Skip to content
You Need To Understand This

Direct an image or a video, not just generate one

Visual & Media

Anyone can generate an image now, which is exactly why so many of them do nothing. The scarce skill is not making a picture — it is deciding what the picture has to do, and then being specific enough that you get it. This module covers visual direction as a communication skill: working out the job before the image, learning the vocabulary that makes direction possible, iterating deliberately instead of re-rolling, planning a video before switching on a camera, and drawing a diagram a stranger can read without you standing next to it.

5 lessons1 hr 36 min

Easier if you have done: Think Clearly

Lessons

  1. 01

    Seeing before generating

    Decide what an image has to do — for whom, saying what, in what mood — before you decide what is in it.

    You keep: Can state an image's job in one sentence before making it, and judge the result against that instead of against taste.

    18 min
  2. 02

    Composition, light and framing

    The vocabulary that makes visual direction possible — shot type, angle, lens feel, lighting, depth, colour and material.

    You keep: Can describe an image precisely enough that a person or a model could make it, instead of stacking adjectives.

    20 min
  3. 03

    Directing an image model

    Iterating one variable at a time, keeping a set consistent, editing the one wrong detail, and the rights questions you have to answer before publishing.

    You keep: Can get a specific intended image out of a generator through controlled iteration, and knows when they may not use the result.

    20 min
  4. 04

    Video is a plan, not a camera

    Why the script decides most of the outcome, and how idea, hook, storyboard, shot list, sound and captions fit together before you record anything.

    You keep: Can plan a video so that recording it is execution rather than improvisation.

    20 min
  5. 05

    Explaining things with pictures

    When a diagram beats three paragraphs, which kind to draw, and the small number of rules that make one readable.

    You keep: Can draw a diagram that a stranger understands without explanation, and knows when not to draw one.

    18 min