar and vocabulary in which artists use to tell stories (and these are the things I pound into my students’ head too). But these tools must have ideas to work with, just like for writers, syntax, cadence, diction, and grammar must have something to work with–namely dramatic structure, story arc, pacing, character development, themes and motifs, and so on.
So while it is important to use your artistic grammar and vocabulary to tell stories effectively, they are not the same thing as having a creative vision as a storyteller, or having an understanding of narrative and dramatic structure. A visual storyteller is at his core, a storyteller first and foremost. In fact, all storytellers, no matter what medium they tell stories in, are first and foremost storytellers, and their chosen medium is SECONDARY to their identity as storytellers. A screenwriter is a storyteller. A songwriter is a storyteller. An illustrator is a storyteller. They all use different tools and different “grammar” and “vocabulary” that’s idiosyncratic their chosen medium/craft.
Think about it this way: Norman Rockwell without his storytelling identity, would be just a painter. He’s revered today precisely because he was a storyteller first and foremost. You can say the same thing about all the legendary illustrators that’s ever lived. Without their storyteller identity, they would just be painters.
If you have never seriously studied storytelling, and your goal is to be a good visual storyteller, I would highly recommend you actually study storytelling. It is a separate discipline from visual art. Learn about dramatic structure, conflict and resolution, pacing, story arc, character development, themes and motifs, the anatomy of the perfect ending, show don’t tell, and so on. Learning about storytelling will open your eyes and mind to possibilities you never thought of as solely a visual artist, and you will be able to imbue your visual art with more sophistication, depth, and at the same time, make them much more entertaining.
There are tons of resources online to learn about storytelling techniques, just like there are for learning to draw and paint, so even a simple google search for “storytelling techniques” will immediately get you lots of hits. Be careful though–you want to specifically study “storytelling” and not necessarily the technical/mechanical aspects of “writing” such as prose style, diction, syntax, point-of-view, and anything else to do with actual manipulation/usage of language itself, since those are strictly for people who tell stories with words.
In the meantime, one advice I give students when they ask a similar question as you did, is this:
To find a strong subject matter to portray as a visual storyteller, you basically have these options:
-
Look inward. Start getting introspective. Think about your life. What are your most potent past memories? Death of a loved one? Betrayal of a friend? Deep shame or regret? Unfulfilled aspirations and desires? Terrifying fears? These are your emotional sources for storytelling. These emotions and memories and thoughts can be used to formulate powerful visual stories. These personal experiences when mixed with curiosity, become even more interesting.
-
Curiosity. Ask yourself lots of “what if” questions. What if there’s an afterlife? What does it look like? What does your personal hell look like? Your personal heaven? What if a loved one is about to commit suicide and you are right there trying to stop the person? What would that scene look like? What if an alien race came and enslaved mankind, and you’re secretly trying to organize a rebellion with the other slaves? What would a dramatic moment look like in that scenario?
-
If you just aren’t very introspective, then illustrate other people’s stories. Novels are great because they contain so many interesting scenes you can illustrate. They aren’t like movies and video games where everything’s already visualized. So pick novels you loved and find the scenes that really moved you and illustrate them. It can be a sci-fi or fantasy novel, or horror, romance, techno-thriller, or literary dramas.
The most important thing is to find a moment that really is emotional and profound, and not simply one that gives you pretty eye-candy. A bunch of spaceships fighting in space might be great eye-candy, but its emotional depth is limited. But the death of a hero at the hands of the his own men that betrayed him, would be far more emotional and dramatic. You need that human element in order to hit your audience really hard emotionally. An epic scene of alien spaceship invading downtown New York would certainly be dramatic, and it will have a certain level of emotional weight too, but if you put people in the scene–people who are running for their lives, mothers shielding her children from harm with their own bodies, brave citizens risking their lives to help others from certain death, and selfish people surviving by condemning others to destruction–then your alien invasion scene will be far more emotional because now we see the effects of the invasion and how it’s reflected in the human soul.
Very simply, think of yourself, as a human being, and what you respond to emotionally. What makes you cry? What makes you angry? What frightens you? What makes you happy? More often than not, we share these things universally as people, and that’s the key to connecting with your audience emotionally as a visual storyteller.
